How To Export Asana Data – The Essentials

There could be many reasons you may want to export data from Asana. For instance, you may want to transfer data to different data management tools for reporting and analytics or to back it up to your cloud storage. Whether you want to export calendars, financial records, contacts, or even conversations, Asana helps you manage, track, and export your data in a few simple clicks. However, some data entities are not exportable in a native way. In this case, you can always rest on a reliable third-party integration. In this guide, we’ll talk about the ins and outs of Asana export data so you can optimize or even automate your workflows.

Options you can use to export data from Asana

Asana can collect data from almost anywhere on its platform, including your integrated applications, your reports, your entries, your team’s comments, and more. You can export data from Asana natively in the following formats:

• PDF (via printing page)
• CSV — which is perfect for spreadsheet processing
• JSON — which is lightweight and simple to transfer among software platforms

You can also opt for a third-party approach to your data extraction. This means integrating Asana with applications that can capture and export data to the destination you prefer, for example, Google Sheets or Google BigQuery.

Lastly, you can choose to export data from Asana using its API. This enables you to receive data with your own customized application that communicates with Asana in the background. Use methods such as GET /tasks/stories to link to Asana’s database and pull the data most relevant to your business. You can then transfer or export this data how you would like, such as in JSON files.

What can you export from Asana?

Asana gives users the opportunity to export unique metrics such as:

• User activity — available in CSV, JSON, and PDF (via printing page)
• Project Milestones — available in CSV, JSON, and PDF (via printing page)
• Comments — available in CSV and JSON
• Tasks — available in CSV, JSON, and PDF (via printing page)
• Board — available in CSV, JSON, and PDF (via printing page)
• Timeline — available in CSV, JSON, and calendar sync
• Calendars — available in CSV, JSON, calendar sync, and PDF (via printing page)
• Tags — available in CSV and JSON
• Portfolios — available in CSV, JSON, calendar sync, and PDF (via printing page)
• Stories — available in CSV, JSON, and PDF (via printing page)

That’s not all. With Asana you can organize and export team information, contact data, and capture the historical data you need to make the most of your decision-making and analytics process. 

How does manual Asana export work?

To get started with Asana export data, the first thing you need to do is head over to your account.

•  Go to your projects in your menu on the left. 

• Click on a project of your preference. When the project is open, click on Project Actions (the drop-down arrow next to your project name).

• Go to Export/Print. Choose the format in which you would like to export your file.

In this example, we have chosen to export our file in CSV format: 

How do you export Asana data to your chosen destination automatically?

Exporting data manually is okay. However, what if you could export hundreds of fields, metrics, and presentations in a faster, more reliable way? Automating your exports allows you to send more data at once, reducing human error, and synchronizing your data sources in the process. It helps you to better manage your data and ensure data accuracy.

For this reason, Asana gives you the power to work with tools like Coupler.io.

Coupler.io is a data automation and analytics platform that allows you to collect data across several applications and send it to the data warehouse or other destination of your choice. This enables you to not only track and monitor updates to your data but also manage it more efficiently.

Let’s take a look at how we can use Coupler.io to export Asana data on a schedule.

• Create your account with Coupler.io, click Add new importer, then select the apps you want to connect.

• Now, set up your source data. You’ll need to connect your Asana account and grant read-only permission to access your Asana data. Then specify the data entity you would like to export. In this example, we want to export information about Asana projects. 

• You can proceed to the destination setup. In this example, we have chosen to connect Asana to Google Sheets. To do this, add the Google Sheets account, then select the spreadsheet and a sheet to which you want to export data. Optionally, you can set up the cell range or addresses you want to target and change the import mode from replace to append to create a historical log of data changes.

• The final step is to schedule data refresh. Setting up a schedule helps you export data at a date and time most convenient for you. To do so, select the intervals that you would like to work with. You can choose to export Asana data every hour of every day between a predetermined time. 

In our example, we have set Coupler.io to collect information about projects at every hour during the weekdays, Monday to Friday.

• Click on Save and Run to watch the magic happen. Here is what the exported Asana data looks like in Google Sheets.

