How to archive cards in a list after X days of inactivity

Question

Is there a way to set up a Butler automation so that cards in a list with X days of no activity are automatically archived?

My team has a list for cards awaiting input from other teams before we can act on them. Often, they become stale or no longer needed.

I have an automation to archive items that have been in the list for 45 work days. The problem is, when they're unarchived (but are still pending an answer), it looks at the total time spent in the list, and gets caught in the next weekly run.

My ideal state for this list would be "when a card in list Y has had no activity for 45 work days, archive the card." Unfortunately I can't figure out how to accomplish this. Has anyone succeeded with something similar?

milynnus · Answer

@Morgan Smith

Due date (IMO) when used in card progression can be quite effective. The key is in getting the collaborators to understand what it represents at each stage.

The fact that any activity will reset the last activity, it is commonly used in Aging power up. For time spent in list, Trello used a move from the list to compute the value since that is probably the most common/convenient denominator available for them without having to accommodate to specific use case.

Morgan Smith_e3qup2 · Answer

What's interesting is Trello tracks the date of last activity, but does not offer it as a usable field for automation. My company doesn't really use due dates reliably.

I understand that I could technically make a "last activity" custom field, have it update to "now" every time a comment is submitted, and then set the archive to be X days from that date, but... Well, to be honest, I just thought this would be something Trello could accommodate without a clunky workaround.

milynnus · Answer

@Morgan Smith

Just completed work for a used car business with similar requirements for waiting for parts and getting them install on the vehicles. Trello has variables for time in list and time spent is previous list (which means you have to move out of the list). There is a date of last activity. We ended up using due dates and labels. I am not suggesting that it will work for your requirement but one has to spend time understanding the problem to create a workable solution.