Updatable log within cards

Question

I've designed a board to track company assets. It's really useful, but I need some help with one final function.

On my board, each card represents a machine asset. When we move that asset from one location to the next we update the card to reflect its location in the location field. These machines cycle routinely between the same handful of locations depending on the time of year and I'd like to create a running log of those movements that we can update within the card.

It would simply need to "April 2020, moved from location A to location B", "May 2020, moved from location B to location C"...and so on.

This needs to be updateable within the card, not through a linked spreadsheet that has to be opened up. We have over 200 pieces of machinery, so I don't want to create 200 new files if I can help it.

Any ideas? Thanks in advance!

Gregory Smith_ekg0u3 · Answer

Esme,

Thanks once again. This is probably going to be the way I do it going forward. It's the safest way to ensure that previous movements are not accidentally lost in the description section.

I really do appreciate the help!

Esme Crutchley · Answer

Oh to have tables in Trello!

Alas, it's not to be. It used to be a thing in markdown, but it doesn't work any more, believe me, I tried (multiple times!).

A custom field drop down will apply to all cards the minute you start adding locations, so it does only have to be done once, and will automatically get added to all the cards.

If you did it this way, you could then have a Butler rule based on a change in the custom field. That's what's going to take the time, setting up the rules for each location. Again, once you've set up one, you'd just have to go back into the rules, click on copy and change the details.

This is what the rule could look like:

I use the Butler variables, that way, you'll always get the right {date}, here is a link to the variables, you could have the date format set to whatever you like, you could even have a string;

@{weekdayname} {monthdaynumberlong} {monthname} {year} @ {time24}

Just remember to put spaces in between the } and { otherwise it'll all jumble up together (speaking from experience here!).

Hopefully that's a little bit helpful!

Esme :)

Gregory Smith_ekg0u3 · Answer

That's a really good idea. I guess the only time intensive part will be loading in all of the locations, but if I do it on my template card it'll only be a one-time thing.

Currently, the only way I've been able to log the locations reasonably is in the description box. I've yet to find a better was thus far. Your suggestion might be the best possible way. I just wish there was a table that I could update within the card.