Does Ceven require Asana Premium to work?

No, the basic read/write integration runs on Free. But several Ceven workflows are designed against Premium-only features: portfolio-level rollups, custom rules, workload reporting, and approvals all live behind the Premium tier. On the Free tier, those workflows fail with a clear 'Premium feature' error rather than silently producing partial data. Most Ceven customers using Asana for cross-functional work are already on Business or Enterprise; if you're on Free and the agent reports tier-gated errors, the path forward is either upgrading Asana or asking the agent to rewrite the workflow using only Free-tier capabilities (usually slower but possible).

Can Ceven access tasks in private projects?

Only if the Asana user who authorized the connection has access. Asana's permissions model is per-user, when Ceven calls the API, it acts as the person who connected, and that person's project memberships determine what's visible. The most common confusion: an ops lead connects Asana on Free and a workflow can't see the engineering team's private project. The fix is either to add Ceven's connected user to the project, or to have a teammate with broader access re-connect (Settings → Integrations → Asana → Reconnect). Ceven shows which user authorized the connection on the integration card.

How does Ceven handle Asana custom fields with dropdown options?

When a workflow needs to set a dropdown custom field, Ceven first calls list-custom-field-settings on the project to read the current options and their gid identifiers. The action then sets the field by option gid, not by display name, Asana's API requires the gid and rejects unrecognized labels. The agent handles this automatically: you can prompt 'set the priority custom field to High' and the agent looks up High's gid before the write. If you've renamed an option since the agent's cache, it'll re-fetch on the failure and retry. Cache TTL is 5 minutes.

What's the rate limit and how does Ceven stay under it?

Asana's standard limit is 1500 requests per minute per app per workspace, with bursts up to 50 req/sec. Ceven's scheduler caps concurrent writes per workspace at 30 req/sec sustained to leave headroom for your team's own use of Asana (the browser, mobile app, and other integrations all share the limit). Bulk operations, like importing 500 tasks from a CSV, are queued and paced rather than fired all at once. If you're running a heavy migration and want Ceven to use more of the budget, set the override in Settings → Integrations → Asana → Advanced. We'll never exceed Asana's published limit.

Can Ceven track time or run reports against Asana?

Partial yes. Ceven can read the basic time-tracking field if you've enabled it in Asana (it's a Business+ feature), and the agent can roll up time per project or per user from task-level data. Asana's native reporting dashboards aren't exposed via API, they live in Asana's UI, but Ceven can replicate the underlying numbers from task data, which is usually enough for the 'how much time did we burn on Launch X' question. If you need pixel-exact replicas of Asana's dashboards, you'll do better generating them in Asana itself and exporting.

Does Ceven understand Asana's project templates?

Yes. When a workflow needs to create a new project, it can either build the project from scratch (sections, custom fields, members) or instantiate from a template by template gid. The Salesforce-to-Asana implementation handoff is the canonical use: a Closed-Won deal fires the workflow, which clones the 'New customer implementation' template, sets the AE as observer, and pre-populates custom fields with the deal's contract value and tier. To use templates in a workflow, the connected Asana user needs at least edit access on the template's project, which Asana grants by default to template creators and admins.

Asana

Brings live task and project state into the workflow layer so teams see what is blocked, status updates write themselves, and the project plan stays in sync across your tools.

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Standard

What Ceven does with Asana

Project + task state mirrored into Slack at the cadence each team wants
Status updates drafted from actual comment + completion activity
Salesforce opp → Asana project handoff on Closed-Won
GitHub PR + issue cross-linking to engineering tasks
Weekly project rollups with stalled-task detection
Custom-field updates from external triggers (CRM tier, contract value)

Why use Ceven?

One connection, every action
Connect Asana once and Ceven's agents can run all of its tools. No setup per task and no scripts to maintain.
No glue code, no RPA
Describe the outcome in plain English. Ceven picks the right Asana calls, fills the params, and handles the result.
Works on your existing stack
Asana sits next to the rest of your tools, so work flows across all of them in one chat instead of five tabs.
Managed auth, you just build
Ceven handles OAuth, tokens, scopes, and refresh. Your team never copies an API key or babysits a token.

