Migrate from Asana to Plane

Migrate from Asana to Plane: what moves cleanly and what you rebuild

If your Asana renewal, a data residency requirement or a licensing change is forcing the decision, know this up front: Plane's Asana importer moves tasks and projects, but not every Asana structure carries over. Plan the migration around that gap. Plane offers its importers on Plane Cloud and on the self-hosted Commercial Edition, and the Community Edition, licensed under AGPL-3.0, gives you the free feature set but no importers on paid plans. Plane's self-hosting docs describe three editions (Community, Commercial and Airgapped), so confirm which one matches your import path before you install anything. To move to a paid plan later, a self-hosted Community install must switch to the Commercial Edition with a license key. In most organizations, an internal platform or IT team owns the move and brings in a delivery partner for the import mapping, test runs and cutover. The effort depends on how many projects you have, how many custom fields and workflows each one uses, and how many people need access during the switch. Ask your partner or Plane's team to run a trial import of two or three representative projects before estimating the rest, and agree in writing on what is in scope. Export a sample of your Asana projects to CSV first, using the fields listed in Asana's export article, so you can see what arrives in the source file before it reaches Plane.

The main risk is assuming that rules, portfolios and reporting come across with the tasks. They usually do not. Asana rules, approval workflows, custom dashboards, portfolios and goals need to be recreated in Plane by hand, using its work items, cycles, modules and views, and some Asana setups may not have a direct equivalent. Make an inventory of these objects per team before cutover, assign an owner to each one, and decide which ones you will rebuild and which you will retire. Confirm with Plane which importer fields map to which Plane properties in your version, and test that assignees, due dates and parent tasks land where your teams expect. For organization-level data, Asana's complete organization export is only available to service accounts of an Enterprise+ organization, so most teams will rely on per-project CSV exports. Keep the original Asana workspace read-only for a defined period so people can check history, and record which projects were moved, when, and who signed off. Those records are the evidence your compliance or audit team will ask for.

Which Asana capabilities map to Plane and which need rework

This table compares the Asana features your projects use with their closest Plane equivalents and marks each as clean, needs rework or gap. Clean means the data should carry across through the Asana importer or CSV export, needs rework means it arrives but must be checked or reshaped, and gap means you rebuild it by hand. Confirm exact import behavior against Plane's importer documentation before you plan the cutover.

Asana capability	Plane equivalent	Status
Tasks and subtasks	Work items and their parent links, confirm subtask handling in the importer	Needs rework
Projects and sections	Modules or cycles, since Asana sections have no one-to-one match in Plane	Needs rework
Assignees and due dates	Work item assignee and due date fields, matched to Plane workspace members	Clean
Tags and notes	Labels and the work item description, with formatting checked after import	Clean
Comments	Work item comments, confirm that authors and timestamps are preserved	Needs rework
Rules	No documented equivalent, so rebuild each rule as a manual step or external automation	Gap
Portfolios and goals	Recreate as Plane modules, cycles and pages, since Asana portfolio roll-ups do not carry over	Gap
Custom fields and forms	Work item properties after mapping, while Asana forms submissions must be exported and handled separately	Needs rework
Resource management	No equivalent in the Plane importer documentation, so plan workload views outside the import	Gap

Which Asana data paths you can use and what each leaves out

Asana gives you two documented ways to take data out, and Plane offers importers that can read some of that data directly. Each path captures a different slice of your workspace, so the choice of route decides what you rebuild by hand.

Per-project CSV export

Each project can be exported to CSV from its actions menu. The file carries task ID, dates, name, assignee, due date, tags, notes and parent task, which covers the core of most task lists. Check whether your projects rely on sections, custom fields, attachments or subtasks beyond the parent link, because those are the fields to verify in a test export before you commit to this route for every project.

Enterprise+ organization export

The organization export returns an organization's complete data as gzipped JSON. Only service accounts on an Enterprise+ organization can run it, so confirm with your Asana administrator that your plan and account type qualify before planning around it. This route is the more complete record of the workspace, but it is a developer-oriented file, so budget for someone who can parse JSON and map it to Plane work items.

