Definition

This action allows you to modify the properties of an existing custom field within a specified Asana workspace. It enables you to programmatically change key details of a field, such as its name or descriptive text, helping to keep your project management environment consistent and up-to-date.

Key capabilities include:

• Targeting a specific custom field within any Asana workspace.
• Updating the field's title (name) or its descriptive help text.

This action is valuable for automating the maintenance of your Asana setup, ensuring that custom fields accurately reflect your current workflows and terminology.

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Inputs

1. Connection

   • Purpose: This field establishes an authenticated connection to your Asana account. It authorizes zenphi to securely access and modify your Asana data.
   • Practical Guidance: You must select a pre-existing Asana connection from the dropdown menu or create a new one. This is always a static selection made when you configure the action.
   • Use Case Context: You would use this field to grant zenphi the necessary permissions to update a custom field on your behalf.

2. Workspace

   • Purpose: This field specifies the Asana workspace that contains the custom field you wish to update.
   • Practical Guidance: After setting your connection, you can select a workspace from the automatically populated dropdown list (a static value). Alternatively, you can use the token picker to dynamically insert a Workspace ID from a previous step, such as a "Find Workspace" action.
   • Use Case Context: You would use this field to tell zenphi to look for the custom field in your "Marketing Team" workspace instead of the "Engineering" workspace.

3. Custom field

   • Purpose: This field identifies the exact custom field you want to modify.
   • Practical Guidance: Once a workspace is selected, this dropdown will list all available custom fields within it for you to choose from (a static value). For more dynamic workflows, you can use the token picker to provide the ID of a custom field obtained from a trigger or another action.
   • Use Case Context: You would use this field to select the specific field you want to change, such as "Task Priority" or "Project Budget".

4. Select Field for Update

   • Purpose: This field allows you to choose which specific attribute of the custom field you want to change.
   • Practical Guidance: This is a dropdown menu where you must select either "Field Title" or "Description". Your selection here will determine which of the subsequent input fields becomes visible and required.
   • Use Case Context: You would use this field to decide whether you are renaming the custom field or just changing its help text.

4.1. Field Title

• Purpose: This field is for providing the new name for the selected custom field. It only appears if you chose "Field Title" in the previous step.
• Practical Guidance: You can enter the new name directly into the text box (a static value). Alternatively, you can use the token picker to populate the name from a variable or the output of a previous step, such as a value from a submitted form.
• Use Case Context: You would use this field to rename a custom field from "Owner" to "Task Assignee".

4.2. Description

• Purpose: This field is for providing the new descriptive text for the custom field. It only appears if you chose "Description" in the previous step.
• Practical Guidance: You can type the new description directly into the text box as a static value. For dynamic content, you can use the token picker to insert text from another source in your flow.
• Use Case Context: You would use this field to update the help text for a "Status" field to clarify what "In Progress" means for your team.

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Outputs

1. Custom Field Id

   • Data Description: This output provides the unique, globally recognized identifier for the custom field that was just updated.
   • Workflow Utility: This ID is essential for maintaining a reliable audit trail or for passing to subsequent actions. For example, you could use this ID in a later "Get Custom Field Details" action to verify the changes were applied correctly.

2. Name

   • Data Description: This output contains the updated name (title) of the custom field after the action has run.
   • Workflow Utility: This is extremely useful for confirmation and communication. You can use this token in a "Send Email" or "Post a Slack Message" action to notify your team, for example: "The 'Old Name' field has been successfully renamed to '[Name]'."

3. Type

   • Data Description: This output shows the data type of the custom field, such as "text," "number," or "enum" (for dropdowns).
   • Workflow Utility: While this action doesn't change the field type, this output can be used for conditional logic later in your flow. For instance, you could build a path that only executes certain steps if the Type of the updated field is "number".

4. Description

   • Data Description: This output provides the new, updated description of the custom field.
   • Workflow Utility: This token is valuable for logging and verification. You can include it in a summary report or a notification to confirm that the field's help text has been successfully changed, ensuring clarity for all users.

Example Use Cases

1. Standardize Naming Conventions Automatically rename custom fields across your workspace to maintain consistent terminology, such as changing "Owner" to "Assignee".
2. Update Field Descriptions Programmatically update the help text for a custom field to reflect new processes or provide clearer instructions to your team.
3. Automate Quarterly Updates Create a scheduled workflow that renames budget or planning fields at the start of each new quarter, such as changing "Q3 Forecast" to "Q4 Forecast".
4. Reflect Organizational Changes When a department or project code name changes, automatically update the corresponding custom fields to align with the new structure.

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Example

Scenario: Your organization is standardizing its project management terminology. As part of this initiative, the custom field currently named "Project Lead" needs to be renamed to "Project Owner" in the main "Company Projects" workspace to ensure clarity and consistency for all team members. Performing this change manually is time-consuming and risks inconsistency.

Steps to Implement:

1. Create a trigger for the workflow. For a one-time change like this, use the On-Demand Trigger to run the flow manually.
2. Add the Update Custom Field action to the canvas.
3. Configure the "Update Custom Field" action with the following settings:
   • Connection: Select your pre-configured Asana connection.
   • Workspace: Choose the "Company Projects" workspace from the dropdown list.
   • Custom field: Select the "Project Lead" field from the list of available fields.
   • Select Field for Update: Choose "Field Title" from the dropdown.
   • Field Title: Enter the new name Project Owner.
4. Add a Send a message (Slack) action to notify the project management office that the change has been completed. In the message, use the Name token from the output of the "Update Custom Field" action to confirm the new name.

Outcome: This workflow automates the renaming process, ensuring the "Project Lead" field is instantly and accurately updated to "Project Owner" across the entire workspace. It eliminates manual effort, prevents errors, and provides an immediate notification to confirm that the standardization task is complete.

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Best Practices

1. Use Dynamic IDs Instead of selecting a static custom field from the dropdown, use the token picker to provide the Custom Field Id from a previous action, like "Find Custom Field." This makes your workflow more robust and reusable for different fields.
2. Verify Changes After the update action, use a "Get Custom Field Details" action with the Custom Field Id from the output to fetch the updated information. This allows you to verify that the change was applied correctly before proceeding with the workflow.
3. Implement Error Handling Use zenphi's error handling capabilities to define what should happen if the action fails (e.g., due to incorrect permissions or an invalid field ID). Configure a catch block to send a notification to an administrator so the issue can be resolved quickly.
4. Log All Modifications For auditing and governance, log every update. Add a step after this action to write a new row in a Google Sheet or a logging database, capturing the Custom Field Id, the old value (if known), the new Name or Description, and the timestamp of the change.