How to Quickly Sync Salesforce and Asana with Automated 2-Way Updates

How to Quickly Sync Salesforce and Asana with Automated 2-Way Updates

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So you’ve got a sales team in Salesforce with creatives or marketers managing projects in Asana. How do they collaborate and manage the pre-sales and sales cycles? Maybe there’s a project manager jumping between both tools, maybe you’ve got automation figured out with a couple of triggers and actions to share work 1-way, or everyone is just sharing context in Slack and updating their own tasks accordingly. None of these options are ideal, especially not for a growing organization with hundreds or thousands of tasks to keep track of.

Instead, let’s look at how you can quickly sync Asana and Salesforce bi-directionally with a simple 2-way flow that anyone can set up in minutes. Use it to align sales and marketing strategies, simplify a post-merger workflow, or simply enhance communication and productivity.

By the end of this guide, you’ll be able to easily connect Salesforce opportunities, contacts, and tasks with Asana, and vice versa – saving time, reducing manual error (and effort!), while driving business success.

Although Wrike and Asana are different tools, you can get a sense of how this integration works in our demo between Salesforce and another leading project management tool:

In this article:

Use case overview

You’ll be connecting Asana and Salesforce with Unito’s flow builder. A flow represents the connection between your Salesforce organization and a single Asana project. There are countless ways to keep your data in sync, so our guide will focus on a sales and pre-sales workflow. Feel free to adapt anything here to suit your use case and solve common issue, from consolidating marketing intake processes to automating task creation for new sales accounts and more.

By following these steps, you’ll be able to seamlessly integrate Asana and Salesforce and streamline your workflow.

Optimizing a sales and pre-sales workflow with Unito

The challenge: sales info in silos

  • The sales team uses Salesforce to manage accounts, while the creative team uses Asana for project management. This leads to communication gaps and delays.

The solution: break down silos with 2-way sync

  1. Connect Accounts and Projects: Linking Salesforce accounts to Asana projects allows the sales team to see the progress of creative work associated with each account.
  2. Automate task creation and dispatching: When a new opportunity appears in Salesforce, create a matching task in Asana, or vice versa. Tasks can include requests for sales collateral, designing marketing materials, or developing a social media strategy.
  3. Real-time updates: By linking fields with Unito, any manual changes in one app will automatically appear in the other. This keeps both teams informed and allows them to manage client expectations effectively.

Installation and Configuration Steps for Asana and Salesforce

The best part about Unito’s integrations is that there’s very little configuration required. All you need to do is set up your project in Asana and know which Salesforce objects you want to sync. Although this guide will demonstrate Unito’s integration between Asana tasks and Salesforce opportunities, you can adapt the steps within to also sync Salesforce tasks or Salesforce contacts, with support for cases coming soon!

Step 1. Connect Salesforce and Asana to Unito

  1. Navigate to the Unito App and +Create Flow.
  2. Click Start Here to connect your Asana project and Salesforce organization.
  3. Choose the accounts you want to connect.
  4. When you connect each tool for the first time, make sure to authorize both in Unito in order for your tasks, opportunities, or contacts to sync properly.

Here is an example of our completed tool connection screen:

Connecting an Asana project and Salesforce organization to Unito for bi-directional syncing

These are the “containers” we’ll be keeping in sync. Only tasks and opportunities in the Sales project and Organization 123 will be synced by Unito. If we need to connect more containers, we can simply duplicate this Unito flow when we’re done, and modify accordingly.

Step 2. Set a flow direction between Asana and Salesforce

Flow direction tells Unito where to automatically create work items (tasks, opportunities, or contacts) based on your manual activity: in Asana, Salesforce or both.

In most cases, you probably want a one-way flow direction from Salesforce to Asana. So perhaps our sales team wants to dispatch tasks to the team in Asana as new opportunities come in. But they don’t need the team in Asana sending them new opportunities with this setup:

Later, we can tell Unito to keep those work items in a 2-way, real-time sync.

Step 3. Set rules to sync specific Asana tasks and Salesforce objects

Now we can set up rules to determine which events will send data between our tools. Select Add a new rule to establish your rules for each directional flow.

NOTE: These rules are intended to help you keep only the most relevant information in sync to avoid oversharing unnecessary details. You can apply custom labels to your tasks or tasks to be even more precise about what kind of data is shared.