Types of Asana data export

Depending on your type of business, you and your team may need to export Asana data of different types to convey information on several topics, such as conversations, timelines, and milestones. The good news is that Asana gives you the ability to export many of these through several simple steps. Even better, you can export this data automatically with Coupler.io.

Export Asana timeline and calendar visually

Asana timeline is a condensed organizational view of your tasks between their start and end dates. It  gives you a visual way of managing your projects so that you can control the order in which you handle your work activities. It also gives you click-and-drag abilities to quickly create and edit your project.

Your Asana calendar, on the other hand, gives you a broader view of what is on deck for your day, week, or month. You can drag tasks around, create new tasks, and even mark your tasks as complete on your calendar view. You can even visualize your team’s calendar, comment, and attach files.

Both views allow you to see your project tasks by time and date so that you can keep ahead of important deadlines or milestones.

Visually exporting your timeline and calendar can be done by syncing your tasks to your chosen calendar or by printing them. To sync these manually:

• Click on your project under My Workspace on the left.

• Click on the Timeline or Calendar view => Project Actions => go to Export and then Sync to calendar.

• Choose whether you would like to sync your timeline tasks to your Google calendar or alternative calendars like Outlook or iCal.

 Alternatively, Asana gives you the opportunity to print your calendar in PDF format:

Let’s sync our Asana calendar to Google Calendar as follows:

• Go over to your Google Calendar and select Other calendars. In the drop-down list select From URL.

• In the Settings section, paste the URL you copied in Asana, then click Add calendar.

Now your Asana calendar is synced accordingly to your Google calendar.

Export Asana timeline and calendar to file

You can also export your timeline or calendar information to CSV or JSON file. To do so, select Export/Print => CSV or JSON.

If you selected CSV, your timeline data is now available in a CSV file that you can edit and load to an external warehouse. 

If you selected JSON, your timeline data is now available in JSON format:

Export history data from Asana

There is currently no simple method to pull historical data from Asana, but if you are willing there is a way! One workaround that you can do is to set new fields in Asana for this information and get the results you need. To export your user or task history from Asana:

• Set up custom fields to filter data by last modified, completed by, created by, and assigned by. 

This shows you the history of who was working on which task, the times the tasks were being worked on, and the persons responsible for the creation of the tasks. You can even retrieve insights into how many tasks are created and the peak times for task creation and development.

Instead of manually entering this data in Google Sheets you can set up a schedule in Coupler.io to extract them from Asana: 

•  In your Coupler.io importer, under Data entity, choose Tasks and select the Start date you want to begin exporting your data.

• Set up the destination and schedule as we described in the respective section above.

You can choose to run your schedule weekly or on the weekends depending on your requirements. Click Save and Run to finalize the setup. In Google Sheets, you can now see your exported customized tasks and history under custom_fields.

Export activities in Asana

Activities exports leave us in a similar boat. There is currently no straightforward way to get all the activities done by a user from Asana. However, there are a couple of workarounds that you can implement.

In Asana you can create customized fields to record the activities done by a teammate, the descriptions left and the tasks assigned to them. Extract the data about your teams, tasks, and users using Coupler.io by selecting Users as a data entity:

• Set up the destination and schedule as we described in the respective section above.

Optionally, you can change your Import mode to append your data. Appending data can be the better option if you want to track changes to your data.

The following is an example of our user activity data exported to our Event Planning spreadsheet in Google Sheets. It includes the names of the users, whether or not they completed a task, the time the task was completed, and relevant IDs.

Export Asana board

There may be cases where you want to export Asana boards for an overview of how you manage your projects. You will have to export your board manually as there is currently no automatic way of doing this with Coupler.io. However, if you need this data entity available, please let us know by filling out this form.

In the example below, see how we can manually export Asana to Excel, namely board data:

• Click on your project under My Workspace on the left => Board view => Project Actions.

• Go to Export/Print and then select CSV if you would like to export your data in a format suitable for Excel or Google Sheets.

• Open your CSV file in Excel to view your data.