Supported tools

Every action Ceven's agents can run on Asana, with when to use it. Items tagged "event" are webhooks Ceven listens for; the rest the agent calls on demand.

write

Create task

Spin up a new task in a project, with assignee, due date, and custom-field values. Most-used write action, Salesforce-to-Asana handoffs, support-ticket-to-task escalations.

read

Get task

Fetch a single task with its description, current state, custom fields, attachments, and recent comments. Always loaded into a status-update workflow before drafting.

write

Update task

Edit a task's name, assignee, due date, custom fields, or section. Used by the daily-hygiene workflow that nudges overdue tasks and the auto-rollup that promotes priority based on linked deal size.

write

Complete task

Mark a task done and optionally add a completion comment. Wired into PR-merged → task-done flows and the support-resolved → follow-up-task-done flow.

read

List tasks

Pull tasks filtered by project, section, assignee, or completion state. Drives weekly rollups and the 'what's on my plate this week' DM.

Search tasks

Full-text search across tasks and comments. Used to dedupe before creating a new task and to find historical context for status updates.

write

Add comment to task

Post a comment on a task, optionally @-mentioning a teammate. Used by integration-triggered status updates ('PR merged: link') and the auto-summary that drops a recap on stalled tasks weekly.

write

Create project

Spin up a new project from a template, with sections and default custom fields pre-populated. Used by the Salesforce-Closed-Won handoff to start the implementation project automatically.

read

Get project

Fetch a project's metadata, sections, custom fields schema, and recent activity. Used to validate a template-created project matches the team's standard before tasks get filed against it.

read

List projects

Pull projects filtered by team, owner, or archived state. Drives portfolio-level rollups and the monthly 'projects without recent activity' audit.

write

Update project status

Post a project-level status update (on track / at risk / off track) with a written summary. Drafted by the weekly rollup workflow from completion velocity and stalled-task counts.

read

List sections

Pull a project's sections in order. Used to route new tasks to the right column ('Backlog', 'In Progress', 'Done') based on the incoming event type.

read

List custom field settings

Pull the available custom fields for a project, including enum options. Used before bulk-task creates to validate the field values the agent intends to set.

event

Webhook: task created

Fires on new task in a tracked project. Routes the support-escalation workflow that adds context from the originating Zendesk ticket before notifying the assignee.

event

Webhook: task changed

Fires on any task field change. Used to detect status-field flips ('At Risk') and route a Slack DM to the project lead with a summary of what changed.

15 actions · scroll to see them all

Workflows that pair Asana with your other tools

Asana × Salesforce

How: Implementation lead gets an Asana project auto-created the moment a deal hits Closed-Won, pre-populated with the standard kickoff template and the AE assigned as observer.

Asana × Slack

How: Ops manager gets a Slack DM every Friday with the projects that turned from On Track to At Risk that week, each with the comment thread that triggered the change.

Asana × GitHub

How: Engineering lead sees Asana tasks auto-complete when the linked GitHub PR merges, with the PR description posted as the task completion comment.

Asana × Zendesk

How: Customer success lead gets a Zendesk ticket auto-converted into an Asana task in the right project section when the tag 'engineering-escalation' is applied.

Connecting Asana

1
Open Integrations in your Ceven dashboard
Settings → Integrations, find Asana in the Productivity category.
2
Click Connect on the Asana card
Asana's OAuth popup opens. The scopes Ceven requests are full read+write on tasks, projects, comments, and custom fields, plus read on users and teams for assignment + reporting.
3
Pick the workspace
If you belong to multiple Asana workspaces, Asana asks which one to authorize. Pick the one Ceven should act in. You can connect more than one later by re-running the connect flow.
4
Authorize
Click Allow. Asana redirects back to Ceven, the popup closes, and the integration card shows the workspace name and current connection status.
5
Run a sample prompt
Open /app and try one of the prompts above. The agent will pull live Asana data; that's your confirmation.

Open the Integrations dashboard ›

Limitations and gotchas

Asana behavior worth knowing before you write a workflow against it.

Custom fields are scoped per-project or workspace-wide and rate-limited differently

Asana lets you define custom fields at either the workspace level (shared across all projects) or per-project (defined inside that project). Workspace fields update at 250 req/min; project fields share a slower 60 req/min bucket. A workflow that bulk-updates a custom field across 1000 tasks will sail through if the field is workspace-scoped and crawl if it's project-scoped. Ceven detects the scope on first use and warns if a workflow is targeting project fields at write-heavy rates; consider promoting frequently-updated fields to workspace level.

The Premium tier gates portfolios, rules, and workload reporting

Several capabilities Ceven workflows assume, portfolio-level rollups, rule-based automations Asana itself runs, and workload reporting, are Premium-tier features. On the Free tier, the agent can still read and write tasks, projects, and comments, but a 'roll up status across all 12 launches' prompt fails because Asana's portfolios API returns 403 without Premium. The integration card on Settings → Integrations shows which capabilities are available based on your tier so you don't write a workflow that silently degrades.

