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Mikes Trello Tips - Automation to truncate a numeric custom field

Mike - Dreamsuite Consulting

Mikes Trello Tips

Every other Friday, I am going to put up a Trello tip that I hope you will find helpful and will inspire your Trello creativity.

Anything is possible in Trello, if you use your imagination 😀

I will alternate between automation and general Trello tips and happy to take requests...

This week, I will take you through how to use RegEx and Automation to truncate a numeric field...

A little mention for RegEx

You can take Trello automation to new heights with RegEx...

It is supported but very little is written about this mysterious feature...

If you're new to RegEx or haven't scripted/coded before, it can be a little daunting...
Screenshot 2023-06-09 134216.png

If you want to learn more about RegEx, there are some great YouTube videos and I recommend these two sites:

This is a great site for learning about it:

https://www.rexegg.com/

And this is the go-to place to test out your regex search before putting it into a Trello automation command:

https://regex101.com/

Top Tip 1: Always get the regex expression right in the editor before putting into a Trello command.

Top Tip 2: Google what you are looking for, easier than learning to construct yourself, almost every common example you can think of has a thread on stackoverflow.

How to truncate a numeric value

I have 3 automations to set number custom fields to truncate to:

No decimal place
2 decimal places
4 decimal places

Note: This will not round the numeric value up or down, merely trim away the unwanted digits...

Lets start...

When using regex in Trello, you always have to start with regex:/ followed by the RegEx query, and a / to close it out.

1) No decimal place:

when custom field "No decimal Place" is set to "regex:/(\d*)\.\d*/", set custom field "No decimal Place" to "{wildcard1}"

Screenshot 2023-06-09 144739.png

2) Two decimal places:

when custom field "2 Decimal Places" is set to "regex:/(\d\.\d{2})\d*/", set custom field "2 Decimal Places" to "{wildcard1}"

Screenshot 2023-06-09 144500.png

3) Four decimal places:

when custom field "4 Decimal Places" is set to "regex:/(\d\.\d{4})\d*/", set custom field "4 Decimal Places" to "{wildcard1}"

Screenshot 2023-06-09 144511.png

As you can see from example 2 and 3, you only have to change the number inside the {} to set the number of decimal places to your choosing...

Comments

Krimo Khermane

@Mike - Dreamsuite Consulting Great article! I rely on ChatGPT for regex to save time and effort. It's a helpful tool when I'm feeling a bit lazy.

Mike - Dreamsuite Consulting

@Krimo Khermane I didn't think of that, how often does it get it right?

Summer Hogan_q8imea

@Mike - Dreamsuite Consulting - great tips! Thanks so much!

Krimo Khermane

@Mike - Dreamsuite Consulting simply describe the issue or your desired outcome, and specify that you require assistance with a regular expression (RegEx). ChatGPT will provide you with the appropriate solution swiftly, always double-check though.

manuel_kammermann

Hi @Mike - Dreamsuite Consulting - you're a savior!! I was looking for this. Do you have any additional resources how Trello implements this? I am particularly interested in understanding how this affects wildcards, as I can't seem to get it to work.

What I'd love to do is to match a specific keyword, if it's in context of a wrapping expression and use the keyword as a wildcard. So naturally I am thinking about RegEx Groups.

Having this exemplary card description ...

This objective is ongoing
goal 1: complete
goal 2: ongoing
goal 3: complete

I am looking to do:

when the description of a card contains "regex:/goal (\d)\W*? (\w*?)(?>\n|$)/", add the red "TEST" label to the card, and set the title to "{wildcard1}"

This case would yield multiple matches with multiple groups:

* Match 1: "goal 1: complete" (group1: "1", group2: "complete")

* etc.

I do need the groups of every match to target custom fields and set a value. Any idea or linked resource how to deal with this?

Mike - Dreamsuite Consulting

Hi @manuel_kammermann

You're for sure on the right track.

Regex groups marry up to automation wildcards:

E.g. regex:/(Mike1)(Mike2)(Mike3)/

{wildcard1} = Mike 1

{wildcard2} = Mike 2

{wildcard3} = Mike 3

manuel_kammermann

Thank Mike, I was having issues with a more complex regex, but now it works as expected - very sweet.

There's two things that I realised and wanted to ask for your experience:

It seems that automations using regex need longer to apply (trello cloud) - do you experience the same?
Any ideas how Atlassian handles multiple matches? I assume it either takes only the first or iterates through all matches - but I couldn't really evaluate from the tests I setup

I do hope Atlassian starts documenting this feature as I was at the brink of implementing it with serverless functions

Mike - Dreamsuite Consulting

Hi @manuel_kammermann

I haven't noticed any difference in execution time between regex and normal Trello conditions
If you use groups in reflex, Trello reports them as wildcards, {wildcard1}, {wildcard2}, {wildcard3} and so on...

manuel_kammermann

Hi Mike, I mean "matches" not "groups" ...

Using /Task \d - (\w+)\n/ on

Task 1 - complete

Task 2 - ongoing

Task 3 - planned

(https://regex101.com/r/BPDG1Y/1)

yields 3 matches with a single group in each match. So potentially I get 3 x {wildcard1}.

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