Asana boosts user engagement by integrating with Slack

It’s one thing to have ideas and vision. But it’s another to turn that inspiration into actionable projects and tasks. Enter Asana, a leading work management platform that helps individuals, teams and organizations orchestrate everything from the smallest daily tasks to the largest strategic initiatives by meeting them where they already work: Slack.

With Asana, Slack users can track work seamlessly and spend more time bringing ideas to life, without context switching. “The Asana integration lets users turn Slack conversations into trackable and actionable work,” says Asana product manager Strand Sylvester. “Slack is where discussions are happening, and Asana adds a layer of accountability.”

“We bring value to our customers when and where they need it most,” says Neel Patel, a product marketing manager at Asana. “Slack fits into the larger picture of accomplishing more with less and enables us to meet fast-moving teams within the tools they already use.”

A seamless integration reduces the need for context switching

At Asana, solutions follow the “three C’s” for effective team collaboration: content, communication and coordination. Asana’s sweet spot is in the coordination layer, where it enables users to easily manage and track projects within Slack, reducing distractions caused by context switching.

Instead of losing time and effort juggling tabs and tasks, teams use Asana to streamline their days and easily manage multiple cross-functional workflows in Slack—so it’s no surprise it’s become one of our most widely used integrations.

“On average, people switch between nine apps per day, which fragments communication and reduces efficiency,” says Patel. “By integrating into our customers’ existing tech stacks, we bring that essential information into one central place: Slack.”

 

Driving joint customer success with Dow Jones and PGA of America

The key to Asana’s success was taking the best of its core product and bringing it into Slack, where users are already working. With actionable notifications and quick, seamless ways to engage with Asana tasks from Slack, users aren’t burdened by as much context switching.

For Margo Connolly, former senior marketing coordinator at Dow Jones, Asana’s Slack integration was crucial in helping her track and manage a full calendar of multimedia website content, online events and digital marketing campaigns.

“I’m not always checking Asana, so when I see a notification in Slack, I know I have something to review,” she says. “I constantly have too many tabs open, so I love that I have one less platform to visit.”

It’s a similar story at PGA of America, one of the world’s largest sporting organizations, where marketing operations lead Kyler Rose relies on Asana for Slack to manage projects with other teams at the group’s headquarters.

Rose’s most intense projects involve planning the entire event and experience for championship tournaments—and each one can take up to two years. As project requests pop up on Slack, Rose and his colleagues use Asana to create new tasks directly from the Slack message, ensuring nothing slips through the cracks.

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Unlocking growth and engagement for Asana in Slack

Asana’s integration also helps increase credibility among Slack customers who are considering purchasing their product—especially those who want to ensure any new software connects seamlessly to their existing tech stack. “As soon as they see the quality of our integration, it helps push deals and expansion forward,” says Sylvester.

Bolstered by consistent year-over-year growth, the integration continues to play a role in Asana’s overall growth strategy. With contextual features like message shortcuts, Asana is able to drive user engagement and retention, suggesting relevant actions to a user the moment they might find it useful.

“We bring Asana into Slack to reduce friction and create new opportunities to engage,” says Sylvester. “When users do engage, they’re more likely to be retained and continue on as Asana customers.”

 

Prioritizing your app’s functionality is key

For developers considering a Slack integration, Asana’s team cautions against trying to re-create your entire product in Slack. Instead, says Sylvester, focus on the problem you’re trying to solve for users and be thoughtful about what makes the most sense to integrate.

“At the end of the day, understanding the specific problem you’re trying to solve for users and mapping that back to what Slack’s naturally good at is going to be key to building a successful integration,” he says.

Sylvester shares more advice for developers:

Start small and iterate. “Just because there’s a lot of functionality doesn’t mean you need to use it,” he says. “Focus on tailoring the experience and know you can always add to your app later.”

Pay attention to newbies. “The onboarding period is when new users absorb the most knowledge, and it’s the best time to introduce them to things that will make them power users,” adds Sylvester.

Lean into the Slack partnership. “Slack has a ton of experience working with different partners and workflows, and they value collaboration,” says Sylvester. “It’s more of a partnership with Slack, as opposed to just building on top of their endpoints.”