Summary of cards from multiple workspaces

Question

I'm a member of four different workspaces. One is personal that I've created for myself, the others are shared with me by different companies/projects I'm involved in.

I'm in serious need of an overview in one place of certain cards from all workspaces (e.g. cards that are high-priority, assigned to me, or have a deadline). Even though I'm dealing with multiple workspaces, there's only one me with a finite amount of time, so I need to weigh cards from all these workspaces against each other in order to prioritize and create an actionable list.

This is very awkward, if not impossible, in Trello. Flipping between workspaces is time-consuming and ultimately doesn't provide a usable overview or means of organizing items into a coherent whole.

Almost an hour of Google has turned up little relevant. The "Dashcards" and "Dashboards by Screenful" power-ups looked promising, but despite claiming to "track work across Trello," they only track work among boards in a single workspace.

Since belonging to multiple teams is a fairly common situation these days, it's hard to believe a good solution doesn't exist, but Trello seems to have a Great Wall between workspaces.

I'm hoping someone knows of a power-up or not-too-kludgy workaround.

Thanks for any ideas.

Tania Ellis · Answer

Hi Trello support / @Hannah Humbert - Simpla Workflows ,

I have the same need as @axthor - I run a small company with different projects and associated freelancers connected to a small handful of dedicated workspaces. And so as the chief commander, I really need to have a full picture of what I need to take care of across the different workspaces.

Ideally, I would like to in my own personal workspace, be able to link to cards across the other workspaces, so I can create my own weekly plan.

It looks as if there isn't  a solution to this as it is right now. Is this correct?

Thanks in advance, and thank you for a great tool!

axthor · Answer

Hi - Thanks for your response. I looked into your suggestions and learned some new things. Much appreciated!

In this case, like I wrote above, adding power-ups ended up being an awkward workaround for something Trello just isn't intended to do. In general, when I start doing backflips to try to make software fit the workflow, it usually ends up counterproductive.

So I've switched to using Trello in a smaller scope where it's more "at home", and using a different tool (MindNode) to manage the big picture.

In any case, your info gave me some insights into Trello that will be useful in the future.

axthor · Answer

Thanks for the suggestion. This is helpful and does go in the right direction, but the "My Items" page doesn't allow for prioritization of cards among workspaces, or the ability to organize them in a logical order (except due date, of course). That's not a problem if only a small number of cards are involved, but with more the big picture is lost.

After spending a lot of time trying to squeeze into Trello's mindset, I've realized that it's just not designed for keeping track of complex workflows among multiple clients. It can start to approximate that by using power-ups and some creative juggling, but it's awkward at best.

Best for me just to admit that and use Trello in the ways it shines. So I've moved to a mind mapping tool for organizing and managing the big picture, and Trello for individual projects having a more limited scope.

This isn't ideal either, since it requires duplicating a certain amount of info in both places, but it provides a much more effective big picture.

Thanks again for your suggestion.