In this pre-sales workflow, any new opportunities in this Salesforce organization will automatically generate tasks in Asana in the Inbound Opportunities section/column:

In an example of a sales workflow, we’ve told Unito that the opportunity must also be in one of the 6 stages listed below and assigned to the account rep we’ve selected. The newly created Asana task will then appear in the Pre-Qual section/column:

collaborative planning and execution with Asana and Salesforce through Unito's rules

You can add filters based on most fields, although fields with single or multi-select choices (e.g., Salesforce stages) are especially effective.

Find out more about setting rules.

When you first open this screen, you’ll be presented with two options. If you select Auto-map, Unito will pre-populate a list of suggested field mappings which you can then adjust.

Now, select + Add mapping to sync additional fields. Then, click Select a field. After you’ve chosen a field in the first board, Unito will suggest compatible matches in the second after you click on the drop-down menu. Here’s an example of a field mapping table for our sales workflow:

linking fields between Asana tasks and Salesforce opportunities in Unito
A blue question mark indicates a custom field created by the user. Gear or cog icons indicate customizable field pairs that can be further modified (i.e., you can link specific statuses between apps on a 1:1 level).

Here’s how custom fields enhance the power of Unito’s 2-way Salesforce integration:

Every field above with a blue question mark indicates a custom field that was created in each respective tool. This is how Unito can help users optimize their workflows and do what no other integration or automation solution can. By easily enabling you to keep custom fields in sync, you can personalize your integration quickly and effectively.

Here’s a more comprehensive set of field mappings in our presales workflow:

Complex field mappings between Salesforce and Asana with Unito's 2-way flow builder

Find out more about setting field mappings.

Step 5. Launch your Asana to Salesforce integration

And that’s it! That’s all you need to connect Salesforce with Asana to sync tasks, opportunities or contacts with Unito. Congratulations! If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to our team by clicking the little chat box in the lower-right corner of your screen.

What’s next after you sync Asana and Salesforce with Unito?

More about this Asana Salesforce Integration

Setting Up Triggers for New Deals

With this integration, you’ll be able to manage more deals efficiently. With this integration, you’ll be able to manage more deals efficiently. Unito, a cloud-based integration platform, simplifies the process of connecting Asana and Salesforce, allowing you to create custom, automated workflows that keep your teams in sync. Unito seamlessly connects Salesforce with Asana’s cloud-based software, allowing you to create custom, automated workflows that keep your teams in sync

Enhancing Collaboration: Asana and Salesforce for Cross Functional Teams

No Asana integration would be complete without the ability to seamlessly connect your tasks and projects with the essential tools your teams rely on for sales, marketing, and customer relationship management. Unito empowers teams to streamline their workflows by creating a 2-way Salesforce Asana connection.

Here’s how a leading CRM provider integrated Asana to scale their marketing ops

What are the benefits of Unito’s 2-way Asana Salesforce integration?

  • Improved Communication: Sales and creative teams are better aligned, with real-time visibility into project progress.
  • Increased Efficiency: Automated task creation eliminates manual processes, reducing errors and saving time.
  • Enhanced Collaboration: Both teams can work in their preferred tools while ensuring seamless communication and collaboration.
Frequently asked questions about this Asana Salesforce integration (click to expand)

Frequently Asked Questions

Will integrating Asana with Salesforce automatically update my sales goals?

Yes, integrating Asana with Salesforce will automatically update your sales goals, reflecting real-time progress.

Does Unito handle automatic project creation to trigger Asana projects from Salesforce

Unito can’t automatically create new Asana projects, but it can automatically create tasks in your projects, located within sections/columns.

Can Unito manage task allocation between sales and post-sales teams?

Yes, the integration can automate task hand-offs between Sales and Post-Sales teams, streamlining the process and reducing manual work.

That said, customization is a cornerstone of efficiency. With an Asana custom template, you can tailor project outlines to fit your sales processes within Salesforce perfectly.

How does Unito improve sales cycle visibility?

This integration between Asana and Salesforce helps everyone involved follow progress on tasks and projects to better manage the sales cycle. With consistent data sharing, you can keep Asana updated based on Salesforce (or vice versa) in real-time, enabling informed decisions at every turn.

And if you ever need an immediate update, a manual sync option is at your fingertips, ensuring updated records.

Tracking progress within Salesforce classic

Even if you’re using Salesforce Classic, you don’t have to miss out. The Asana for Salesforce integration allows users of the Classic interface to keep a pulse on Asana task progress.

Ready to Sync Salesforce with Unito?

Contact our integration team