New: Connect distributed teams at scale

What does it mean to be connected in a time when teams and tools are more distributed than ever? According to research[1], today’s enterprise workers switch between an average of 10 apps 25 times per day to execute work, resulting in unconnected communication, reduced efficiency, and duplicative work. In other words, instead of effectively moving work forward, many are stuck context switching and moving work back and forth between tools in a struggle to collaborate effectively. 

In Asana’s vision for the future of work, businesses don’t have to sacrifice clarity or agility for connection while working remotely. With the right tech stack, they can drive efficiencies and orchestrate work at scale, regardless of physical location. No more reinventing the wheel, duplicating work across tools, or logging in and out of siloed solutions. To help realize this vision for our customers, we’re excited to announce a powerful new set of best-in-class integrations, enhanced Rules functionality, and expanded admin controls to help organizations stay connected at scale. 

Unify your tech stack with new Zoom and Jira integrations, plus enhanced Microsoft Teams and Slack integrations

After a decade of building products for the world’s most innovative enterprises, we know communication tools are key to successful team collaboration. Tools like Zoom and Teams have seen explosive growth during the recent shift to remote work, and apps like Slack and Jira continue to be invaluable to cross-functional collaboration. To meet this moment and make touchpoints actionable across your entire enterprise tech stack, we’ve launched the following new and enhanced integrations.

• Connect Asana + Zoom to keep track of meeting links and easily create Asana tasks for resulting action items. You can also attach call transcripts to tasks for quick reference or to give teammates further context about the task later. Learn how to integrate Zoom and Asana. 

• Connect Asana + Teams to easily create Asana tasks directly within Teams meetings, channels, and chats. Learn how to integrate Teams and Asana. 

• Connect Asana + Slack more deeply with the ability to share Asana milestones, projects, and portfolios as unfurling links within Slack channels. This integration enhancement builds on the existing ability to create and assign tasks from Slack messages and now supports customers on Slack’s Enterprise Grid plan. Learn how to integrate Slack and Asana.

We’ve also expanded our integrations with Jira to support customers using Jira (Server Edition) so you can create and link Jira issues from directly within Asana tasks, and receive updates on open Jira issues, no matter if you’re working in the cloud or on-prem. Learn how to integrate Jira with Asana.

You can also visit our Apps page to see the hundreds of other ways we’re connecting your favorite tools.

Coming soon: Automate work happening across tools with Rules 

As we continue investing in a robust integration ecosystem, we’ll also be launching new ways to surface and action third-party app data with Rules. With this new functionality, enterprise teams will reduce the amount of “organizational debt” they take on from manually managing work across a patchwork of technologies. 

They’ll be able to set up customizable processes and automatically trigger actions on work happening across tools like Slack, Teams, and Jira Cloud. And as a benefit of reducing switching costs and manual work for end users, they’ll increase operational agility for the organization as a whole. 

Say for example, a marketer using the new Jira Cloud integration wants to check in on the status of an open web development issue in Jira. Instead of scheduling a meeting with their web dev collaborator or searching through email and chat threads, they’ll automatically have a window into the real-time status of work happening in Jira, from within Asana. 

That same marketer will also be able to set a Rule to create an Asana task every time a Jira issue is added, with a link to that issue, so their team stays in the loop. In both cases, the marketer is saving valuable time that would have otherwise been spent manually tracking down information and updating task status. Not only that, but they’ll have created a workflow that is both seamless and scalable in just a few clicks. Multiply that time savings across your entire organization, and there’s no telling what your team can accomplish.

Manage your organization’s data with enhanced security features and admin controls

With even more ways to connect your tools and customize key workflows, we’re also making it easier to protect and manage your team’s data. We’re doubling down on Enterprise admin controls over integrations so admins not only have the power to view, block, and accept which third-party apps integrate with Asana, but also control whether users can attach files or other sensitive content to Asana tasks. With this enhancement, you can ensure teams using Asana across your organization are meeting security requirements and only connecting apps that have been vetted and approved for your tech stack. This is in addition to new and existing enterprise security features designed to keep your organization protected, such as:

• Best-in-class integrations with identity providers like Azure AD, ADFS, Bitium, Google, LastPass, Okta, OneLogin, SecureAuth for SAML authentication. 

• The ability to terminate Asana sessions via the admin console if a device or account is compromised.

• Encryption of all data both at rest and in motion. 

That’s peace of mind you can rely on, no matter where your team is working.

Building a brighter, more connected future of work

We’re excited to be on this journey with all of our amazing customers and partners. As we get closer to realizing our vision for the future of work, we look forward to helping you keep your tools and teams even more connected with our best-in-class integrations and cross-tool workflow automation. Learn more about how we’re delivering clarity at scale to the world’s largest enterprises today.

[1] Research Methodology: Conducted on behalf of Asana by Sapio Research in October 2020, the survey of 2,353 knowledge workers from companies with more than 5,000 employees included respondents located in Australia, France, Germany, Japan, Singapore, the U.K., and the U.S.