Plane's Asana importer

Plane provides an Asana importer, alongside CSV and other importers, on Plane Cloud and on the self-hosted Commercial Edition. Importing into Community Edition is not the documented route, so an install that stays on Community will need the Commercial Edition or a CSV path. Run a trial import into a non-production workspace and compare task counts, assignees and dates before you migrate live projects.

CSV import into Plane

Where the Asana importer does not fit your data, a CSV file can be shaped to Plane's import format and loaded as a fallback. This route depends on your column mapping, so decide which Asana fields map to work item names, states, assignees and due dates, and which become labels or description text. Expect the cleaning and mapping work to fall on your team or implementation partner.

Integrations to rebuild

Neither export carries your Slack connections, Google Drive links, or Asana rules, so these must be recreated in Plane or in a replacement automation tool. Inventory every rule, integration and webhook your teams use, and assign an owner for each one. Automation rules are a common gap, so treat them as a separate workstream rather than assuming an import covers them.

Portfolios and reporting views

Portfolios, goals and dashboards built in Asana are not part of the task export, so they need to be recreated from scratch in Plane's cycles, modules and views. Record the reports your executives rely on and the portfolio structure before you start. Confirm with Plane which of these views are available on your plan and edition, since feature availability varies across tiers.

How to sequence an Asana to Plane migration

This sequence moves Asana projects into Plane in controlled stages, so each project is checked by its users before the old workspace is closed. Each step produces a written artifact that the next step depends on.

Inventory projects, owners and data sources
List every Asana team, project and portfolio that needs to move, and name an owner for each one. Record which projects have attachments, custom fields, dependencies, recurring tasks or automation rules, because those items will not arrive through a standard export and must be planned separately. Confirm with your Asana administrator which export route you can use, since the organization export is limited to Enterprise+ service accounts. The output is an inventory sheet with one row per project, its owner, its size and its known gaps. The step is done when every owner has confirmed their row in writing.
Map Asana fields to Plane work items
Using the inventory, build a field-mapping sheet that pairs each Asana CSV column, such as task name, assignee, due date, tags, notes, sections and parent task, with the Plane work item property, label, module or page that will hold it. Decide how Asana sections and tags will be represented in Plane, and note any field that has no direct equivalent so the team can agree on a substitute. Test the mapping on a small sample export before any real import. The output is a signed mapping sheet that the project owners and the Plane administrator have both reviewed.
Import one pilot project and check it with users
Choose a single active project of moderate size and run it through Plane's Asana importer on Plane Cloud or on the self-hosted Commercial Edition. Compare the imported work items with the Asana source, counting tasks, checking assignees, dates, subtasks and notes, and recording every difference. Ask the real users of that project to work in the imported copy for a fixed review period and report what is missing or wrong. The output is a pilot reconciliation report listing each defect, its cause and its fix. The step closes when the users accept the import in writing and the mapping sheet has been updated to reflect the fixes.
Import remaining projects in batches
Apply the corrected mapping to the remaining projects, grouping them into batches by team or by dependency so that related projects move together. After each batch, run the same reconciliation checks used in the pilot and log the results against the inventory. Rebuild the items that Plane does not carry over automatically, such as Asana rules, portfolios and dashboards, as separate work with named owners. The output is a batch log and a list of recreated assets. Each batch is complete when its reconciliation report shows no open defects that block daily use.
Run a parallel period with Asana read-only
Set Asana to read-only for the migrated projects so that teams can consult the original data while they work in Plane. Ask project owners to confirm that all active work is being tracked in Plane and that Asana is used only for reference. Keep a record of any question that is answered from Asana, because each one shows a gap in the migration. The output is a parallel-run log with the open gaps and their owners. The step is done when the log has no open gaps that affect active work and the owners agree that Plane is the system of record.
Set a freeze date and run the final delta
Agree a freeze date with every project owner and communicate it to all users in advance. On the freeze date, stop edits in Asana, export the final data for each project, and import only the changes made since the last batch, keeping a record of what was imported. Confirm the totals against the source and check a sample of recent items by hand. The output is a signed cutover checklist covering the freeze time, the final export files, the delta reconciliation and the approver for each project. The cutover is complete when the checklist is signed by the business owners and the platform administrator.
Decommission Asana access and archive exports
Once the cutover checklist is signed, remove Asana user access for the migrated teams, revoke any integrations or service accounts that point at Asana, and cancel or downgrade the Asana subscription according to your contract terms. Store the final CSV and any organization export files in an access-controlled location with a retention rule set by your records owner, so that historical data remains available for audit or dispute. Record the removal of each access path in the decommissioning log. The step is done when a review confirms that no active user or integration can still write to Asana and that the archive location has been tested for access.

