Asana intros new video messaging capability to reduce daily meetings for teams | ZDNet

Team management software provider Asana on Wednesday announced a new suite of features that aim to eliminate distributed work distractions and help employees focus. 

The new capabilities include a live video communication integration via Vimeo that lets employees record and send short videos of themselves and/or their screen directly in Asana. 

The company is pitching video messaging as a way to reduce the number of daily meetings as well as create a single source of truth for key initiatives across teams and timezones. The service also creates searchable video transcripts automatically.

In addition to the new video integration, Asana also debuted a new prioritization system, a smart calendar assistant, and the new Asana desktop app. The revamped My Tasks intelligent prioritization system lets users organize their work in Kanban, and automatically lists calendar versions of their personal tasks based on urgency. 

The smart calendar assistant is built through an integration with Clockwise, allowing users to schedule tasks into focus time without leaving Asana. Meanwhile, Asana’s new desktop app, available on Mac and Windows, now features Dark Mode, which quiets notifications and dims the screen to reduce the strain of device light. 

Asana has been working to scale its business over the last few years. In 2019, Asana launched Asana Automation, opened a new office in Tokyo, and launched Asana for Marketing and Creative Teams. Overall, Asana has more than 100 integrations with enterprise software vendors including Slack, Microsoft Office 365, Gmail, Adobe Creative Cloud, and others.