Email frequently marks the beginning of a task, but it rarely contains only a task name.
A customer request may include supporting documents, deadlines, several people who need to follow the work, and a long conversation explaining why it matters. An approval email may need to become a subtask under an existing project. A later reply may need to be added to the same task rather than creating another duplicate.
Asana’s Outlook integration provides a convenient answer when the requirement is straightforward: open an email, create an Asana task, or add the message to an existing task.
For many users, that is enough.
But creating a basic task and converting an email into a complete, maintainable Asana work item are not always the same thing.
I developed Send to Asana for Outlook for the workflows that begin where basic task creation ends.
When the Asana for Outlook add-in is enough
The standard Asana integration is appropriate when you need to:
- Create a new task from an Outlook email.
- Copy the email content into Asana.
- Select a project.
- Assign the task.
- Set a due date.
- Add an email to an existing task as a comment.
That covers a common and useful workflow. There is no reason to add complexity when those are the only capabilities required.
The distinction becomes important when the email itself is part of the business record or when the Asana task requires additional structure.
The email is sometimes more than text
Copying the body of an email into a task description or comment captures the words, but not necessarily the email as an object.
Users may need to preserve:
- The original message in a recognizable email format.
- The sender, recipients and original formatting.
- The complete conversation for audit or reference purposes.
- A file that can be retained with the task after the email leaves the inbox.
- A PDF representation that colleagues can open without searching Outlook.
This issue appears repeatedly in Asana’s own community forum.
In one discussion, a user explained that the standard Outlook add-in copied the email thread into a comment, but that long copied conversations were unwieldy. The user wanted the email uploaded as a file attachment instead. Other participants confirmed that attaching the email was different from copying its text, and that the available drag-and-drop workaround was awkward.
Another user described wanting the original email retained so it could later be opened, replied to or forwarded while preserving its formatting and context. The manual alternative was to save the message locally and upload it separately, which undermined the purpose of an Outlook integration.
Send to Asana addresses this by allowing the Outlook message itself to be attached to an Asana task as an .eml file or converted to PDF.
The task can still include the readable email content in its description or comments, but the original message can also remain available as a separate file.
Outlook attachments should not require a detour through the desktop
Many task-creating emails include files that are essential to the work:
- Contracts
- Screenshots
- Proposals
- Specifications
- Spreadsheets
- Approval documents
- Customer-provided evidence
A user should not have to save every file from Outlook to a local folder and then upload it again to Asana.
This became more visible with New Outlook. A 2026 Asana forum discussion reports that attachments can no longer simply be dragged from New Outlook into an Asana task. The user must first save the attachment and then upload it separately.
Send to Asana reads the attachments from the currently opened Outlook message and allows the user to choose which ones should be sent.
This is deliberate. Sometimes all attachments belong with the task. Sometimes an email includes a company logo, an irrelevant image, an old document or several files that should not be included.
The user can select the relevant files rather than accepting an all-or-nothing transfer. Multiple files can also be combined into a ZIP archive when that is more appropriate.
Creating a task is not always the correct action
An email may represent:
- A new task.
- A new subtask under an existing task.
- Additional information for an existing task.
- Additional information for an existing subtask.
- A continuation of a conversation that has already been associated with an Asana item.
Creating a new task for every message can fragment the work and create duplicates.
Send to Asana supports four distinct workflows:
- Create a new Asana task.
- Create a subtask beneath an existing task.
- Add the email to an existing task.
- Add the email to an existing subtask.
This allows the user to decide what the email means operationally instead of forcing every message through the same task-creation path.
The correct project is not always specific enough
Selecting the correct project is important, but many Asana projects are organized into sections representing stages, teams, priorities or types of work.
A task placed in the project but not in the correct section may still require someone to reorganize it afterward.
Send to Asana allows the user to select both:
- The Asana project.
- The destination section within that project.
A preferred project and section can also be saved as defaults. That makes the common route fast without eliminating the ability to choose a different destination for an unusual email.
A task often needs more than a name and due date
A useful Asana task may also require:
- An assignee.
- A due date and due time.
