In certain Rule conditions and actions, and in Forms Support, Flowsana lets you insert values from custom fields, as well as task, project, and section names. To do this, you include a special phrase, surrounded by curly braces.

What special phrases can I use?

You can include any of the following phrases:

      {task.Custom field name}
      {task.Name}
      {task.Description}
      {task.HTMLDescription}
      {task.StartDate}
      {task.DueDate}
      {task.Assignee}
      {task.AssigneeEmail}
      {task.PreviousStartDate}
      {task.PreviousDueDate}
      {task.CreationDate}
      {task.CreatedBy}
      {task.CompletionDate}
      {task.CompletedBy}
      {task.Link}
      {task.LinkInProject}
      {task.ID}

      {task.ShortId}
      {task.ShortLink}

      {CurrentDate}

      {project.Name} 
      {project.Owner}
     
      {section.Name}

Flowsana will replace the phrases with the value specified that's relevant for the current task being evaluated.

Variables are not case-sensitive.

{task.Assignee} provides the user's name, while {task.AssigneeEmail} provides their email address. If you use {task.Assignee} in the Add a comment rule action, it will create the reference as an @mention.

For custom fields, the text in the variable needs to exactly match the name of the desired custom field, including any spaces. (The match is not case-sensitive, though.)

{task.Link} provides a regular long hyperlink to the task, displayed full-screen. By contrast, {task.LinkInProject} provides a hyperlink that displays the task's detail pane in the context of the list view of its project. Also available is {task.ID} which provides just the task's unique ID number itself.

For information on {task.ShortId} and {task.ShortLink}, see this Help article: Creating Unique Task Short IDs and Short Links.

The difference between the two "Description" options is that {task.HTMLDescription} provides the  fully formatted description. When using the Description for external destinations like an email notification, use {task.Description} as email clients will not properly understand or interpret Asana's subset of HTML which it uses for its Description field. When using the Description to copy it from one task to another within Asana, like populating a subtask's Description from its parent task, you can use the fully formatted version; in this example you would use {parent.HTMLDescription}.

Additionally, for any of the {task. } phrases, you can specify {parent. } or {topParent. } to pull the value from a subtask's parent or topmost parent task. So you can specify, for example:

      {parent.Name}
      {parent.DueDate}



Where can I use these phrases in Flowsana Rules?

You can use these special phrases in the following places:

  • The If task contains the word or phrase ______  rule condition.
  • The Set custom field ______ to the value ______  rule action.
  • The Set task name to ______  rule action.
  • The AddSubtasks rule action, in the names and text custom fields of subtasks within a subtask template.
  • The Create a project from a template  rule action, in the  Name for the new project  field.
  • The Send an email notification rule action, in the Email Message Subject and/or Email Message Text fields (see the instructions for the equivalent fields in Forms Support for details).
  • The Add a comment rule action. Note that if you use the {task.Assignee} or {project.Name} variables in a comment, Flowsana will set those as @mentions.



Where can I use these phrases in Forms Support?

In Flowsana's Forms Support workflow, you can use variable substitution in the Send email confirmation to form submitter feature. You can include variables in the Email Message Subject and/or Email Message Text fields.



How can I make use of these phrases in Rules?

Here are some examples:

1. Say you want to prepend the name of the project to the front of every task in the project. Just create this rule:
      If task is newly created, set the task’s name to {project.name} - {task.name}


2. Say you want to add certain emojis to the start of a task’s name when the task enters into a particular state. Here are some examples of what you can do with this type of rule:
      If task is marked complete, set the task’s name to ✔️ {task.Name}
      If a task has custom field Status set to a value of Waiting, set the task’s name to  {task.Name}


3. Let's say you're using the rule action Create a new project from a template...  and you have a custom field called Client Name and you want that client's name to be part of the name of the new project you're creating. You can do that by using the text {task.Client Name}  in the Name for the new project field; for example:
      {task.Client Name} Marketing Engagement



How can I make use of these phrases in Forms Support?

You can include variables in the Email Message Subject field. For example, you could define your subject like this:

That definition would yield an email message subject something like this:



You can also include variables in the Email Message Text field. For example, let's say in the form's Settings you set the title of the task to be the form's Name field:


Let's also say you have a drop-down list form field which is mapped to a drop-down list custom field named "Environment":


You can then use variables in the message text; for example:


That definition would yield an email message body something like this:




Using {task.ShortId} and {task.ShortLink}
For detailed instructions on these replacement values, please see this KB article: Creating Unique Task Short IDs and Short Links



Using {parent. } and {topParent. }
For subtasks, you can pull values from its immediate parent or topmost parent task, For example, you can specify phases like:

      {parent.Priority}
      Pull the Priority custom field from the task's parent task.

      {topParent.Name}
      Pull the name of the topmost parent task.

Using {topParent. } is only relevant where you have multiple level of subtasks and always want to pull a value from the top-level task, no matter how many levels there are. Note, though, that Asana only inherits custom fields for one subtask level down from a task attached to a project.



Date formatting
For the above date phrases, including date-type custom fields, Flowsana provides the ability to customize the format of the date.

By default, dates will be formatted into a format of mm/dd/yyyy, with a separator character of a slash (/) between the portions of the date. However, you can specify that you want a date in one of two alternate formats, dd/mm/yyyy and yyyy/mm/dd. In addition, you can specify the separator character that you'd like to use between the portions of the date (or no separator).

To specify an alternate format and/or alternate separator, format your date phrase like this:

      {[desiredDate],[format][separator]}

[desiredDate] is the name of the date field you want to replace with.

[format] is one of these allowable format letters:
      M for mm/dd/yyyy
      D for dd/mm/yyyy
      Y for yyyy/mm/dd
      S for yy (a short format which provides the last 2 digits of the year)

[separator] is the separator character you want to use. You can also omit this character for no separator.

Here are some examples:

      {task.dueDate, D/}
      Replace with the task's due date, using a format of dd/mm/yyyy

      {task.completionDate, M-}
      Replace with the task's completion date, using a format of mm-dd-yyyy

      {task.CreationDate, Y}
      Replace with the task's creation date, using a format of yyyymmdd