Cannot move parent card automatically when moving mirror card.

[Randal Brown]

I have 2 boards set up, one for myself, and one for the family. I did this so that the family doesn't have to be subjected to all the little nuances of things that I am doing. If I add a "Family" label to a card in either board, then an automation will create a mirror in the other board. I am able to get this so that it will move the mirror card to the appropriate list if I move the parent. However, when I try to move the mirror card to another list, I cannot seem to get the parent card to move automatically to the correct list.
The command that I have set up in automation is as follows:
"when a card with the light green "Family" label without the dark red "Do Not Automate" label is moved into list "Stuff I'm Doing", find the source card, add the dark red "Do Not Automate" label to the card, move the card to the top of list "In Progress" on board "Brown Family", and remove the dark red "Do Not Automate" label from the card"

At first I had the trigger command as something like:
"when a card with the light green "Family" label without the dark red "Do Not Automate" label with the role mirror..." But that did not seem to work so I removed the role filter to see if I could fix it and it still does not work. After reading some other posts, I also tried using "find a card with the link {cardname}" but that also does not work.

For reference, here is the same command that automatically moves the mirror card when I move the parent card (which works):
"when a card without the dark red "Do Not Automate" label with the role none is moved into list "Stuff I'm Doing", find a Mirror card on board "Brown Family", add the dark red "Do Not Automate" label to the card, move the card to the top of list "In Progress" on board "Brown Family", and remove the dark red "Do Not Automate" label from the card".

FYI (the "Do Not Automate" label is used to help prevent recursion when moving cards around).
I am suspicious that the problem comes from not explicitly mentioning the board that the parent is in, but I cannot find a way to do that with the prompts that are available.

Please advise.

Thank you,

Randal

[Oleksii Melnyk _MOY Apps_ · Accepted solution]

This is a known Butler limitation.
Butler can reliably find mirror cards, but it can’t reliably go the other way (from a mirror back to its source) unless there’s an explicit reference to the parent card.

To make this work, you need to store the parent card link when the mirror is created (for example, in the mirror card description or a custom field). Then, when the mirror card is moved, use that stored link to find and move the original card.

Without an explicit stored link, Butler can’t consistently identify the parent card, even with labels or role filters.

[Randal Brown]

Thanks for the reply. That explains why I have been wracking my brain trying to get it to work. There is an option to "get the source card", which I figured would... you know... get the source card. But apparently not. 

I am able to get the cardlink into a custom field. But, I don't see any way through the UI to find a card by custom field, or even by link. Am I missing something? Or am I going to have to do an API call?

Thanks again,

Randal

[Randal Brown]

I accepted the answer as the correct one because, technically, he answered the question that I was asking (which was, why can't I get this to work the way I am attempting to do it). 

However, I found a different way to solve the problem that I was attempting to solve. I was going at this all the wrong way. I was trying to control cards in a different board, which is probably bad practice to begin with, because you run the risk of recursively changing things in an infinite loop.

Instead, I finally got smart, and realized that, if I simply add a label to the card when I move it from one list to another, I can listen for that on the other board and move the other card accordingly. This works when I move a parent card, and it also works when I to move the parent when I move its mirror card.

This way, each board is only controlling its own cards and does not really need to be aware of the other boards or its cards. This is probably blatantly obvious to most other people, but I think I was lost in all of the functionality and couldn't see the forest for the trees.

The solution is actually much more simple now and uses less operations. I just thought that I would post my solution in case there is anyone out there who, like me, is trying to over-think how to move cards around.

Now I simply use an automation like:
'when the green "In Progress" label is added to a card not in list "In Progress", move the card to the top of list "In Progress"'

as well as something like:

'when a card without the green "In Progress" label is added to list "In Progress", mark the card as incomplete, set start date now, and add the green "In Progress" label to the card'

If these automations are in both boards, then whenever a card is moved into 'In Progress', the corresponding card in the other board should also get moved, whether it is a parent card or a mirror card.