Importing from Asana
Bringing an Asana project's tasks into a project as tickets, one section per status, from Asana's CSV export.
An Asana project becomes one project: each task a ticket, each section a status, tags as labels, the assignee, and the created, completed and due dates. It goes through the CSV import, which this page walks through with Asana's own file. Comments, attachments and the story of each task are not in the file; custom fields are, and can be kept.
Export the project
Open the project, click the arrow beside its name at the top, choose Export/Print, then CSV. The file downloads at once and holds every task in the project, completed ones and subtasks included, with one column per custom field.
What the file holds
| Asana column | Becomes | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Name | Summary | |
| Notes | Description | Asana exports notes as plain text; choose Plain text as the format. |
| Section/Column | Status | Each section becomes a status, added to the project's workflow. A section called Done is a done status, In Progress or Doing in progress, anything else to do. |
| Assignee Email | Assignee | The suggestion picks Assignee, the name. Choose Assignee Email instead: an address matches a person exactly, and can be activated. |
| Tags | Labels | |
| Created At | Created | |
| Last Modified | Updated | |
| Completed At | Resolved | |
| Due Date | Due date | |
| Priority | Priority | When the project has a custom field of that name; its values become priorities. |
| Task ID | Nothing | Not suggested as the key: Asana's sixteen-digit ids are too long to be ticket numbers, so tickets are numbered from 1 even if you map it. The id stays in the ticket's record, and the column can be kept as a field. |
| Start Date, Projects, Parent task, Blocked By, Blocking, and every custom field | Fields, if you keep them | Tick keep unmapped columns as fields to have them. |
There is no creator in the file: every ticket is reported by whoever runs the import. A completed task keeps its section as its status, so the ticket is resolved on the date Asana says but stands in the status of its section; add a Done section and move completed tasks into it before exporting if you want them to land in a done status.
Import it
- Under Administration, CSV import, upload the file. The page shows the first rows and the suggested mapping.
- Check the mapping: unmap Key or number, and pick Assignee Email for the assignee.
- Tick activate people with an email address if the assignees are to log in straight away; otherwise they become placeholders, claimed when invited.
- Choose Plain text as the format of descriptions.
- Dry run, read the report, then Import.
After the import
- Subtasks are ordinary tickets; the Parent task column names the parent, as a field if you kept it. Make them sub-tasks by hand where it matters.
- A task in several projects appears in each project's export; import it once.
- Custom fields kept from the file are text fields of the project, and can be renamed or archived under the project's settings.