Automate Description Text via automation on "new card"

[Scott]

Hi, 

When a new card is added to a list I want to automatically add some text in the description. I know I can do this via an "automation rule" and then using the "content" and "set the cards description to" sections.... But that is fixed text

BUT...

Can I set it so the text that is grabbed comes from another card?
Basically I want the description from an older card to automatically be added to the new card which is being created.

Hope that makes sense.

Thank you.

[Brittany Joiner · Accepted solution]

You'd need to have a way to reference the existing card, but if you can do that either by the name of the card or adding it as an attachment, then you can "find/lookup" the card, and then reference {foundcarddescription}.

And you can append text to the original card by doing

{triggercarddescription}\n\n------\n\n{foundcarddescription}

[Scott]

I tried to do that but I'm not sure I understand how to do that correctly.
Can you give more specific instructions?

If I grab the cards link from the share button, how do I then incorporate that into your formula above?

This is what I did....

{CARD SHARE LINK}\n\n------\n\n{foundcarddescription}

then the automation for that "Rule" all stopped working, even the parts which were working before like adding HOT, adding CHECKLIST etc.

Hopefully my screenshot helps.

[Brittany Joiner]

@Scott  Yeah that helps me see what you're doing - thanks for the screenshot!

I think i might have confused you by trying to conflate looking up a new card and appending text from the original description. To actually lookup a new card and get find that description you want to add, you need to go to Cascade and use an action to look up that card you link there, and then you can reference it via {foundcarddescription}.

Here's a loom with what you want to do: https://www.loom.com/share/a89849b7f05b4d1da22efe124482f054

[Scott]

That's awesome, thank you! It works perfectly.

[Scott]

Maybe there is a short-code or something to allow this?
Which I can input into the ""set the cards description to" section.

---

Therefore, to grab the text from an existing card description and input it automatically to the new card which is being created via automation. So, if the existing card description changes, any cards created will take the current version of the existing card description rather than a "fixed text description".

Thank you.