How the move differs for team size and starting point

A small team running the Community Edition uses the Free feature set, which matches Plane Cloud's Free tier. Plane documents the Community Edition under AGPL-3.0 and it needs no license key, so the migration is mostly about preparing the data and checking that the features you rely on are in the Free set. Importers for Asana are available on Plane Cloud and on the self-hosted Commercial Edition, so confirm with Plane whether the Asana importer is available to a Community install before you plan around it. If it is not, your practical route is Asana's CSV project export followed by Plane's CSV import.

Import route: Confirm the importer availability for your install type before choosing between a direct importer and CSV.
Seat count: The Free plan includes 12 seats on the Kubernetes guide's description, so check that your team fits inside it before inviting everyone.
Feature set: Test any Asana rule, portfolio or dashboard you depend on, since those are not carried over by a project export.
Operations: A Community install still needs PostgreSQL, Redis or Valkey, RabbitMQ and S3-compatible storage run and backed up by someone on your team.
Upgrades: Plan a version check against the Community releases before each migration window.

Before you start, confirm with Plane which importer and feature set apply to your exact edition and seat count.

What drives the cost and duration of the move

How does the number of projects and tasks change the migration effort?

Volume is the first driver, but it rarely scales in a straight line. Plane's importers handle the data transfer, so the time they take is mostly technical. The larger cost is reviewing what came across: checking that tasks landed in the right project, that assignees matched existing users, and that dates and subtasks kept their structure. Asana's per-project CSV export includes task ID, dates, name, assignee, due date, tags, notes and parent task, so a clean export reduces rework. One-time effort covers the test import, review and the final cutover. Ask any provider for the number of projects and tasks in scope, how many test imports are included, and whether a reconciliation report is part of the deliverable.

What rules, custom fields and portfolios must be rebuilt in Plane?

Expect to recreate most automation and reporting by hand. Plane's importers carry tasks and their core fields, but Asana rules, forms, portfolios and goals are not portable in the same form. Each rule has to be redesigned as a Plane state change, workflow or integration, and each portfolio view as a Plane module, cycle or workspace view. Custom fields need mapping to Plane properties before import so that values are not lost. This work is one-time, but it can be the largest single line in a quote. Ask the provider to list every rule, custom field and portfolio in the current Asana setup, and to state which ones will be rebuilt, which will be retired and who approves that decision.

Which integrations need to be reconnected or replaced after the move?

Every integration with Slack, Google Drive, Jira, GitHub or internal systems needs a decision: reconnect, rebuild or drop. Plane exposes an API and webhooks that custom connectors can use, but a connector has to be written, tested and maintained by someone. This is partly one-time build work and partly recurring maintenance when APIs change. Asana's organization export is only available to Enterprise+ service accounts, so integrations that depend on it have a different starting point than those using per-project exports. Ask for an integration inventory, a named owner for each connector, and a statement of whether post-cutover fixes are covered.

How do identity choices change the license and setup cost?

Identity setup depends on which Plane edition and plan you choose. On self-hosted Plane, SAML and OIDC are available on Pro and above, according to Plane's pricing page, while LDAP support is listed as an Enterprise feature. Pro is shown at 6 to 8 US dollars and Business at 13 to 15 US dollars per user per month, with Enterprise Grid priced on request, so identity requirements can move you from a per-seat tier to a custom quote. Connecting the identity provider, testing login, and handling provisioning and deprovisioning are one-time tasks. Ongoing user administration is recurring. Confirm with Plane which plan includes each protocol you need, and ask any implementation partner to state whether identity configuration is in scope.

What does hosting Plane add to the total cost of ownership?