Never worry about agent reliability

Ceven runs Asana like a careful operator, not a black box. Every run is visible, gated where it counts, and built to stop rather than guess.

Every action is logged

See exactly what the agent did in Asana, when, and why. The trail is built for sign off, not guesswork.

It pauses, it never guesses

If Asana is unreachable or a step is unclear, the agent stops and asks instead of plowing ahead and making a mess.

Approvals where they matter

Gate any write behind a human OK. Nothing irreversible happens in Asana without someone saying yes first.

Least privilege by default

Ceven asks Asana for read scopes first and only the writes a workflow needs. Revoke the whole grant any time.

Frequently asked questions

Does Ceven require Asana Premium to work?: No, the basic read/write integration runs on Free. But several Ceven workflows are designed against Premium-only features: portfolio-level rollups, custom rules, workload reporting, and approvals all live behind the Premium tier. On the Free tier, those workflows fail with a clear 'Premium feature' error rather than silently producing partial data. Most Ceven customers using Asana for cross-functional work are already on Business or Enterprise; if you're on Free and the agent reports tier-gated errors, the path forward is either upgrading Asana or asking the agent to rewrite the workflow using only Free-tier capabilities (usually slower but possible).
Can Ceven access tasks in private projects?: Only if the Asana user who authorized the connection has access. Asana's permissions model is per-user, when Ceven calls the API, it acts as the person who connected, and that person's project memberships determine what's visible. The most common confusion: an ops lead connects Asana on Free and a workflow can't see the engineering team's private project. The fix is either to add Ceven's connected user to the project, or to have a teammate with broader access re-connect (Settings → Integrations → Asana → Reconnect). Ceven shows which user authorized the connection on the integration card.
How does Ceven handle Asana custom fields with dropdown options?: When a workflow needs to set a dropdown custom field, Ceven first calls list-custom-field-settings on the project to read the current options and their gid identifiers. The action then sets the field by option gid, not by display name, Asana's API requires the gid and rejects unrecognized labels. The agent handles this automatically: you can prompt 'set the priority custom field to High' and the agent looks up High's gid before the write. If you've renamed an option since the agent's cache, it'll re-fetch on the failure and retry. Cache TTL is 5 minutes.
What's the rate limit and how does Ceven stay under it?: Asana's standard limit is 1500 requests per minute per app per workspace, with bursts up to 50 req/sec. Ceven's scheduler caps concurrent writes per workspace at 30 req/sec sustained to leave headroom for your team's own use of Asana (the browser, mobile app, and other integrations all share the limit). Bulk operations, like importing 500 tasks from a CSV, are queued and paced rather than fired all at once. If you're running a heavy migration and want Ceven to use more of the budget, set the override in Settings → Integrations → Asana → Advanced. We'll never exceed Asana's published limit.
Can Ceven track time or run reports against Asana?: Partial yes. Ceven can read the basic time-tracking field if you've enabled it in Asana (it's a Business+ feature), and the agent can roll up time per project or per user from task-level data. Asana's native reporting dashboards aren't exposed via API, they live in Asana's UI, but Ceven can replicate the underlying numbers from task data, which is usually enough for the 'how much time did we burn on Launch X' question. If you need pixel-exact replicas of Asana's dashboards, you'll do better generating them in Asana itself and exporting.
Does Ceven understand Asana's project templates?: Yes. When a workflow needs to create a new project, it can either build the project from scratch (sections, custom fields, members) or instantiate from a template by template gid. The Salesforce-to-Asana implementation handoff is the canonical use: a Closed-Won deal fires the workflow, which clones the 'New customer implementation' template, sets the AE as observer, and pre-populates custom fields with the deal's contract value and tier. To use templates in a workflow, the connected Asana user needs at least edit access on the template's project, which Asana grants by default to template creators and admins.

When Asana is not the right fit

Asana is not the right primary system for pure software engineering orgs, Linear, Jira, or Shortcut all have stronger issue-tracking primitives (linked PRs, sprint boards, release tracking) and integrate with engineering workflows more naturally. Asana shines on cross-functional work: launches that span product + marketing + customer success, services delivery, and ops workflows where the people doing the work aren't all engineers. If your team's Asana is mostly engineers, you're probably fighting the tool.

More Productivity integrations

Slack

Notion

Figma

Alternatives to Asana

Other tools that solve a similar problem. Ceven supports these too, so you can switch or run more than one at once.

Linear Monday ClickUp

Setting up Asana? Email support@ceven.io with your tenant ID, or security@ceven.io for security questions.

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