Rules
- Skip Ahead to
- Creating a Rule
- Editing a Rule
- Pausing a Rule
- Deleting a Rule
- Trigger combinations & multiple actions
- Rule types and limitations
- Triggering Rules
- Updates on misconfigured Rules
- Integrations
- Forms
- Permissions: A few considerations
- Guests permissions
- Pricing
Rules are available for Premium, Business and Enterprise customers.
Rules allow you to streamline routine tasks and establish workflows with ease. For a Rule to work, you need a trigger that activates the Rule and an action that is performed automatically. For example a Rule can be to automatically assign a task (action) when a due date is set (trigger).
We’d greatly appreciate any feedback you have on Rules.
Creating a Rule
There are two ways to create a Rule for your project, selecting one from the Rules Gallery in your project or by creating your own Custom Rule.
Click on the Rules icon on your toolbar.
From the gallery of preset Rules, you can pick an option that already has the trigger and action set. You can then specify the parameters needed (like which column or which assignee).
Create a Custom Rule
The Custom Rule Builder is available for all Business and Enterprise customers.
From the Custom Rule builder you have access to every combination of trigger and action.
Once you click on the Rules icon on your toolbar:
- Select Add rule.
From here, click Create custom rule.
From the Add rule tab, you can:
- Choose a name for your Rule
- Choose a trigger(s)
- Choose an action(s)
- When you have selected your desired options, click Create rule.
Editing a Rule
Edit your Rules any time by navigating back to the project and selecting the Rule you want to update.
You can edit a Rule by clicking the pencil icon next to the Rule from your toolbar.
Pausing a Rule
You can pause a Rule at any time by clicking the pencil icon next to the Rule from your toolbar
Click the toggle icon to pause your Rule.
Deleting a Rule
You can delete a Rule at any time by clicking the pencil icon next to the Rule from your toolbar.
Trigger combinations & multiple actions
Custom rules with conditions, Approval status changed trigger, and Add comment action are available to Business and Enterprise customers only.
You can also use trigger combinations, and/or conditional logic & multiple actions to automate routine tasks so your team doesn’t have to think about them.
It’s now possible to add up to 20 different trigger combinations and select up to 5 different actions when creating a custom rule. While you can select the same trigger more than once when creating a custom rule, you can only use an action once.
Once a task has been added to the project from list/board view, via form, email or another area of the product, the custom rule should take effect right away.
Additional Triggers & Actions
Using other trigger & actions:
- When the status of an approval changes, you can specify the action that happens as a result
- Create a comment that will post as Asana anytime a selected trigger happens
We would love to hear any feedback you have regarding trigger combinations, and/or conditional logic & multiple actions.
Rule types and limitations
Regardless of whether the Rules are in a Premium or Business Project, the limit is 20 rules per Project
Custom Rules
Triggers
- You can add up to 20 triggers per custom rule.
- You can select the trigger more than once
Multiple Actions
- When one or more triggers happen, you can select up to 5 actions to happen as a result.
- You can’t add the same action more than once.
Column or Section based triggers
Column or Section based triggers are for Boards view projects or projects that have been updated to use the new, collapsible sections.
Custom Field Rules
Custom Field Rules are available on all projects with Custom Fields.
To unlock these Rules, you must first add a Custom Field to your project.
Triggering Rules
You can trigger a Rule from anywhere (web, mobile, external integrations). If you update something on a task, we check to see if that task is in any projects with Rules, and if your action is the trigger on any of those Rules.
Projects you don’t have access to
You can trigger Rules on projects that you don’t have access to but the yellow lightning bolt icon will not be displayed, to indicate that a Rule is running.
Anyone can trigger a Rule, including Guests.
Permissions: A few considerations
- Only the owner of a Rule can edit or delete a Rule.
- If the Project Owner is a Limited Access Member, they cannot edit a rule, they can only pause or activate it.
- You can only set up Rules on projects you have full edit access to. If you only have permission to comment on a project, your Rule will be paused. To re-activate, you must have full edit access to the project, then you can re-activate from the edit view.
- You can only set Rules to operate on things you have access to. If you do not have access to a project, you cannot have a Rule that multi-homes tasks into that project.
Who can enable or disable a rule?
Any user with edit access to a Project in which a rule is running will be able to enable or disable a rule created by someone else.
Users with edit access are also the only ones that can view the change history.
A user with edit access can pause or activate a rule but only the owner can edit a rule’s triggers and actions
The Owner is still the only person that can edit or delete a rule.
Deprovisioning
When you deprovision someone who has Rules, their Rule will be paused and ownership of any Rules on projects will be passed to the Project Owner.
If there is no Project Owner, ownership will be passed to the Admin who deprovisioned the user. Only the new owner of a Rule can re-activate the Rule to have it continue running.
Updates on misconfigured Rules
If your Rule becomes mis-configured (example: “Marked complete > Move to column “Done” and someone deletes your “Done” column), we will email the owner of the Rule to let them know to fix it.
We will email you the first time a Rule is triggered but cannot fire due to being misconfigured. We will not email you again until it has been corrected, and successfully run at least once before misconfiguring again.
Owners will also see a warning sign instead of a lightning bolt in the Rules menu in their project toolbar, as well as specific information on which Rule is broken and whether it’s the trigger or action that needs to be re-configured.
Once you update the Rule to a correct configuration and save the updates, those warnings will go away.
Integrations
When tasks are created from integrations (e.g. Slack, Gmail, Outlook) they can trigger any of the following triggers:
- Task added to project
- Task assigned
- Due date changed
- Task marked complete
- Custom Field changed
- Attachment added
For all of these triggers, the automation action will be applied to all tasks, not just tasks from integrations.
Forms
When tasks are created from Forms they can trigger any of the following triggers:
Task added to a project
This trigger will apply to all tasks being added to a project, not just from Forms.
Custom Field set
For each drop-down Custom Field in the project, you will see a trigger and an action. So if your project has Priority and Stage Custom Fields, you’ll see “Priority set” and “Stage set” as triggers. You pick which value on that Custom Field you want to trigger a Rule.
Example: If you have a drop-down Custom Field on your Form for Type of Request, with the options “Blog” and “Website”, you can set a Rule on the project for “When ‘Type of Request’ is set to ‘Blog’ it will add that task to the ‘Blog requests’ project.”
This only works for drop-down Custom Fields on the project. Some Form’s drop-downs are not Custom Fields.
Guest permissions
Guest cannot create or own Rules, but they can trigger Rules.
Pricing
Business and Enterprise customers:
The Custom Rule Builder is available for all Business and Enterprise customers.
A subset of Rules are available to Premium customers:
- Move to column/section > Mark complete
- Mark complete > Move to column/section
- Custom Field changed > Move to column/section
- Move to column/section > Set Custom Field
- Custom Field changed > Mark Complete
- Mark Complete > Set Custom Field
