Top 3 Asana Time Tracking Integrations for 2024 [Full Guide]

Do you love how smooth your team operates with Asana but wish it could be better? Are you looking to enhance your project management in Asana with effective time tracking?

Since time tracking isn’t what Asana does best, integrating a dedicated time tracking tool can streamline your workflow, provide accurate data, and improve productivity. These integrations also provide detailed reports, which help in tracking time effectively and managing projects more efficiently.

This means your team gets more done, with less time and you look like a genius at the next managers meeting!

In this article we will explore the best Asana time tracking integrations that seamlessly fit into your project management routine.

Key Takeaways

• Time tracking integrations enhance Asana’s project management capabilities by improving productivity, accountability, and data accuracy.
• Popular integrations like Everhour, Timely, and Harvest offer unique features, such as automated tracking and real-time updates, to optimize time management.
• Setting up these integrations is straightforward. They allow teams to easily track time, estimate tasks, set and manage budgets, analyze both estimated and actual times spent on projects, and analyze productivity metrics directly within Asana.

What is Asana?

Asana, founded in 2008 by Dustin Moskovitz and Justin Rosenstein, is a cloud-based work management and collaboration platform that helps teams streamline their projects and tasks. Think of it as your team’s digital headquarters, where everyone can see what needs to be done, who’s doing it, and when it’s due.

Asana is in the same mix with other popular project management competitors like Monday, Clickup, Jira, and Basecamp.

Critical features of Asana include:

1. Task Management: Create, assign, and prioritize tasks with ease. You can set due dates, add descriptions, and attach files. The “My Tasks” feature gives you a personal to-do list across all your projects that I find very useful.
2. Multiple Project Views: View your work your way. Whether you prefer lists, boards, calendars, or timelines, Asana has you covered. Switch between views to find what works best for each project.
3. Workflow Automation: Save time and reduce errors with Asana’s Workflow Builder. This no-code tool lets you create AI generated automated processes that keep your team in sync and integrates with over 200 business apps.
4. Custom Fields: Create unique fields to Tailor Asana to your needs. Track your team’s priority levels, project status, or any other important information.
5. Time Tracking: With built-in time tracking, you can keep projects on budget and schedule. Estimate how long tasks should take and log the time spent, giving you valuable data for future planning.

These features work together to make Asana a powerful ally in managing your team’s work and connecting tasks to the goals of your organization. It’s designed to boost efficiency and keep everyone on the same page, no matter how complex your projects get.

Why Use Time Tracking Integrations with Asana?

Time tracking is a cornerstone of effective project management.

As a project manager, you’ll gain valuable insights into task durations, spot bottlenecks, and make informed decisions to streamline your team’s workflow. This data-driven approach helps you allocate resources more effectively, keeping your projects on time and within budget.

One cool feature of Asana’s time tracking is how it rolls subtask time into the main task, giving you a complete picture of time spent. Project charts also help teams compare estimated vs. actual time, fine-tuning your time management skills.

While Asana does offer time tracking, the problem is it’s limited to higher-tier plans (Advanced, Enterprise, and Enterprise+, starting at $24.99 per user/month). This can be a hurdle for smaller teams or those watching their budget. Plus, the feature set might not meet all your needs.

That’s where third-party time tracking integrations come in. They bridge the gap, offering comprehensive time management solutions for teams on any Asana plan. These integrations enhance Asana’s capabilities, allowing for:

• Timers and billing options embedded into the Asana interface
• More effective workload allocation
• Better understanding of time utilization
• Enhanced productivity and accuracy
• Improved reporting and analysis

By leveraging the right integrations, time tracking in Asana becomes a seamless part of your project management toolkit. It empowers your agency, business, or team to make data-driven decisions, adjust workflows on the fly, and keep projects sailing smoothly toward success. This also means you sailing smoothy towards a promotion!

Top Time Tracking Integrations for Asana

Here’s our lineup of three of the top time tracking integrations that can enhance your Asana experience:

• Everhour – best for streamlining time management
• Timely – the best automated time tracking solution
• Harvest – for those who want strong time tracking and invoice management

1. Everhour (Best for Streamlined Time Management)

Everhour seamlessly integrates with Asana, offering real-time updates and allowing you to access its features without leaving the Asana interface. This integration streamlines your workflow and improves efficiency.

The key features you’re getting from Everhour are:

• Timers: Track time as tasks are being completed, ensuring accuracy in your records.
• Estimated time: Compare projected timelines with time spent, improving your planning skills.
• Reported time: Simplify invoicing with clear records of billable hours.
• Total time tracking by section: Great because you can then identify project bottlenecks and resource needs quickly.
• Estimate tasks: Estimate tasks, set budgets, and analyze both estimated and actual times spent on projects, contributing to better project management and productivity.

