Asana launches Asana Flow to power intelligent work prioritization

Work management platform Asana today launched Asana Flow, a suite of offerings organizations can use to build, run, and improve their workflows.

Asana Flow includes a redesigned intelligent Home interface to boost productivity, enhancements to Workflow Builder that allow users to build start-to-finish workflows across Asana’s Work Graph data model, an expanded developer toolkit featuring new integrations with Miro, Jotform, and Google Drive, and improved reporting processes.

Workflow Builder, the new Asana Home interface, and Miro and Jotform integrations are live on the platform as of today. The expanded developer toolkit, including App Components and better Google Drive integration, will be available at a later date.

According to Asana’s Anatomy of Work Index, workers on average switch between 10 apps 25 times per day, resulting in disconnected communications, inefficiency and more work about work. The same report found employees believed they could save an average of 5.4 hours a week if processes were improved, and managers said they could save up to 6.3 hours.

Alex Hood, chief product officer at Asana, said the complaint he hears most is that tasks often fall through the cracks because workers are so busy switching back and forth between email and platforms such as Slack and Teams. “That’s what Workflow Builder is — it's about making sure all those bits and pieces required for something to work happen smoothly and without drama…,” he said.

In addition to improving communication, Asana Flow also aims to improve employees’ sense of purpose, which,  according to McKinsey, 63% of workers want from their employers.

“Asana helps you understand how your work connects up to something greater and that gives you a sense of importance about your work,” said Hood. “By connecting workflows across your teams, you can now understand how urgent bits of your work are as well.”

Wayne Kurtzman, IDC research director for social and collaboration, said Asana is continuing to leverage its Asana Work Graph data structure to deliver new features. “[Asana Flow] makes it more visual and approachable to plan, automate and report about work. Flow supports people wherever they work from, but it also makes planning and measuring work outcomes more friendly, which is a big plus,” he said.

Build and customize end-to-end workflows

Powered by the Asana Work Graph, the changes to Workflow Builder allow users to design and build connected processes, giving teams visibility on who’s doing what, and by when. The addition of Template Library enables the sharing of important workflows and provides access to a wide selection of best practices inspired by innovative companies including AppLovin, ClassPass, Discovery and Stride.

With the introduction of App Components, Asana aims to improve Workflow Builder and Template Library by connecting the tools remote workers use, including new integrations with Miro, Jotform, and Google Drive. Asana also plans to expand App Components with an enhanced developer toolkit that lets developers build and integrate essential applications into Asana workflows.

According to Hood, with the JotForm and Miro integrations, Asana wants to make it easier for applications to show up as part of the Asana experience. “Instead of feeling like you've got to alt-tab over to a different application that’s just sharing data, when we say flow, we're not just talking about workflow, we’re talking about the data flow that supports it as well,” he said.

The re-designed Asana Home now functions as an intelligent dashboard to show how individual tasks connect to important workflows, while prioritizing work that contributes to company objectives. Widgets accessible within the dashboard include:

• My Priorities: This allows users to quickly spot delays and focus on priority projects with a centralized view of upcoming personal work.
• People: With this feature, users assign a task, send a message and view shared work with recent, frequent and favorite collaborators in one click.
• Projects: This feature highlights how work in key projects matches company goals.
• Private Notepad: With this, users can write notes, link tasks and track quick ideas without leaving Asana.

Finally, Universal Reporting can now be used to measure and optimize workflow performance over time by analyzing how long a task takes to complete and by identifying bottlenecks.

With Universal Reporting focused on results, Kurtzman said, it becomes valuable to the average worker, not just to  managers and executives. And he said the new home page gives users more flexibility as their work changes.

“The ability to customize your workspace is the ability to work easier,” he said.