How To Export Asana Tasks: A Step-By-Step Guide

Tasks are the backbone of Asana. They can be assigned to users and boards, and activities for a task can include comments and notes, as well as file uploads and attachments. Whether you’re migrating data or just tracking your efficiency, exporting Asana tasks will come in handy. It is actually a really simple task that can be done in just a couple of minutes. This guide will provide you with step-by-step instructions on how to export Asana tasks and even automate this process!

What are the options to export tasks from Asana

There are two options you can choose to export tasks from Asana: manual and automated.

• Manual export: You can export your tasks by clicking on the Export button at the top of any task list. This will create a CSV file with all of your tasks and their associated data, which can be opened in Excel or Google Sheets.
• Automated export: If you want to automate the process of exporting your tasks for reporting or analytical purposes, using a third-party application is the best choice. Coupler.io is a solution to automate reporting or create an Asana backup. It provides three destinations for this: Google Sheets, Excel, and BigQuery.

In this article, we’ll discuss both options to export Asana tasks.

How to export tasks from Asana

If you are looking to export tasks from Asana, you’ll need to download them in a CSV file. You can do this by following these steps:

1. Go to an Asana project and select Tasks from the menu on the left side.

2. What you now see is the list of all tasks assigned under that project. On the top, click on the arrow next to My Tasks and then click on Export CSV.

3. A CSV file with all tasks will be downloaded to your computer.

Yes, it really is that simple.

Exporting all tasks from Asana on a schedule

Now, let’s take a look at the automated option to export Asana tasks with the help of Coupler.io.

Coupler.io is a no-code solution to automate data export from different sources such as HubSpot, Asana, etc. to Google Sheets, Excel, or BigQuery.

You can export Asana project or a few of them. If you prefer, export tasks, stories, milestones, or any other data entity using Coupler.io. Here are the steps to automate all tasks export from Asana:

1. Log in to your Coupler.io account and Click on Add new importer.
2. Select Asana as your source account and the desired destination app. You can export Asana to Excel, connect Asana to Google Sheets, and even schedule exports of tasks from Asana to BigQuery.

3. Connect your Asana account as the Source account, and select Tasks as a data entity among others such as projects, stories, tasks, etc. Also, specify the start date for the period of tasks. Then click on Continue.

4. Similarly, connect your Google account as your destination account, and select a spreadsheet and a sheet. Again, click on Continue.

5. To automate data export of the task list, toggle the Automatic data refresh button and schedule the day, time, and timezone. Then click on Save and run.

Here is what the exported tasks from Asana look like in Google Sheets.

How to export completed tasks from Asana

When you export a list of tasks from Asana, it will include completed and incomplete tasks. To ensure your team has an overview of what they’ve achieved each week/month/quarter and exactly when these tasks were finished, you will need a list of completed tasks handy. 

When you automate the export of your tasks list using Coupler.io, all you have to do is use the filter Completed in the export sheet to filter out only completed tasks.

Unselect FALSE from the Completed filter, now what you have is a list of only completed tasks.

For the manual option, here are the steps to export a list of completed tasks: 

1. When you’re on the Tasks page, click on All Tasks on the top left side just above the listed tasks.

2. Click on Completed Tasks and select Marked Complete since. Here, we are selecting 2 Weeks.

3. Now what we have is a list of completed tasks. From here on, just follow the same steps as mentioned above in the How to export tasks from Asana section.

How to export incomplete tasks from Asana

Much like how we get completed tasks from the automated export list of tasks using Coupler.io – this time, we’ll unselect True from the Completed filter in the sheet. After applying the filter, you’ll have a list of incomplete tasks.

Similar to exporting completed tasks manually, we can simply select Incomplete tasks from the All Tasks dropdown to export incomplete tasks. Next, we’ll have a list of incomplete tasks.

Again, follow the steps mentioned above to export the tasks list.

Can you export Asana tasks with comments?

Unfortunately, neither of the specified options allows you to export Asana tasks with comments. However, with Coupler.io, you can get the description of your tasks.

As a workaround, you can copy and paste your comments to the description part of your tasks. 

This will let you export these with the help of Asana integration by Coupler.io. And you will see your comments in the columns html_notes and notes.

What you can do with exported Asana tasks

Exporting a list of Asana tasks can come in handy from time to time. You might want to back up or analyze projects/tasks, or maybe even import them into another project.

For example, you may be considering migrating from Asana to Trello because you like how Trello’s boards are structured or you want to break up your team into multiple projects. 

Or if you’re in charge of a project and want to see how long it’s taking your team to complete their tasks, exporting a task list can give a clearer picture to identify improvement areas.

Whatever the case may be, there are plenty of ways to benefit from the export of tasks — here are just a few:

• Backup: If you’re worried about the security of your data, it’s best to create a backup copy of it, which can be later used to restore your tasks (if needed). And it’s even better to keep it stored on cloud services like Dropbox or Google Drive.

• Analyze projects: Exported tasks allow you to analyze your project and get insights into what’s going on there. You can use this data for your projects’ analytics, such as how many tasks each person is assigned or how much time people spent working on specific tasks. This can be done by checking which tasks are taking up most of the time, analyzing their dependencies, the number of users working on them, etc.

• Import them into another project: If you need to move some tasks from one project to another, you can import them into the new project using an export of CSV file consisting tasks. This will allow you to continue working with all your previous data in another project without losing anything important from it!

Export the Asana task list without any fuss

Choose which options is best for you to export Asana tasks. Getting an overview of the tasks ahead of you is easy, providing all the information necessary to see what needs to be done, by whom, and when. You can plan your day step-by-step, structuring your tasks into separate projects if you choose to do so. 

We also like the idea of being able to export our tasks into Google Sheets, Excel or BigQuery if we need to share them with other people who don’t access Asana. In addition to all this, Asana offers such a great layout that it’s almost enjoyable planning our working days in advance!