Hosting is the main recurring cost. A self-hosted Plane deployment uses PostgreSQL, Redis or Valkey, RabbitMQ and S3-compatible object storage such as MinIO. Plane documents Docker Compose for small and mid-size teams and Kubernetes with Helm for high availability, and the Helm chart can point each service at an external managed database or storage. The choice affects both cost and staffing. Docker Compose has fewer moving parts, while Kubernetes adds cluster operation. Compute, storage, backups, monitoring and staff time all recur. Ask for the proposed architecture, the hosting location, who operates each component after handover, and the backup and restore process.

Who is responsible for upgrades after the migration is complete?

Upgrades are a recurring cost that teams often underestimate. Plane publishes separate editions, Community, Commercial and Airgapped, each with its own release cycle. The Community Edition is licensed under AGPL-3.0, and its latest release cited in Plane's GitHub releases is v1.4.2, published in August 2026. Moving to a paid plan requires switching from Community to the Commercial Edition with a license key, which is a separate step. Each upgrade needs testing against your identity, storage and integration setup. Ask whether upgrades, security patches and version testing are included in the quote or sold as a retainer, and who signs off on each release.

How much data cleanup and user training should we plan for?

Data cleanup is usually the hidden driver of the schedule. Duplicate projects, orphaned tasks, inactive assignees and inconsistent tags all reach the new tool unless they are removed first. Cleanup is one-time work, and the person who knows which projects are still active is usually a project owner, not IT. User training is also one-time, but adoption depends on how familiar teams are with work items, cycles and modules. Ask for a cleanup checklist, a named business owner for approving archived projects, and a training plan that covers the first two working cycles after cutover.

Can our own team run the migration without an implementation partner?

A small team with one or two projects and few integrations can often run the migration internally, using Plane's importer and a documented test plan. Larger estates, strict identity requirements, custom rules or regulated data usually need dedicated effort for mapping, testing and documentation. DeployOpen plans, implements, customizes, integrates, backs up and documents self-hosted open-source platforms in the client's own infrastructure, typically under a fixed-scope agreement with written deliverables and timelines. DeployOpen does not publish a price list, and a quote follows from the written scope. Ask internal and external options to produce the same scope document so they can be compared directly.

What usually goes wrong and how to prevent it

Most Asana-to-Plane migrations fail quietly rather than loudly. The problems below surface after cutover, when a team notices a missing rule, a stranger assigned to a task or a date that moved by a day, so each one needs a check before the import is trusted.

Rules and portfolios don't carry over

Asana rules, portfolio roll-ups, goals and custom dashboards are not task data, so a project importer will not recreate them. Before cutover, list every rule that moves work, notifies people or sets fields, and every portfolio a leader reads. Rebuild each one in Plane as a documented workflow or view, and confirm the importer's supported object list in the Plane importers overview before you assume anything else arrives.

Comments and attachments go missing

A CSV export carries task fields such as name, notes and due date, but attachments and the full comment thread are not guaranteed to follow. Run a sample project end to end and compare a set of tasks with long comment histories and files against the source. Keep the original Asana project read-only for a set period so anyone needing a file or a past decision can still reach it.

Assignees don't match user accounts

Assignees are matched by user identity, so tasks assigned to former staff, shared inboxes or people with different email addresses can land unassigned or with the wrong owner. Export the list of Asana users on each project, map each one to a Plane account before the run, and decide what happens to tasks owned by people who have left. Spot-check ownership on a sample of high-priority tasks.

Dates and timezones shift

Due dates and start dates can move by a day when exported values are read in a different timezone from the one the team used in Asana. Check how the importer interprets date-only fields against your organization's timezone setting, then compare the earliest, latest and recurring dates on sample tasks. Record the offset you confirmed so the same check can be repeated on later batches.

Parallel runs create duplicate projects

If teams keep working in Asana while a test import runs, each re-import can create a second copy of the same project in Plane. Freeze new project creation during the migration window, label test projects clearly, and delete or archive them after sign-off. Agree in writing which tool is the system of record on each date so two boards never hold current work at once.

Undocumented integrations stop

Slack alerts, Google Sheets syncs, form intake and scripts that call the Asana API keep working until the source is switched off, then fail without warning. Ask each project owner which external tools read or write Asana, and list the API tokens and service accounts in use. Repoint each integration to Plane or retire it, and keep the source running until every integration has a confirmed replacement.

