Taco Thursday: Fresh Trello tips including Due Date automation, avoiding paprika overstock, and making better descriptions! (2024)

Why do we call it Taco Tuesday? Maybe we should call it Taco Thursday. 🤔

Anyways, let’s dive in to Trello. Here’s what I’ve got on deck for you this week:

🌮 Update a card’s due date based on next checklist items
🗞️ No more Trello support unless you’re a paid user
💡 Trello can prevent you from buying too much paprika
💪 A better way to write in cards besides descriptions
⚡ [PREMIUM] Copy these rules from my inventory board

🌮 Dear Taco

This is a section where readers can submit their Trello questions, and each week I’ll pick one and answer it! It’s like “Dear Abby” but make it trello. Have a question you want to submit? Share it here.

Dear Taco,Is there a way to automatically update a card's due date to the next unchecked checklist item's due date? Attached is a sample picture of what I'm trying to achieve.Thank you Brittany~Forrest from MIA

Hey Forrest!

Unfortunately, the answer is “not easily!”

There’s two ways you could about this.

1. Trying to use Trello API.

   
   I’m working on figuring this one out myself and I’m getting stuck at figuring out how to make Trello automation return only the “incomplete” items from a given checklist. In theory, if you can get an array with that from the Trello API, you find the first incomplete item after you have completed one, get the due date timestamp for that, and then probably have to do some wizardry and custom fields to convert to something that you could then update the card due date with.
   

2. Use PixieBrix and sorta get there semi-automatically.

   Still probably not quite what you’re looking for, but since I was so curious if I could make this work and I agree it would be useful, I built a mod with PixieBrix that set the Trello card due date to the next incomplete checklist item’s due date.

PixieBrix is a low-code browser automation tool. You create automations (called “mods”) and you can trigger them in variety of ways, like adding buttons to webpages. You can deploy it to your team, or you can just use it for yourself. Full disclosure, I work for PixieBrix so I get to play with it full time and I love it haha.

Here’s how it works. Once you create a PixieBrix account and add a Trello integration, you can activate this mod, and then you’ll have a button on your checklists that says “Update 📆”.

Click that button, and it will go to the first checklist and find the next incomplete item in the checklist, grab that item’s due date, and then set the cards due date to that.

Couple caveats with this:

• it’s only going to look for the next incomplete item in the first checklist. aka if you have multiple checklists, its not going to check through all of them.

• and it’s also not going to sort through the due dates and pick the next upcoming one. it’s going to pick the next incomplete item in the list (even if it’s the latest out due date)

  See Also

  Del Taco Breakfast Menu: Savor the Spicy Morning Fiesta! - La SilhouetteDel Taco Breakfast Menu: Savor the Spicy Morning Fiesta! - The Village DenWhat Time Does Taco John's Stop Serving Breakfast: Know Now! - The Village Den

• You’re going to have to click that button to update. It’s not going to automatically happen when you check off a checklist item. (Although you could customize the PixieBrix mod to do that.)

• Also doesn’t work on mobile cause PixieBrix operates via Chrome Extension.

• Okay one more- currently a known bug where that button doesn’t appear unless you have the Page Editor open (Chrome Dev tools). So this is kinda just a prototype at the moment, but if you want this working, reply back or comment on here and I’ll rework it and get the bug fixed to make it functional!

Want to submit your question? Maybe it’ll be featured next week!

Ask Taco

🗞 New(s) and Links

🛟 No more support for free Trello users 😭

This just in- only paid Trello users will be able to submit support tickets.

Honestly, I’m a bit bummed about this one. I understand that free users might have lower SLAs than premium users and it may take a while to respond, but losing the ability to reach out to support at all is a bummer.

But if I had to guess, part of the problem is that there are a lot of people asking questions that aren’t really support questions, but more like things people are submitting via my Dear Taco which are like “architecting” questions, rather than true support questions (like something is actually broken or I can’t access my account).

Hey. I’m seeing the glass half full here, and this just means more awesome folks will come to the Trello Community to ask questions, get inspiration, and help each other use Trello.

And you’re subscribed to this newsletter, so you always know where to find Trello help!

Latest video on my channel…

📕 Last chance to join my Trello book club!

