How a Real Estate Marketing Agency Saved 20 Hours a Week with a ClickUp and Asana Integration
ClickUp Asana Integration
Intelligent Comments “2-way sync”
The Client
PG is a specialized marketing agency focusing on the real estate vertical. They provide comprehensive marketing services to real estate companies, helping them generate leads and sell properties. As a family-owned business with fewer than 15 employees, PG manages multiple clients in the real estate sector, each with unique needs and projects.
The Problem
PG faced a significant challenge in managing their workflow efficiently due to a disconnect between their internal project management tool, ClickUp, and their client's preferred tool, Asana.
This challenge was further complicated by the complex project structure of their client, a large company involved in building communities with multiple developments and diverse needs. The disconnect and complexity led to several issues:
- Manual Task Creation and Updates: Staff had to manually create and update tasks in both ClickUp and Asana, leading to duplication of effort and increased risk of errors.
- Inefficient Communication: The lack of integration resulted in delayed updates and potential miscommunication between PG and their client.
- Time-Consuming Status Tracking: Keeping track of task statuses, comments, and attachments across two separate systems was time-consuming and prone to oversight.
- Frequent Back-and-Forth: There was significant back-and-forth communication between PG and their client, making it crucial to have a seamless integration to capture all interactions and updates.
The Solution
As a Zapier certified premier partner, our agency developed a comprehensive integration solution between ClickUp and Asana. The solution included:
- Automatic Task Updates: When a task is created or changed in one system, it's automatically reflected in the other.
- Comments made in either ClickUp or Asana are copied to the other, keeping all conversations in one place. For example:
- When Press Group comments in ClickUp: "PG: New design draft uploaded for review" This appears in Asana as: "From ClickUp (John Doe): New design draft uploaded for review"
- When the client comments in Asana: "JC: Please adjust the color scheme" This appears in ClickUp as: "From Asana (Jane Smith): Please adjust the color scheme"
- Consistent Task Statuses: We created a system to match task statuses between ClickUp and Asana, so everyone sees the same progress. For instance:
- When a task status changes to "In Progress" in ClickUp, it automatically updates to "Doing" in Asana
- If the client changes a task to "Needs Review" in Asana, it updates to "Client :eyes:" in ClickUp
- Attachment: Any files added to a task in ClickUp at the task or the comment level are automatically added to the same task in Asana.
- Custom Field Mapping: We set up a way to share specific information about communities and task types between the two systems.
Challenges faced and overcome during implementation:
- Handling multiple tags and IDs: We created custom lookup tables in Zapier to map ClickUp's community and task type IDs to their corresponding Asana counterparts.
- Managing multiple attachments: We implemented loops to handle multiple attachments within tasks and comments.
- Prefix system for comments: To avoid infinite loops when “sync-ing” comments, we implemented a prefix system ("PG:" for PG, "JC:" for the client) to distinguish the source of comments.
The Results
The integration has led to one significant primary outcome with far-reaching effects:
- Elimination of Dual System Management: PG employees no longer need to maintain two different project management tools. This has resulted in:
- Substantial time savings, as staff now only interact with their preferred ClickUp system
- Reduced risk of errors and inconsistencies between systems
- Improved focus and productivity, with employees working in a single, familiar environment
- Enhanced Client Collaboration: While using only ClickUp internally, PG can now seamlessly collaborate with their client in Asana, leading to:
- More efficient and transparent communication
- Increased client satisfaction due to real-time updates in their preferred tool
- Scalability for Complex Projects: By streamlining their workflow, PG is better positioned to manage and grow their business, particularly with clients having complex, multi-faceted real estate marketing projects.
The Tech Stack
- ClickUp, PG preferred project management tool
- Asana, JC preferred project management tool
- Zapier for integrating both
Alternative Stack
- We can integrate any Project Management tool like Monday.com,Notion,Airtable orHive
