Team and Project Name Duplication Problems With Team and Project Conversation Email Address (Warning

In finishing my Outlook to Asana Add-in we have discovered what could be a significant issue that I want people to be aware of. Asana creates the Conversation email address for both Project and Teams using [Name]@mail.asana.com. This means that projects that have the same name across Teams such as “Strategic Planning” will have the same Project email address for Conversations. In addition, if you belong to more than one Organization which have the same Team Name, you will also have this problem if you use the email addresses indicated by Asana at the end of Conversations whether Team or Project. This is a problem if you are consulting with similar organizations such as churches etc. I just caution you that at least for now, you should not have duplicate Team names between organizations or duplicate Project names within an Organization if you plan on using Team or Project Conversations that you directly email too.

@JCarl Thanks for the heads up. Reaching out to our support team to see if they’re familiar with any workarounds / best practices for this.

@JCarl The update: I believe if there are duplicate names, you get an email telling you so and it suggests an alternate email with that specific project’s ID. That way you get a heads up on the need to replace the duplicate name email.

I can see how this solution wouldn’t necessarily help if you’re, say, a freelancer working in multiple orgs.

@Kaitie do you have any words of wisdom here? What kinds of conversations have you had in the past about project names and email forwarding?

This would be very easily solved by the email being [Project I.D.}@mail.asana.com
and [Team I.D.]@mail.asana.com. Using names will cause problems for any integration using the API. @Katie has passed on to the right team. According to your support no alternate email structure is available. Been round and round on this and that was the final conclusion, I think your support team is now very much aware of it. I look forward to a resolution in the future.

Ah, I see. Thanks @JCarl.

I forgot to mention also that when constructing the email address for Project Conversations and Team Conversations Asana does not recognize special characters, so better not to use. Per Support “This is a list of special characters not recognized by our system:
! " # $ % & ’ ( ) * + , – . : ; < = > ? @ [ \ ] ^ { | } ~ If you create a project called "Test with ! " # $ % & ’ ( ) * + , – . : ; < = > ? @ [ \ ] ^ { | } ~ special characters” you will see that the email address will be “test-with-special-characters@mail.asana.com.” All these characters are rejected by our system. " Just keep this in mind with your naming conventions.

On another subject I consider it a tremendous resources we have in @Alexis and @Katie because they always have an attitude of help and ideas, if we bring up something that is a bug we know that they are passing it to the proper team for consideration across what I imagine are 100’s of requests. I think heavy users can help identify ideas while Asana provides their product to a huge number of people for free (15 members). This is one of the most generous policies that exist in collaborative software that has any substance to it. Thanks

Aw shucks @JCarl . Thank you for that positive feedback.



To add transparency to the bug reporting process in the forum: when people suggest that there’s a bug, Kaitie or I will chat our support team on Slack to ask if they’re seeing evidence of the bug, too. They’ll tell me if they’ve reported the bug, keep track of it and look for patterns, or go ahead and report something if it’s a big enough issue. Yet another example of how Asana and Slack can be very useful together. :star:

I’m setting up an Asana organization for the first time today and have encountered this duplication problem. However, I only have one team at the moment and only a handful of projects, all with different names and all under the same team. Still, when I attempt to send an email from Outlook (Office 365 web portal) to the conversation email address provided in Asana ([project name]@mail.asana.com) I receive the auto-email telling me there are multiple teams or projects with that name and suggesting alternate emails to use: project+[string of numbers]@mail.asana.com or [project name].[team name]@mail.asana.com. Sending a test email to [project name].[team name] works fine, but I also tested the project+[string of numbers] address offered and can’t find that test email anywhere in my account.

I’m wondering 1) where does the project+[string of numbers]@mail.asana.com go and 2) why might I be encountering this duplication issue at all in the first place. Any clarification and assistance in fixing the issue would be wonderfully appreciated!

@Rebecca_K I am very familiar with this issue as the author of Sendana that automates the entire Outlook to Asana email process. I thought may the following excerpt from my manual might be helpful to you:

Special Characters In Team and Project Name Sendana utilizes the Asana email system to create its actions. While projects have there own I.D. for creating tasks, Asana uses a basic emal syntax for Team and Project Conversations as follows:
Team Conversation oa-outlook-add-in@mail.asana.com You will see that the syntax is Team name @mail.asana.com. In addition Asana does not recognize spaces or special characters but converts them to -. The actual name of this Team is OA| Outlook Add-in. Sendana, strips special characters and puts the dashes in so that the creation is seamless with Asana.
Project Conversations oa-program-development@mail.asana.com You will see that the syntax is project name @mail.asana.com. In addition Asana does not recognize spaces or special characters but converts them to -. The actual name of this project is OA| Project Development. Sendana, strips special characters and puts the dashes in so that the creation is seamless with Asana.
Special Character Set
This is a direct support reply from Asana

This is a list of special characters not recognized by our system: ! " # $ % & ’ ( ) * + , - . : ; < = > ? @ [ \ ] ^ { | } ~ If you create a project called "Test with ! " # $ % & ' ( ) * + , - . : ; < = > ? @ [ \ ] ^ { | } ~ special characters" you will see that the email address will be “test-with-special-characters@mail.asana.com.” All these characters are rejected by our system an you may see Duplicate Team or Project Names Warning!!

Because of the syntax that Asana uses for creating the Team Conversation or Project Conversation emails combined with the non-recognition of special characters it is possible that you will have duplicate Team and Project Conversation email addresses throughout an Organization and between organizations. If Asana identifies this resulting in a rejection email it might be good to use pre-fixes to remedy this if you plan on using Team and Project Conversations.

So here is a summary:

  1. Look at the syntax that composes a Project or Team Conversation email address and;
  2. Look at the special character set that will be converted into a dash.
  3. Note that if you have multiple organizations their can be duplicate project names and team names that cross organizations.
  4. After this thorough examination, see if you can see duplicate named Projects or Teams with exactly named or with substitution of non-recognized characters.
  5. Consider using prefixes in your naming to protect against duplicate name.
  6. Ask Asana along with me to look at the naming conventions for a future upgrade that would eliminate this error that can easily occur.
  7. Use Sendana :slight_smile: it will help you considerably in your Outlook 365 if you are using a PC and have Outlook installed on your computer.
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@James_Carl Thank you for the quick and thorough reply. I will definitely look into Sendana as we are using that Outlook configuration.

I had read your earlier comment in this thread (from October) about the special characters. I only have one organization and one team right now, so no duplication there. The team name does not have any special characters (ex: Team) and, after reading your post & before posting myself, I tried emailing to a conversation for one of my projects that also doesn’t have any special characters (ex: ABC) and received the same result. abc@mail.asana.com kicked back an email suggesting I use instead either “project+[string of 15 numbers]@mail.asana.com” or “abc.team@mail.asana.com”. When I tried the first suggested email address, nothing shows up anywhere I can see in my asana account - no idea where that email ended up. The second suggested email address did in fact send the conversation where it was intended. Any thought on this?

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I truly do not mean this to be self serving but I would try the free trial of Sendana and see if you experience same problem as we have some error trapping built in and lookup of Teams and Projects. The 15 number string sounds like a source potential but that is why I recommend using Sendana as a diagnostic tool. It doesn’t cost you for a trial and no credit cards are requested, just a simple download

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