Microsoft Teams & Asana

Use Asana’s integration with Microsoft Teams to add Asana projects to group chats and turn conversations into actionable work, all in one place. Chat with teammates about a project while looking at the full task list, including task assignees, due dates, and complete tasks when they’re done. With Asana for Microsoft Teams, you can stay connected and organized, no matter where you’re working.

Microsoft Teams and Asana

Teams is a chat-based collaboration tool that provides global, remote, and cross functional teams with the ability to work together and share information via a common space. Users can utilize features like document collaboration, direct messaging, team chat, and task management with Asana. This integration with Asana ensures focus and work continuity wherever you are, at any given time or place. Asana lets you know who is doing what, when.

An Asana bot has been added to Microsoft Teams that facilitates the unfurling of Asana features. It will help you search and find Asana features to reference in Teams conversations, and allow users to create tasks or add messages to existing tasks from Teams.

Microsoft Teams integration is available to all tiers.

Installation steps

Connect Asana to Microsoft Teams to assign tasks and stay accountable by adding the app for yourself and your team.

How to manage the app for your organization:

To manage apps go to the Microsoft Teams admin center, then search for Asana to ensure it is set to allowed. Tick Allow.

Add Asana to the Pinned apps list in Microsoft Teams admin center so that you can find it quicker and choose the order that it is pinned to the navigation bar.

Onboarding flow

When the integration is installed you will have access to the integration bot in your 1:1 chat. You can also add the bot to specific team channels.

You can type in questions and use it to keep you updated about project activity in Asana.

When you interact with the integration for the very first time you will engage with a chatbot. The chatbot will introduce the integration, run through examples of use cases, and provide links to any further guide articles you might need.

How to share links

Users can unfurl tasks, projects, Portfolios, Status updates and Teams to show more information when sharing to a particular team.

How to search

You can find tasks, projects and Portfolios by clicking on the Asana logo in the message composer.

How to create a new task

You can create new Asana tasks anywhere in Teams. You can use the create task command with Asana bot, the option from the composer or within any message in a conversation. You can assign it to a team mate, set a due date and add it to an Asana project.

How to add a message to a task

You can then add this message to a task as a comment.

Setting notifications

Navigate to any team channel or 1:1 chat.

Configuring notification settings for Microsoft Teams

You will then be notified about all new activity in the project that you have selected.

Asana bot

The Asana bot for Microsoft Teams will chat with the app to ask questions and find things. It will return a response based on input from, you, the user. There are a number of commands you can use with this app to save time. Interactions are seamless.

Bot interactions:

From the Asana chatbot you have the option to select your workspace or switch to another one to suit your project needs with the command change workspace.

MSFT Teams Meetings

Asana’s Microsoft Teams integration also works with Teams Meetings.

This gives our users an opportunity to turn unstructured conversation into trackable work in Asana and reduces the need to switch tools.

When you add the Asana integration to a Meeting event in Teams, you’ll be able to:

• Quickly create tasks without leaving the meeting window
• See a summary of tasks created in a meeting

How to set it up

The meeting organizer needs to add the team or event to the integration before the meeting starts.

This is supported in the Teams Desktop App and will not appear in meetings when accessing in a browser window.

Navigate to the team event you want to add the integration to and click the + button at the top of the screen

The first step requires the designated meeting organizer to add the team or event to the integration. It’s currently not possible to add this feature from within the meeting - you have to add it in the meeting edit/settings.

Keep work connected

To join the meeting

Create tasks, and review any tasks you’ve created within the Event or Team. Tasks created in Teams are by default only visible within Teams to the user who created them. Tasks will always be found in Asana.

This view is only available to meeting organizers, and is a great place to assign out prep or note taking tasks for the meeting, or to review tasks you created after the meeting ends.

How to create tasks:

When you join the event, you’ll also see the Asana logo in your meeting menu. Clicking it will open a side panel where you can create tasks mid-meeting, and review tasks you’ve created in the meeting.

Other attendees will also see this in their menu, and will be able to authenticate and create tasks as well.

Any tasks created here will also be visible in the ‘Tab’ for reviewing tasks post-meeting.

Why use Teams Meetings?:

After loading this Asana ‘App’ within the Teams Meeting video call experience, users can:

• Create tasks without navigating away from the video call
• Have a record of these tasks
• Have continuity in spontaneous creative bursts without tool switching
• Have a productive meeting of minds
• Convert ideas to action

If you’re wondering how to view a project-level view of tasks within Teams, visit the page here where we take you through how to assess the complete Asana project in MSFT Teams to enjoy even more functionality.

Key use cases

With this integration your team can stay focused on their goals, projects and tasks wherever they are. You will always know the status of work happening across your team.

• Define key information - This integration allows users to create an Asana task from Teams, and incorporate any contextual information (such as a message). Users can define key information such as task name, description, due date, assignee and/or custom fields.

• Keep up to date - Collaborators in Teams can now be updated about important context and progress from Asana as it happens.

• Reference to Asana - When a work related discussion is occurring in Teams, you can reference related Asana projects, tasks and other information easily so that your team members and discussion participants can have more context, clarity and workflow transparency so that they never feel out of the loop.

• Accountability - Chat with teammates about a project while looking at the full task list, including task assignees, due dates, and complete tasks when they’re done. Teams can move faster and accomplish more.

• Seamless - No need to switch tools. With Teams Meetings users can turn unstructured conversation on the fly into trackable work in Asana.

Need help? Check out Microsoft’s Support page here.