Running Asana and Plane in parallel without double entry

A parallel run only avoids double entry if every project has one fixed source of truth at any given moment. Decide this per project, not for the whole organization: a project stays in Asana until its cutover date, and after that date Plane is the only place where tasks are created or edited. Write the decision into a shared migration log with the project name, the owner, the cutover date and the names of the people allowed to edit in each system during the run. Teams that skip this step usually end up with the same task updated in two tools and no reliable way to tell which version is current.

Asana's CSV project export, described in Asana's export guide, is a point-in-time snapshot. Anything changed in Asana after the export, including new tasks, reassigned owners, moved due dates and new comments, will not appear in Plane unless someone re-imports or re-enters it. Put a dated freeze on Asana edits for each project before the final export, and tell the project members that changes made after the freeze must be recorded in Plane. Confirm with your Plane administrator whether a re-import can update existing items or only create new ones, because that determines whether you re-import the full file or only the delta. Before cutover, compare task counts, open and completed status, and assignee totals per project between Asana and Plane. Investigate any mismatch before the freeze lifts, and keep the Asana project archived but readable until the reconciliation is signed off by the project owner.

Questions buyers ask before moving from Asana to Plane

How much effort does moving from Asana to Plane take?

The effort depends mostly on how much of your Asana work you need to carry over and how much of it depends on Asana-specific features. A plain move of tasks, assignees, due dates, descriptions and attachments is the simplest case. Effort rises with the number of projects, custom fields, subtasks and dependencies that must keep their meaning, and with the number of users who need accounts and roles set up before cutover. Plane's importer handles the bulk of task data, but you still need someone to check the result project by project, map statuses to Plane states, and decide how sections become Plane structures. Ask any partner to size the work from a written inventory of your projects, fields and integrations rather than from the project count alone.

How long does a migration from Asana to Plane typically run?

No single duration applies, because the timeline follows the drivers that shape the work. The main ones are the size and age of your Asana workspace, how many teams must cut over together, how many automation rules and integrations you must rebuild, and how much cleanup you want before data lands in Plane. A pilot with one team usually shows the real pace faster than any estimate. Your first step is to run an export of one representative project, import it into a test workspace, and time the review. Ask any vendor or partner to tie their timeline to that test and to a written scope, and confirm how many review cycles are included.

Does Plane's importer move Asana rules and portfolios?

Plane's importers cover task-level data from Asana, such as projects, tasks and their core fields, but you should not assume they carry over Asana rules or portfolios. Rules and automations are Asana-side logic, and portfolios, goals and resource views are planning layers that do not map one-to-one onto Plane's work items, cycles and modules. Plan to recreate these by hand: list every rule, note its trigger and action, and rebuild it with Plane's own features or a workflow tool. For portfolios, decide which roll-ups you need and rebuild them as Plane views or as a separate reporting layer. Confirm the exact import behavior for your Asana export with the Plane importer documentation before you commit to a scope.

Can an internal team migrate from Asana to Plane alone?

Yes, a capable internal team can run the migration, provided it has the time and the skills to own the result. The work is mostly export, import, review and rebuild, and none of it needs specialist tooling beyond Plane's importer and your own admin access. The risk lies in unplanned gaps: missed rules, misread dates, orphaned attachments or users who did not map correctly. Teams that succeed usually name an owner, keep a written checklist of what was recreated, and run a parallel period with Asana read-only. Ask yourself whether your team can absorb this work alongside its normal delivery load before deciding who runs it.

What does the migration need from our staff?

The migration needs three kinds of staff time: an owner who makes scope and cutover decisions, administrators who set up Plane workspaces, roles and identity, and project leads who review their own data. The owner should be able to decide what to keep, what to archive and what to rebuild. Administrators need to handle hosting, the Plane edition you choose and user provisioning. Project leads confirm that tasks, owners and dates still make sense after import. Plan for these people to be available during review windows, not just at cutover, and agree how users will be told about the switch and where they will find older Asana records.

Should we hire a consultant or implementation partner for this move?