- Tags.
- Newly created tags.
- Collaborators or followers.
- Completion status.
- A clean and useful description.
Send to Asana exposes these details from Outlook before the task is created or updated.
It can also automatically assign newly created tasks and subtasks to the current user. This removes one repetitive step for people who regularly turn their own inbox into an action list.
The objective is not to expose fields merely because they exist. It is to prevent the user from creating an incomplete task in Outlook and then immediately opening Asana to finish it.
Long email threads usually make poor task descriptions
Copying a full email conversation into Asana can produce a description containing:
- Repeated replies.
- Signatures.
- Legal disclaimers.
- Quoted history.
- Formatting debris.
- Several screens of context before the actual request becomes clear.
Sometimes the complete thread is necessary. Often it is not.
Send to Asana allows the user to choose among several approaches:
- Use a cleaned version of the email.
- Include only the most recent response.
- Use the complete original message body.
- Edit the description manually.
- Generate an AI summary of the message.
The task can therefore contain a concise, actionable description while the original email remains attached separately for complete reference.
Later replies should return to the same task
A common failure in email-to-task workflows occurs after the first message.
The initial email becomes an Asana task. Two days later, someone replies with a decision, a corrected document or additional requirements. The user must then remember which Asana task was created, search for it, and manually add the new information.
The alternative is accidentally creating another task for the same conversation.
Send to Asana can associate an Outlook conversation with its Asana task. When a later message in the same conversation is opened, the add-in can recognize the relationship and append the new content to the existing task.
This helps preserve one task for one continuing piece of work.
Task names should communicate more than the raw subject line
Email subjects are often poor task names:
- “RE: RE: Question”
- “Following up”
- “Document”
- “Urgent”
- “Please review”
- “FWD: Customer issue”
Send to Asana can construct a task name using email properties such as the sender, subject and date. It also supports configurable naming patterns.
The original subject remains available, but the Asana task can be named according to the organization’s workflow rather than accepting whatever subject happened to arrive in Outlook.
More capability should not mean more work every time
The purpose of Send to Asana is not to force every user through every option.
Defaults and remembered settings reduce repetitive decisions. Depending on the workflow, users can configure options such as:
- Default project.
- Default section.
- Always assign new tasks to themselves.
- Send email content to the description or comments.
- Preserve the original email as
.emlor PDF. - Include only the latest response.
- Automatically recognize linked conversations.
- Reuse preferred task-name patterns.
A simple task can still be created quickly. The additional controls are available when the email requires them.
Which Outlook-to-Asana workflow should you use?
Use the standard Asana for Outlook add-in when:
- You need a straightforward task.
- The email body is sufficient context.
- You do not need the original email preserved as a file.
- You do not need a subtask.
- Basic assignment, project and due-date options are enough.
- You are comfortable finishing any additional task configuration in Asana.
Use Send to Asana when:
- You need to attach the original email as
.emlor PDF. - You need to select individual email attachments.
- You need to create or update a subtask.
- You need to select a specific project section.
- You need tags, collaborators, due time or completion controls.
- You want to clean or summarize a long conversation.
- You want later replies appended to the same task.
- You want project, section, assignment or naming defaults.
- You want to complete the task configuration without leaving Outlook.
Neither approach is universally correct. The appropriate choice depends on whether the email is merely the source of a task or remains an important part of the task itself.
Why I built Send to Asana
I did not create Send to Asana because Asana lacked an Outlook integration.
I created it because many real workflows require more than the initial act of creating a task.
Users were trying to preserve original emails, avoid manually downloading attachments, create subtasks, route work into sections, maintain long conversations and configure complete tasks without repeatedly moving between Outlook and Asana.
Those were not abstract feature ideas. They were recurring workflow problems.
Send to Asana was built to give users more control over what the email becomes:
- More than copied text.
- More than a basic task.
- More than an all-or-nothing attachment transfer.
- More than a disconnected series of messages.
- More than a task that must still be completed somewhere else.
The goal is straightforward:
Turn the selected Outlook email into the correct Asana item, with the context, files, structure and task details needed to continue the work.