I already sent an email about it earlier this week so I’ll quit bugging ya, but this is probably the last time I’ll offer something like this for free. So if you want to have four calls going through Supercharging Productivity with Trello, with the author (me! 👋), save your spot!

💡 Use Case Idea

Ever have too much paprika? I did. Because I kept thinking I didn’t have paprika in the camper, so I kept buying some 😂

What does this have to do with Trello?

Well, I finally decided I’d build an inventory board so I can keep track of what’s in the camper so I can tell whether I’m home, at the grocery store, or anywhere I want!

Here’s how it looks:

Lists for each category of items, and cards are each specific item.

I created a custom field called Quantity which used for what it sounds like 😂

But get this, I’ve a couple pieces of automation on this board that make it super handy.

1. Every time a card is added, the list is sorted alphabetically. This helps me quickly find things.

2. I created a card button called “Used 1” that decreases the Quantity field by 1.

3. I have an automation that adds the “need to buy” label when something gets below a certain quantity.

Want to see how those are set up? My premium subscribers can scroll to the bottom of this newsletter and see my exact rules.

Not a premium subscriber yet? You can change that in two seconds!

I’m already finding this board useful for remembering what I need to buy and bring to the camper as that’s always easier to do from home rather than having to shop at the nearby camp store (which marks things up and doesn’t have all the options I want.)

Not a camper? You might still have some inventory you want to take care of. Perhaps you want to keep track of what you have in your pantry at home, or what you have in a vacation home, or even your household inventory (think cleaning supplies and maintenance materials).

💪 Featured Power-Up

Since I checked out the Personas Power-Up last week, I started exploring their other suite of pups (Power-Ups) and I think I am even more impressed with Notes & Docs.

I’d have to write pages to give this thing a proper review, but if you ever wanted to combine Notion and Trello, I think you’re going to want to install this Power-Up.

At first, I wasn’t sure why I’d need something for notes… after all, that’s what the description field is for, right? But if you’ve ever felt the description field was lacking something, you’ll probably find it here.

I mean, come on. Look at all these options!

A couple other things I like about it:

• You can control access, so if you wanted a private note for yourself and another note for your team, you could make one private and one public (to people on the board).

• Speaking of public, you can make a note publicly viewable via a shared link. So your Trello board and card can be totally private, but you could have a special note on that card that anyone you send a link to can view.

• You can import Trello card details, so if you don’t even have to copy and paste if the card already has a description.

• View version history so you can see who messed up your Trello cards 😂

Only con - you can’t access this on mobile, just like any other Power-Up. But if you operate primarily on desktop and can handle your details being stored there, you’ll be set.

I've recently been trying out Confluence, but to be honest, I’m a bit more impressed by creating a document with this rather than the ability you get with embedding a confluence page (although admittedly I’m still exploring that aspect, so hard to compare apples to apples just yet.)

Special shoutout to my premium sponsors!

Thanks to:

• Mike Day - Dreamsuite Mike

  🎉 New Website 🎉

  Trello Consulting done differently

• Notes and Docs
  Advanced notes and documents like in Notion, OneNote, or Confluence, but designed to be part of your Trello experience. Keep everything together without the need to jump back and forth between apps.

• Amazing Fields
  Build custom workflows with extra data for cards with formulas, formatting, styling, custom fields, and everything else you could imagine needing to make Trello do your bidding.

• Hipporello

  Turn Trello into a business hub with robust Power-Ups for recruitment, customer support, employee directory, knowledge base and more.

• Placker

  The best all in one power-up for planning, tracking and managing work across boards. Use extended board, reports, master boards, Gantt views and card mirroring across boards.

• Unito
  Turn forms and surveys into Trello cards automatically as soon as they’re received in Jotform, Typeform, or SurveyMonkey. Unito’s integrations keep your Trello boards in sync with the rest of your stack.

• Approvals for Trello

  Make the review and approval process an absolute breeze with Approvals for Trello, and say goodbye to never-ending email chains and having to chase your teammates for feedback.

• Email in Trello
  Organize & automate your Email in Trello. Connect any Trello board with Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo & more.

Btw, haven’t gotten a copy of my Trello book yet? What are you waiting for?

The following content is only available for Premium Subscribers. Go to your substack settings and upgrade to a monthly or annual subscription!

⚡ Automation Tip of the Week

Here’s the screenshots of the automations I use in my inventory Trello board: