How it works

Follow these 7 simple steps to start creating Asana tasks from closed Help Scout conversations

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Conversation Status Changed
App connector: Help Scout • Time to complete: 0 minutes (Auto-configured)
Why this matters: This trigger monitors your Help Scout account for any conversation status changes, which kicks off the workflow when conversations move to "closed." Without this monitoring, you'd need to manually track which conversations ended and which insights should be documented.

When any conversation's status changes in Help Scout—opened, pending, closed, or spam—this trigger captures the status update and conversation details. It watches your Help Scout account continuously and passes the conversation data to the next step for status verification. The trigger automatically connects to your Help Scout account once you authorize MESA, with no manual configuration needed.

Filter: Check for "closed" status
App connector: Filter • Time to complete: 0 minutes (Auto-configured)
Why this matters: Not every status change needs to create an Asana task. This filter ensures only closed conversations proceed to the summary and task creation steps, preventing duplicate tasks for conversations that are still in progress or were marked as spam.

The filter compares the conversation status from the trigger against the value "closed." If the status matches exactly, the workflow continues to retrieve the conversation threads; if not, the workflow stops here and no task is created. This is a hard-coded filter checking specifically for "closed" status, so you don't need to configure anything—it works automatically to catch only resolved conversations.

Get List of Conversation's Threads
App connector: Help Scout • Time to complete: 0 minutes (Auto-configured)
Why this matters: This step retrieves all the messages in the conversation so the AI has the complete context to generate an accurate summary. If this step fails, the AI would have no content to analyze and couldn't create a meaningful task description.

The step fetches every thread (message) in the closed conversation using the conversation ID from the trigger. This includes the initial customer message, all agent replies, and any additional back-and-forth communication. Each thread's body text gets extracted and prepared for the next step to combine into a single summarizable format. The API call automatically uses the conversation ID to pull the correct thread data from Help Scout.

Map
App connector: Loop • Time to complete: 0 minutes (Auto-configured)
Why this matters: The conversation threads come through as separate message objects, but the AI needs them combined into a single text block to understand the full narrative. This step transforms individual messages into one continuous conversation that flows logically for analysis.

The Map step iterates through all the thread bodies retrieved in the previous step and combines them into a comma-separated text string. For example, if there were 5 messages in the conversation, this step extracts each message body and joins them together with commas, creating a single text field that contains the entire conversation from start to finish. This formatted text gets passed to both AI steps for summary and title generation.

AI: Generate Summary
App connector: AI • Time to complete: 0 minutes (Auto-configured)
Why this matters: Reading through entire support threads to understand what happened is time-consuming. This AI-generated summary distills the conversation into key points—what the customer needed, what solution was provided, and what the outcome was—so your team can quickly grasp the situation without reading the full thread.

The AI receives the comma-separated conversation text from the Map step and analyzes it to create a concise summary that focuses on the customer's issue and resolution. The prompt specifically instructs the AI to exclude technical details and focus on the narrative, making the summary accessible for team members who weren't involved in the original conversation. The summary gets included in the Asana task notes for reference.

AI: Generate Title
App connector: AI • Time to complete: 0 minutes (Auto-configured)
Why this matters: Generic task titles like "Support Ticket #1234" don't help anyone understand what the task is about. This AI-generated title creates a specific, descriptive headline that makes it easy to scan your Asana project and immediately understand what each conversation was about.

The AI analyzes the same conversation text and generates a clear title that captures the essence of the support issue. The prompt instructs the AI not to preface the title with "Title:" so it outputs clean text ready to use as the Asana task name. For example, instead of "Help Scout ticket," you might get "Customer requested refund for damaged product during shipping."

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Create Task
App connector: Asana • Time to complete: 2 minutes
Why this matters: This is where the captured insights become actionable. The Asana task centralizes all the conversation context—AI summary, ticket number, customer email, and close date—in one place where your team can track follow-ups, identify patterns, or build knowledge articles.

You'll configure two fields: the Asana workspace and the specific project where tasks should be created. The workspace is your overall Asana account (like "Marketing Team" or "Customer Success"), and the project is where these support summaries will live (like "Support Insights" or "Customer Feedback"). The task name uses the AI-generated title, and the notes section includes the AI summary, original Help Scout ticket number, customer email, and the date the conversation was closed for complete reference.

Make it your own

Customize this workflow even further:

Tag tasks by conversation topic
Add a step to analyze the conversation summary for keywords or categories (billing, technical, shipping, etc.) and automatically apply relevant Asana tags, making it easier to filter and analyze common support themes.
Send weekly digest emails to leadership
Combine this workflow with a scheduled workflow that retrieves all Asana tasks created in the past week and sends a compiled summary email to stakeholders, giving them visibility into support trends without manual reporting.
Store summaries in a data table for trend analysis
Add a step to save each conversation summary, title, and metadata in a MESA data table, then use that data to identify recurring issues, track resolution patterns, or generate monthly support insights reports.
Create different tasks based on conversation tags
If your Help Scout conversations use tags (billing, technical, feature-request), add a filter step after the status check to route different conversation types to different Asana projects or assign them to specific team members automatically.

Frequently asked questions

Will this create duplicate Asana tasks if I reopen and close a conversation multiple times?
Yes, each time a conversation is closed, a new Asana task will be created. If you frequently reopen conversations, consider adding the Help Scout ticket number to your Asana project and using a filter step to check if a task with that ticket number already exists before creating a new one.
Can the AI summary include or exclude specific types of information?
Absolutely. You can modify the AI prompt in Step 5 to focus on particular aspects. For example, you could ask it to highlight feature requests, note any customer frustration, include product names mentioned, or focus only on the final resolution. Just edit the prompt to specify what information matters most to your team.
What happens if a conversation has no messages (like spam that was immediately closed)?
The workflow will still attempt to create an Asana task, but the AI summary will likely indicate there's no meaningful content to summarize. You can add an additional filter after the "Get List of Conversation's Threads" step to check if any threads exist before continuing to the AI summary steps.
What is a template?
Templates are pre-made workflows by our team of experts. Instead of building a workflow from scratch, these have all the steps needed to complete the task.
Can I personalize a template?
Yes! Every step can be customized to meet your exact requirements. Additionally, you can even add more steps and make it more sophisticated.
Are templates free?
Yes! Our entire library containing hundreds of templates are free to use and customize to your exact needs.

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