## Introduction
Asana is a popular project management tool used by startups and enterprises to organize tasks, projects, and team collaboration. One valuable feature in Asana is the ability to clone or duplicate an entire project with all associated tasks, subtasks, assignees, and due dates — streamlining the setup of recurring projects or onboarding new teams quickly.
However, the native project cloning feature may come at an additional cost or be missing on lower-tier plans of Asana. For startups looking to optimize expenses, automating the project cloning process with an open-source automation tool like n8n can replace this paid feature efficiently.
This article presents a detailed step-by-step guide to building an n8n workflow that replicates Asana’s project cloning function. The tutorial benefits product managers, automation engineers, and operations specialists by showing how to rebuild and customize this feature using Asana API integrations and n8n, eliminating the need for paid project cloning addons.
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## What the Automation Solves and Who Benefits
– **Problem:** Manual duplication of project structures in Asana is tedious, error-prone, and time-consuming, especially for repetitive project setups.
– **Who benefits:** Startup CTOs, product teams, and ops teams who regularly create similar projects but want to avoid extra costs from paid Asana features.
– **Outcome:** Automate full project cloning — including project metadata, sections, tasks, task assignees, tags, due dates — with a single workflow trigger.
## Tools and Services Integrated
– **Asana:** Source project and target projects (where cloned projects get created).
– **n8n:** Automation platform to orchestrate API calls and logic without additional coding.
## How the Workflow Works: Overview
1. **Trigger:** Manual trigger or webhook to kick off the cloning process with project ID input.
2. **Get Original Project Details:** Use Asana API to retrieve the source project metadata.
3. **Create New Project:** Create a new project in the desired workspace/team with the same settings.
4. **Retrieve Sections:** Get all sections (columns) of the original project.
5. **Create Sections in New Project:** Replicate sections in the new project.
6. **Get Tasks Per Section:** Fetch all tasks in each section, including task details, subtasks, assignees, and due dates.
7. **Create Tasks:** For each original task, create a corresponding task in the cloned project under the correct section.
8. **Clone Subtasks:** For tasks with subtasks, recursively recreate identical subtasks.
9. **Set Task Properties:** Preserve assignees, due dates, tags, and descriptions.
## Step-by-Step Technical Tutorial
### Prerequisites
– An active Asana account with API access.
– n8n installed locally, on-premise, or via cloud.
– Asana Personal Access Token (PAT) for authentication.
### Step 1: Set up n8n Credentials for Asana
1. In n8n, go to Credentials → Create new Asana API credential.
2. Enter your PAT.
3. Save.
### Step 2: Build the Workflow Trigger
– Use the **Manual Trigger** node or preferably an **HTTP Webhook** node if cloning is to be triggered externally.
– Add a parameter `sourceProjectId` to specify which project will be cloned.
### Step 3: Fetch Original Project Details
– Add HTTP Request node to call `GET https://app.asana.com/api/1.0/projects/{project_gid}`
– Use the source project ID from trigger.
– Store JSON response with project name, notes, workspace/team ID.
### Step 4: Create New Project
– Add HTTP Request node to `POST https://app.asana.com/api/1.0/projects`
– Include body JSON with `name` (e.g., “Copy of {original project name}”), `workspace`, and other desired fields.
– Save new project GID from response.
### Step 5: Get Sections of Original Project
– Add HTTP Request node to `GET https://app.asana.com/api/1.0/projects/{project_gid}/sections`
– Use source project ID.
– Store array of sections.
### Step 6: Create Sections in the New Project
– For each section in the original project:
– Use HTTP Request node with `POST https://app.asana.com/api/1.0/projects/{new_project_gid}/sections`
– Payload: `{ “name”: “
– Save mapping of original section IDs to new section IDs for task assignment.
### Step 7: Get Tasks for Each Original Section
– For each original section:
– Use HTTP Request node `GET https://app.asana.com/api/1.0/sections/{section_gid}/tasks?opt_fields=assignee,due_on,tags,notes,subtasks` to retrieve tasks with full details.
### Step 8: Create Tasks in Corresponding New Sections
– For each task:
– POST `https://app.asana.com/api/1.0/tasks` with:
– Project: `{new_project_gid}`
– Section: mapped new section ID
– Name, assignee, due date, tags, notes from original request.
– Store new task GID for subtask cloning.
### Step 9: Clone Subtasks Recursively
– For each original task:
– If subtasks exist, GET `https://app.asana.com/api/1.0/tasks/{task_gid}/subtasks`
– For each subtask, create equivalent subtask linked to new parent task.
– Repeat setting assignees, notes, due dates.
### Step 10: Finalize and Test
– Test your workflow with different source projects.
– Confirm cloned projects match original structure.
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## Common Errors and Tips for Robustness
– **Rate Limits:** Asana API enforces rate limits. Implement `Wait` nodes or exponential backoff retries in n8n to avoid 429 error.
– **Incomplete Data:** Use `opt_fields` parameters extensively to include all necessary fields.
– **Assignee Permissions:** Assignees must be collaborators on new project/workspace to assign tasks successfully.
– **Handling Large Projects:** Paginate API requests for large task lists to ensure full retrieval.
– **Error Handling:** Use n8n’s error workflows or `IF` nodes to handle failed API calls gracefully.
## Scaling and Adaptation
– Add user input parameters in the webhook trigger to customize cloned project names or prefix/suffix.
– Enable cloning of custom fields by integrating Asana custom field endpoints.
– Extend workflow to clone project-level collaborators and followers.
– Schedule cloning for recurring project templates automatically via a Timer node.
– Integrate notifications: Post Slack messages when cloning completes.
## Summary and Bonus Tip
By leveraging n8n’s flexible workflow automation, you can fully replace Asana’s paid project cloning feature, saving costs without sacrificing productivity. This approach empowers startups to customize cloning logic beyond native capabilities, tailoring every aspect to their team’s needs.
**Bonus tip:** To reduce API calls and speed cloning, selectively clone only essential data fields per your use case. Additionally, export your workflow as a template in n8n to share across teams.
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Feel free to use this guide to build scalable, cost-effective Asana automations that empower your team collaboration!