If you prefer, you can also choose to print your Asana board to a PDF for a visual representation of your data. Below shows an example of our Event planning board to be printed in PDF format:

If you would like to export your schema, select JSON. This option may work best if you have developers who would like to integrate with Asana through code, and create a custom solution for managing and presenting information.

Export Asana stories

An Asana story is an overall work activity that gives you the entire picture. However, for your project to be successful, you may have to break up your story into individual actionable tasks that are easier to manage and track. You can create user stories by adding tasks to your project and use them to make informed decisions at each point of the development process.

You can use Coupler.io to automatically pull stories from your platform. We won’t repeat the setup flow since we’ve covered it in this section. What you need to do is select Stories as the data category you want to export.

Then set up the destination, for example Asana to BigQuery, and the schedule for automated exports.

Export comments from Asana

Comments are important because they can keep your team in the know. However, there is no way to export your Asana comments directly. So, let’s see if we can create a workaround. Coupler.io does a pretty good job of exporting tasks and with your tasks, you have access to the description of each one. What you can do is copy the text from your comments and add them to your task description like so:

Next, use Coupler.io to extract and export your tasks:

• Set up your source app choosing Tasks as the data entity, configure the destination app, and schedule. The flow is covered in this section.

Now, in your spreadsheet, you will be able to see the comments you pasted in your task description in the html_notes and notes header column.

 Export Asana tags

An Asana tag can be a useful tool for adding context and information on how a task should first be considered and then tackled. It helps group together tasks by categories and not only increases task traceability but also its discoverability. To export Asana tags, select Tags when setting up your Asana integration in Coupler.io.

Configure the destination and schedule accoridng to your preferences and run the integration to get your Asana tags exported.

Your tags data is available in the tags column of your spreadsheet.

Asana export milestones

Asana milestones come in handy because they help you to gauge where you are with your project. It marks an important event or decision-making point during the project life cycle. For this reason being able to export your milestones is important for your team and other business stakeholders you report to on a daily basis.

It is important to note that your milestones are not exported separately, but they are present when you export additional Asana data like tasks. This makes sense since tasks can be converted into milestones like so:

To export milestones manually:

• Export your Asana board, timeline, or list in your chosen format, for example CSV, JSON or print. In our case, we will export our milestones in CSV format.

• In your downloaded CSV file you can see the name of your milestones as you named them on your Asana platform.  

To export milestones to Google Sheets, Excel, or BigQuery on a schedule, you need to export Tasks according to the flow descibed here. You can find your milestones in the resource_subtype column of your spreadsheet.

Export custom fields in Asana

Customized fields are a great way to add that personal touch to your business. You can export this data using Coupler.io as we described in this section. You need to select Tasks as a data entity and configure the destination and schedule according to your preferences. 

When your data reaches the selected destination, you will be able to view the identifiers of any custom fields added in Asana. You can locate this information in the custom_fields column.

Export Asana portfolio

If you need to manage different client types or client projects, you can create a portfolio that displays data about all these at once. Exporting this high-level view can be important for project owners. With Coupler.io, you can pull data about Asana portfolio in a way described here. You need to select Portfolios as a data entity and configure the destination and schedule for your importer.

In our example, we have chosen to send our data to Microsoft Excel. Here is what the exported data looks like. 

Export your Asana contacts

You may be wondering how you can export your contact information in Asana. Well, you can retrieve this information by exporting Portfolios using Coupler.io as described above.

Is there any way to export team information from Asana?

There is currently no specific way to export data on teams directly but you can export information relating to your Asana users, as well as your organization name. If you need to do this then you can use Coupler.io which provides this option. Select Users as a data entity when setting up your importer and complete the configuration as explained here. 

Which exporting option is the best for your needs?

Choosing how and where you would like to export your data can be a challenge. However, Asana can help to make the process a lot simpler. You can easily export data in different formats all by interacting with your project menu. On top of that, you can let Coupler.io automate your exports, making your data cleaner and more accurate. It can also help you export your data on the schedule you prefer.

If you have decided that automation is best for you, our team can provide you with all you need to aggregate data, manage your exports, create deep data insights, and lastly, give you the long-lasting value you need to propel your business forward. Get in touch today and let’s start making the most out of Asana export data together.