How to automatically follow the process of a card from its initial list to the final list?

Mindy Moore

Hi! My company started working with Trello one month ago. We are still getting used to it.

We have created lists (submitted / in progress / done) to track the process of several projects. Now, my boss is wondering if there is any Power-Up that can help you track how much it took a card to move from "submitted" to "done" automatically, without having to determine a start date and a due date for the card. We want this process to be tracked automatically because people forget to establish the start date and due date of cards.

I am testing Jira Align, but I don't totally understand how it works and it would be nice to evaluate how much time a project/card takes with a timeline view. 

I was hoping you can help me find alternative solutions / ideas. 

Best,

Sofía

Vongsawat

There's probably a power-up that can do that, though I've not played around with them before.

But the core Automation also has Variables that track how long a card has been in a list, such as {carddaysinpreviouslist}.

So you can easily put together a Rule where, when a Card enters the Done list, to set the Description to "{carddescription} Time Spent: {carddaysinpreviouslist} days". Or something akin to that, or just add it to the card title, or to a custom field.

This is a somewhat fragile solution though. In that if you moved your card out of In Progress and back in again, it'd essentially reset the clock. Or if you pulled it out of Done and put it back in. Or if you moved it straight from Submitted. You could additionally track {triggercardpreviouslistname}, but it all gets a bit convoluted at that point and you may as well just be checking the card's Activity Log.

The powerups are probably a bit more robust, but you'd have to find the one that fits your usage, and also be ok with the price tag if it has one (which annoyingly they sometimes don't like to advertise)