Task management with time tracking: Asana + Toggl Track (free)

Introduction

Asana is excellent task management software. However, it lacks built-in time tracking functionality. If you need some, you can use separate software for this. There are even integrations between both types of software. However, in my experience, all of them have some drawbacks. They either require a paid subscription or are bound to a specific browser. As a solution, I connected Asana with Toggl Track through Integromat (all of them in their free plans). I find this solution convenient to use. So, I’ll share here how I did it.

What you’ll get

Before, I used Asana and Toggl Track for time tracking, separately. To sync them automatically, I would have needed to upgrade my Toggl account to a paid subscription, and I think I would have still needed to open Toggl Track to start and stop timers. With this solution, you only have to move a task to a specific Working on section in Asana. A timer is automatically created in Toggl Track with the name of the task. If you move this task to another section, the timer is automatically stopped.
The only drawback is that you have to move your task to a Paused section at EOB if you want your timer to stop. You could also manually stop the timer in Toggl Track and start it the next day. But to do so, you would have to open Toggl Track explicitly.

What you need

1. Asana is the project management software you use for task management. This is the software you interact with regularly. I use the free plan.
2. Toggl Track is the software where you track the time. You don’t have to go to Toggl Track by yourself to start and stop timers. It’s also enough with the free plan.
3. Integromat is the software that listens to Asana events and tells Toggl Track to start and stop timers for you. I think for most use cases, it’s enough with the free plan. It depends on how heavy your task switching is since Integromat’s free plan only includes 1000 operations per month. But this should be usually enough.

How to configure

Asana

Create a Working on section in Asana. This is where you’ll move the tasks while working on them. You’ll track the time a task is in this section.

Integromat

In Integromat go to Scenarios and click on Create a new scenario.

1. First, you need a module Asana.
   • Choose the Watch Webhook Events.
     • Choose Add.
     • Add a connection to your Asana account.
     • Choose resource: Project.
     • Project Id: Chose yours.
     • Filters. Click on Add item. And now the part I found a bit tricky:
       • Action: added.
       • Resource Type: story.
       • Resource Sub Type: section_changed.
2. In previous module, you got the task ID, but you’ll need the task name and the section name. Add a module Asana and the Get a task action.
   • The task ID is 1. Parent: Parent ID (don’t write it down, select it from the available fields).
3. Add a Router. You’ll have two ways:
   • If the target section is Working on you’ll start a timer in Asana.
     • If the target section is not Working on, you’ll eventually stop a timer (if the running timer corresponds to the task you moved).
4. Add a module Toggl, and Start a time entry action. Connect your Toggl account. The Description could be 3. Task Name
   • The filter you need is the condition 3. Memberships[1]: Section Name Equal to Working on.
5. Add a module Toggle action Get a running time entry * The filter you need is the condition 3. Memberships[1]: Section Name NOT equal to Working on between the router and this action.
6. Add another Toggl module with action Stop a time entry. The ID is 8. ID
   • Since you only want to stop the current timer if it belongs to the current task, add a filter between the two Toggl actions you added last. The filter here is 8. Description (from Toggl) Equal to 3. Task Name (from the Asana Task).

Here you have the whole picture:

Caveats

Depending on how heavy your use of this integration is, you could run out of operations per month in the free plan at Integromat. You have 1000 free operations per month.

Summary

I’ve told you how you can manage to automatically track in Toggl Track the time your Asana tasks are in a specific section. We created an Integromat scenario for this. We have used free plans from these three services.