On a recent web development project, Everhour’s real-time updates helped me spot a backend task running over budget. I quickly reallocated resources, avoiding a two-week delay and while keeping the client happy. It was like having a project guardian angel!

One of my favorite Everhour features is its automatic syncing of all active projects. This eliminates the need for manual updates, reduces errors, and saves time.

For team leaders, Everhour provides valuable oversight. For example, you can monitor your construction team’s time allocation across projects efficiently, allowing you to anticipate potential delays or resource constraints and take proactive measures. This means you can feel accomplished and confident that you know exactly how your ship is sailing!

And the best part is you access these features directly in Asana. This minimizes time lost when switching between applications, which could be pretty annoying during the course of a workday.

If you forget to start the timer (which almost all of us will at some point), Everhour allows manual time entry, ensuring all work is tracked even during busy periods.

Regarding pricing, Everhour’s Team Plan costs $10 per user per month ($8.50 if paid annually), with a minimum of five users. For a 10-person team, this amounts to $100 monthly or $1,020 annually.

I think starting with their 14-day free trial is a good first step. Following this, a 3-month trial period can help you fully assess how Everhour enhances your team’s productivity before making a long-term commitment.

2. Timely (Best Automated Time Tracking Solution)

Timely’s integration with Asana offers an innovative time-tracking and project management approach. The AI-powered system automatically monitors time spent on Asana tasks, significantly reducing the need for manual time logging.

This automation is particularly beneficial for teams that struggle with traditional timesheet methods, or manual trackers, potentially saving considerable time and improving accuracy.

The key features you’re getting from Timely are:

• Automatic time tracking captures time spent on specific Asana tasks and projects
• One of my favorite features, completed tasks are automatically time-stamped and visible in Timely’s Memory timeline, showcasing the efficiency of tracking time that is linked to concluded work within Asana projects.

Another important feature is Timely addresses privacy concerns by allowing users to review and edit their tracked time before submitting. This is nice because users can control the information shared with their team, balancing automation with personal oversight.

The integration complements Asana’s project management capabilities by offering precise data for better project estimates and profitability analysis. If you are a manager or leader tasked with getting the most out of your team, this enables accurate differentiation between billable and non-billable work, leading to more precise client billing and improved operational efficiency.

This means more revenue for your company and your accounting department singing you praises!

The Timely-Asana integration creates a complete automation loop, keeping projects, tasks, and collaborators in sync between platforms. This streamlined workflow significantly reduces administrative tasks, allowing team members to focus more on strategic work.

Timely offers four pricing plans:

1. Starter: $11 per user/month ($9 if billed annually)
2. Premium: $20 per user/month ($16 if billed annually)
3. Unlimited: $28 per user/month ($22 if billed annually)
4. Enterprise: Custom pricing for larger organizations

All plans are compatible with Asana, and Timely offers a 14-day trial with full access to all features.

3. Harvest (Best Comprehensive Time and Expense Tracking)

Harvest offers robust time tracking capabilities that integrate with Asana, benefiting teams managing billable hours and client invoicing. The integration, while helpful, does require some manual input from users.

Critical features of Harvest’s Asana integration include:

• Start Harvest timers directly from Asana tasks using a browser extension
• Import projects and team members from Asana to Harvest
• Generate invoices based on tracked time and expenses
• Access various reports for analyzing time spent on projects and tasks
• Use the mobile app for time tracking on the go

There are some limitations:

• Manual project selection is required when starting a timer from Asana
• No automatic time tracking when tasks move to “In Progress” in Asana
• The recent removal of native Harvest integration, now requiring a browser extension
• Manual input is needed to transfer hours from Asana to Harvest

While Harvest provides valuable tools for time tracking and financial management, the big thing to know is the integration with Asana is not fully automated. Some manual actions are necessary to track time and manage projects across both platforms effectively. But overall Harvest is still a nice combo with Asana for tracking and invoicing time.

Harvest offers two pricing plans:

1. Free: This plan is suitable for individuals or small teams. It includes one user seat, two projects, and all core features.
2. Pro: $12 per user/month ($10.80 if billed annually). Offers unlimited users, projects, and access to all features.

Both plans are compatible with Asana. Harvest offers a 30-day trial with full access to all features, allowing you to thoroughly test its capabilities before committing.

How to Set Up Time Tracking Integrations in Asana

If you want to supercharge your Asana experience with either Everhour, Timely, or Harvest, you can easily do that. Connecting these tools to Asana is simple. Let’s walk through how to set up each one:

Everhour and Asana: A Match Made in Productivity Heaven

1. Create your Everhour account (if you haven’t already)
2. Install the Everhour browser extension
3. Connect Everhour to Asana using the enhanced Asana Sync Integration

Once connected, Everhour works its magic, automatically syncing all your existing projects. No manual setup is required. No heavy lifting required on your part.