A partner is worth considering when the workspace is large, integrated or subject to compliance requirements, or when your team lacks spare capacity. DeployOpen plans, implements, customizes, integrates, documents and supports self-hosted open-source platforms inside your own infrastructure, and most engagements are fixed-scope, with scope, deliverables and timelines agreed in writing before work starts. DeployOpen does not publish a price list, so a quote follows from that written scope. Ask any candidate for a written scope that lists the inventory they will review, the rules they will rebuild, the review cycles included, the hosting work and the handover documentation. Compare the proposals against your own inventory rather than against each other's headline claims.

Which Plane edition should we run for a migration like this?

The edition decides which importers and features you can use, so confirm it before you start. Plane's Jira importer is listed on Plane Cloud and on all plans of the self-hosted Commercial Edition, and Plane's importers documentation lists an Asana importer alongside it on Plane Cloud and the self-hosted Commercial Edition. The Community Edition is AGPL-3.0 and matches the Cloud Free feature set, so a Community install may not include the importer you need. Moving to a paid plan requires switching from Community to Commercial with a license key. Confirm the importer availability for your chosen edition and the seat count for your user base against Plane's current documentation before you set up hosting.

What a migration partner needs from your team

A delivery partner needs four inputs from your team before it can scope a move from Asana to Plane: an export sample, an inventory of rules and integrations, named owners for each project, and a person with authority to approve cutover. The export sample matters most. Ask for one per-project CSV export from Asana's project actions menu, covering a project that uses sections, subtasks, custom fields and attachments, so the partner can test how fields such as task ID, dates, assignee, tags, notes and parent task arrive in Plane's Asana importer. If you hold an Enterprise+ organization export, confirm who in your team can run it through a service account, since that route returns complete data as gzipped JSON and needs its own review.

Next, list every Asana automation rule, approval, form, custom field, integration and connected app, and record which ones your teams depend on. Asana rules and portfolios do not carry over through the importer, so each item on this list becomes a rebuild task in Plane or a decision to drop it. Note which Plane features your teams will use in place of Asana portfolios, and confirm with the partner which of them need a paid tier. Plane's pricing page describes Pro, Business and Enterprise Grid plans, and the feature tiers for SAML, OIDC and LDAP differ, so check the current list with Plane before you assume a capability is included.

Name one owner for each Asana project and one approver for the cutover. Project owners confirm the scope of their data, sign off on the test import and answer questions about dates and assignees that the export does not make clear. The cutover approver, usually a sponsor with authority over the Asana contract and the internal change process, decides when Asana becomes read-only and accepts the final import. Agree in writing who approves each step, how long Asana stays available for reference, and where the final export is archived. Clear ownership at this stage prevents the most common delays, which are unresolved questions about who may change data during the move.

How DeployOpen scopes and runs the Asana to Plane migration

DeployOpen plans, implements, integrates, documents and supports self-hosted open-source platforms inside your own infrastructure, so the Plane deployment and the migrated data stay under your control. We agree the scope in writing before work starts, then build, test and hand over each piece with evidence you can keep.

How we scope

Inventory every Asana project, team, portfolio and rule you need to keep, and record which ones move as data and which are rebuilt by hand.
Choose the Plane route in writing: Plane Cloud, Commercial Edition on your servers, or Community Edition with its feature limits.
Agree deliverables, timelines and exclusions in a fixed-scope document before any migration work begins.

How we build

Deploy Plane in your environment, with PostgreSQL, Redis or Valkey, RabbitMQ and S3-compatible object storage configured for your standards.
Run the Asana importer or CSV import on a test workspace first, then compare task counts, assignees, dates and attachments against the Asana source.
Recreate automations, portfolio views and team structures in Plane, and record each item that could not be carried over.

How we hand over

Document the deployment, configuration, access model and the field mapping used for each imported project.
Provide a reconciliation report listing migrated items, exceptions and manual rebuilds so your team can sign off each area.
Walk your administrators through backups, upgrades and user onboarding so the workspace can run without us.

How we support

Ongoing support, upgrades and continuous testing are available as a retainer after handover.
Confirm with your Plane edition and licensing terms which features your plan includes before you commit to a retainer scope.
Ask for a written quote that follows from the agreed scope, including the Asana export effort, the hosting components and the admin time you expect to carry.

Migrate from Asana to Plane