How to Use the Today Input in Asana Formulas: 6 Essential Hacks

Asana’s Today input has finally arrived, making it easier to automate real-time date calculations. In this guide, we’ll explore Asana Today Input Formulas to track deadlines, measure progress, and optimize workflows with ease.

To help you get started, here are six essential formulas that leverage the Today input, allowing you to track time spent, remaining time, planned progress, and more. You can either copy and paste these formulas directly into your Advanced Editor or use [this link] to import a project that contains them all. ⭐

💡 Quick Tip: How to Use the Today Input in Portfolios

While Today input isn’t natively available in Portfolios yet, you can bypass this limitation by following these steps:

1. Create the formula field in a project.

2. Add it to your field library.

3. Apply the field to your Portfolio by searching for it in your library.

This workaround allows you to apply these formulas across multiple projects and portfolios. 🚀

6 Essential Asana Today Input Formulas for Automating Tasks

1. Time Spent Since Creation Date (or Any Date Field)

Calculate the time elapsed from the task’s creation date to today. This formula can also be adapted for other fields, such as an employee’s start date or birthday (see formulas 5 and 6).

Result in days & hours (or weeks & days if greater than a week):

[[$TODAY]] - [[$CREATED_ON]]

Result in decimal days:

( ( [[$TODAY]] - [[$CREATED_ON]] ) + 0 ) / 1440

Result in decimal months:

( ( [[$TODAY]] - [[$CREATED_ON]] ) + 0 ) / 43920

Result in decimal years:

( ( [[$TODAY]] - [[$CREATED_ON]] ) + 0 ) / 525960

2. Time Remaining Until Due Date

Calculate how much time remains between today and a task’s due date.

Result in days & hours (or weeks & days if greater than a week):

[[$DUE_DATE]] - [[$TODAY]]

Result in decimal days:

( ( [[$DUE_DATE]] - [[$TODAY]] ) + 0 ) / 1440

Result in decimal months:

( ( [[$DUE_DATE]] - [[$TODAY]] ) + 0 ) / 43920

Result in decimal years:

( ( [[$DUE_DATE]] - [[$TODAY]] ) + 0 ) / 525960

3. Planned Percentage of Completion (Up Until Today)

Track the planned completion progress of a task or project based on its start date and due date in relation to today.

Result as a percentage:

100 - ( [[$DUE_DATE]] - [[$TODAY]] ) * 100 / ( [[$DUE_DATE]] - [[$STARTED_AT]] )

💡 Tip: Since Asana doesn’t yet support formatting formula results, name this field "% Planned Complete" so the percentage is clear.

4. Planned Budget Spent (Up Until Today)

Estimate how much of a project’s budget should have been spent so far, assuming a linear spend rate from the start date to the due date.

Formula:

Budget - ( [[$DUE_DATE]] - [[$TODAY]] ) * Budget / ( [[$DUE_DATE]] - [[$STARTED_AT]] )

💡 Tip: Ensure your ‘Budget’ field is set as a currency field to display results correctly.

5. Employee’s Time at the Company (Up Until Today)

Calculate how long an employee has worked at your company, using their start date.

Result in decimal years:

( ( [[$TODAY]] - First day ) + 0 ) / 525960

💡 Tip: If you want the result in days or months, use the same logic as in formula 1.

6. Calculate a Person’s Age (Up Until Today)

Determine someone’s current age based on their birthday.

Result in decimal years:

( ( [[$TODAY]] - Birthday ) + 0 ) / 525960

💡 Tip: To calculate age in days or months, use the same logic as in formula 1.

Conclusion

By using Asana Today Input Formulas, you can automate time-based calculations, reduce manual updates, and make your Asana projects more efficient.

Try these out in your Asana workspace, and let me know in the comments which ones work best for you! 😊

P.S. This blog post is adapted from a forum post I originally shared here. If you’re active in the community, feel free to join the conversation there too!