Timely and Asana: Automation at Your Fingertips

Want to harness Timely’s AI-powered time tracking? Here’s how:

1. Make sure you’re an admin in both Asana and Timely (you need the keys to both kingdoms)
2. Connect your Asana and Timely accounts

That’s it! Timely will automatically sync all your active projects, tasks, and assigned users from Asana.

Pro tip: Archived projects won’t sync, keeping your Timely workspace clutter-free and focused on current work.

Harvest and Asana: Simplicity Meets Functionality

Harvest keeps things refreshingly simple:

1. Create your Harvest account
2. Link it to your Asana account
3. Adjust your Asana project settings to enable time tracking

Now you can log hours directly from your Asana tasks – no more jumping between apps!

If you hit any snags along the way, don’t sweat it. Common fixes include double-checking your authorization settings and ensuring your project permissions allow time tracking.

Its probably not hyperbole to claim that setting up these integrations will literally turbo boost your project management. You’ll wonder how you ever managed without them! Remember, a little setup time now can save you hours in the future, so get those integrations setup asap.

Supercharging Your Time Tracking in Asana Projects

Are you looking to improve your Asana time tracking? Let’s explore some advanced techniques to maximize your efficiency and accuracy.

Custom Fields

Think of custom fields as your project’s X factor. Use them to track:

• Billable hours (cash in the bank)
• Estimated time (your crystal ball)
• Actual time spent (reality check)
• Estimated hours for tasks (track progress)

Comparing estimated to actual time reveals project progress and identifies potential issues early.

The Start Timer Function

See that little timer icon? It’s your new best friend. Click it to start tracking in real time. It’s perfect for:

• Main tasks (the big stuff)
• Subtasks (those pesky little details)

Flexible time tracking accommodates your work schedule, allowing you to pause, resume, or manually log time as needed.

Reporting: Turning Time into Detailed Reports and Insights

Now, let’s talk about making sense of all this tracked time. This is where integrations like Everhour and Timely shine.

Everhour

With Everhour, you’re creating reports and telling your project’s story. You can:

• Focus on specifics (subtasks, estimates vs. actuals)
• Share reports (keep everyone in the loop)
• Schedule email distributions

Think of it as your data analyst, tirelessly working round the clock to deliver project insights.

Timely

Timely accurately predicts and records your time usage. It:

• Automatically tracks time (no more forgetting to hit start!)
• Provides detailed productivity metrics (spot those time-wasters)
• It helps you spot trends. (Are Mondays really your most productive day?)

With Timely, you’re not just tracking time; you’re unlocking insights that can transform your work.

Remember, the goal isn’t just to track time but to use that data to work smarter, not harder.

Mastering Budgets and Payroll with Asana Integrations

Want your time tracker to show you the money? Integrating time tracking tools like Harvest with Asana provides precise project cost insights and ensures accurate payroll processing.

Budgeting with Harvest

Harvest integration enables quick budget setup and real-time financial tracking directly within Asana, improving project cost management.

Payroll Integration

Imagine a world where payroll just… happens. That’s the magic of integrating time tracking data with payroll systems. Tools like Harvest crunch your numbers, accounting for every hour worked. Your HR team will love you for lightening their load, and you’ll love the tighter grip on your budget.

How to Boost Team Productivity Using Asana Time Tracking Integrations

Want to take your team’s productivity to the next level? Here’s how to make time tracking your ally:

Encouraging Accurate Time Logging: Make It Easy, Make It Fun

• Simplify logging: Make it so easy your team can do it in their sleep
• Set reminders: A gentle nudge goes a long way
• Promote real-time tracking: Asana’s start timer function is your friend
• Foster transparency: Focus on outcomes, not hours spent

Monitoring Progress and Tweaking Workflows: Stay Agile, Stay Ahead

• Use Kanban boards: Visual progress is motivating
• Schedule check-ins: Keep everyone in sync
• Review data regularly: Spot bottlenecks before they become roadblocks
• Bi-weekly team reviews: Analyze and optimize together

By embracing these strategies, you’re not just tracking time—you’re transforming how your team works. These methods are productivity boosters for your projects, supercharging your team’s efficiency and output.

Final Thoughts

Integrating time tracking with Asana is like boosting your project management. Whether you choose Everhour, Timely, or Harvest, you’ll gain valuable insights into your team’s time use.

These easy-to-set-up tools help you:

• Enhance team productivity
• Master budget management
• Make data-driven decisions
• Adjust workflows on the fly
• Keep projects on track and budget

Ready to level up? Here’s your action plan:

1. Review the discussed integrations
2. Pick the best fit for your team
3. Start a trial
4. Watch your productivity soar

Don’t wait – your more efficient future is just a few clicks away. Let’s make every second count!

Frequently Asked Questions