Update Asana tasks from Outlook with actionable messages

Editor’s note: Since we launched actionable messages, we’ve released Asana for Outlook.

If you spend a lot of time in your Outlook inbox, Asana email notifications can help you stay up-to-date on work that’s important to you—from new tasks you’re assigned to updates on tasks you’re following. But switching back and forth between Outlook and Asana can feel time consuming and inefficient.

With the launch of actionable messages in Outlook, you no longer need to switch between tools to take quick actions on tasks. Now, you can update tasks right from Asana emails notifications* in Outlook, saving you time and keeping work on track.

* Actionable messages are available for single task email notifications in Outlook 2016 for Windows and Office 365. Mobile and Mac support will be coming soon.

Make your Outlook inbox work for you

It happens to the best of us: you get an Asana email notification about an important task you’ve actually already finished and you flag it to go into Asana to mark it complete. But then five new emails come in and the email notification gets “lost” in your inbox. In the meantime, a teammate is waiting for you to finish your task before they can get started on theirs.

Now with actionable messages, it only takes one click to mark that task complete. Since task details are included in notification emails, you have the context you need, and your updates are automatically reflected in Asana too so everyone’s on the same page.

With actionable messages in Outlook, you can:

• Update the due date when the deadline changes or it wasn’t specified before, so everyone’s working off of the same date.

• Add a comment when you need more information before you can get to work, are answering a teammate’s question, or want to share your thoughts and feedback.

• Mark the task complete so it’s clear to teammates that your work is done, and they can begin their task if they were waiting on yours to be completed first.

• View the task in Asana if you prefer to make updates in Asana or need to take other actions like attaching a file, changing the assignee, adding a dependency, etc.

Take action quickly to keep work on track

We hope actionable messages in Outlook help you and your team be more efficient so you can keep work on track and hit your deadlines. And the best part? They’re on by default so you can start using them now (just make sure you’re logged in to Asana).

Actionable messages are just one of the ways we integrate with Microsoft. Check out how you can connect your other Office 365 tools to Asana to keep your work connected and on track. We’re continuing to invest in making Office 365 work seamlessly with Asana, so stay tuned for more news and updates in the coming months. Sorry, no hints just yet 😬.