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How to efficiently and inexpensively mirror/sync cards between boards?

J.C. Schaumleffel

I've been wading in the water of card mirroring/syncing on Trello and finding it very murky. Yes, there are power-ups that advertise mirroring cards between boards however I'm finding the following with them:

most are expensive as a single user
difficult or tedious to setup
will not sync across teams (I have personal, home, and farm set up as teams)

A little background...I am a single user that has multiple teams as stated above. This allows for an expanded and detailed interface versus trying to shove all these boards into a personal listing.

I want to be able to mirror/sync a card (that might be a task) from a goals/planning board into a master scheduling board and this would have to work across teams. This allows me to see the scheduling on one board from all of the goals/planning boards without having to go and look at each board/team individually. Conversely, it would allow me to look at the individual goals/planning boards and see the progress that is noted in the master scheduling board.

I hope this is clearer than mud! I am totally open to suggestions on mirroring/syncing for my above stated structure. I am also open to a complete revamp of my structure if I am missing a better way. I really like Trello but I am finding it is taking too much of my time to manage and may have to bail if I can't fix this.

Thanks for your help!

Accepted answers

All comments

Marta Galofre de Alos

Hi there,

While card syncing isn't a native feature of Trello, you can add a link to the original card on the new card so that you can refer back to it easily. When you attach a link to a Trello card on another card, it will display a preview of that card and will show which board and list it belongs to.

You can also click on the "Connect cards" link to make it a 2-way link so that both cards link to each other.

Additionally, there are a few third-party Power-Ups that can help you keep cards in sync. You mentioned you're not finding these useful, but I just wanted to state again the ones that are available in case you haven't tried one of them:

Cardsync
Unito
Board Sync by Unito

Moreover, we recently launched an article on our blog where we explained how to connect boards together to achieve a more flexible workflow too: https://blog.trello.com/using-multiple-boards-for-a-super-flexible-workflow

I hope that helps!

J.C. Schaumleffel

Marta,

That does help a lot...thank you. Your suggestions spurred some other changes that helps quite a bit. The linking and connecting was new to me and will help greatly.

Unfortunately the add-ons get expensive when one is using them beyond the "free" state and have to start paying for them. I don't mind paying, however, for a single user that could get very expensive.

Board connecting was also very helpful and was what generated a few other ideas.

Thanks Marta! I appreciate your time and help.

Lauren Gardner

I"m having this issue as well. I have several boards that have cards which need to reflect changes made from other "master" boards. I've done the connect card and this makes it easy to flip back and forth between the cards- but I also need attachments and files to upload seamlessly. Unfortunately every power up i've tried doesn't have the right answer to this or is priced beyond what I think is reasonable to spend. To be able to automate everything like I would like, I'd have to use several power ups with several different up charges. If you've found a way to circumvent this issue i'd love to know! It's very frustrating.

L.A. Gardner

J.C. Schaumleffel

Lauren,

Well...I did find a way to circumvent this issue, however, it was pretty radical. I left Trello like I did the others that I've tried.

Not to sound like a crazy man, but my wife and I (both working professionals) have been embracing the entry level approaches to a Minimalist lifestyle for many reasons but primarily to de-clutter our lives from unconscious consumerism. Being mindful of fighting my way through project planning/management with online tools has shown me that I spend way too much time (and money) doing so. Way too many monthly fees for this, that, and whatever else and way too much time finding solutions to problems that shouldn't exist. Time and money...I want to have/keep each as much as I can.

So what did I do??? I went old school! I am a tech geek but now I am now an avid bullet journal user and oh how much easier (and fun!) it is. It has been such a game changer in how I plan and manage home, work, and farm...very therapeutical. I do supplement it with things like Google Calendar, Google Keep, Google Drive, and a five subject notebook. With these tools, I've developed a simple system that has made me more productive, more mindful, and richer! I've never been happier to finally make a move that has lessened my reliance on electronics. Yes, I still embrace my smartphone, tablet, laptops and all that, but I am simplifying how I use them and making them work for me...not me for them.

Lauren, I'm sorry if I've wasted your time with my little rant. But I just wanted to share that with you. I hope you find what you're looking for. May you have a very happy holiday season!

ArtyomE

In my opinion sync between to boards\card option needs to be free, as now the suggested solutions are not free at all.
The worst part it's not even mentioned anywhere.
In additional there 5 Unito apps, that no one knows what they do, and what their real cost.

Maybe it's not a huge price, but it monthly price! For an app that makes one thing good, it's a really bad decision.

Aubrey Eden Dukes

I appreciate the tips presented here. Thanks to all the contributors. Being newly introduced to Trello I am optimistic about the potential this software offers. However, I'm also a little frustrated that so many features I'm looking for need power-up apps with a price tag. Being that I'm so new, I'm hoping to learn the ins and outs of manipulating the manual automation and actions to hopefully achieve these needs.

Trude

I totally agree. Why don't Trello add this into their product? @Marta Galofre de Alos

Romain H_rc4vxl

A few years later, It is still really disappointing that this feature doesn't come with the native version of Trello...

Is there any chance that it will be added someday ?

Carlos R Ruiz

Youa re right. For card mirroring these apps are not very good, they seem to have been designed for some specific job in mind. They are expensive too. Even Zapier is troublesome. I tried using it to sinc my app todoist with trello cards, cant do it well. Right njow the best is just to connect the cards, and manually update one when you change the other.

Peter Costa

I also sympathize with all of the comments suggested so far, I've been struggling with some of these similar scenarios and finally found a workaround which I wanted to share with anyone facing a similar challenge. I'm working in an executive position where I have to oversee a board for each department in our startup. I use a personal board as my To-Do list which I was able to connect all of the cards assigned to me across multiple boards.

What this does is copies the card where I'm tagged and creates a duplicate in my to-do board. Users in the company-facing boards can open the card and see where it is sitting in my To-do board through a Trello Attachment. So if I move the card to done that can then be seen as done on the company facing board. I still have to manually move it from my 'doing' to 'done' list in the company facing board, but I don't have to be toggling back and forth between boards to check the status on each board.

Going into Butler I went to 'Rules' and created a new rule.
Add Trigger
Under the box "Card Changes" you will find the option "when [I am] [added to] a card". Add that as your trigger.
To define the action under the "Move" box you will see the first option "[move] the card to [the top of list][list name] [Icon - board]". Change [Move] to [Copy]. This will change the action slightly.
This step is where you define where you want the card to be copied to. Click on the board icon to set this as your [To Do] board.
Next, define which list in the [To-do] board you want your card to be created under.
Click the link icon next to the board option.
You can now add this as your action
Click Save
You now have to go to each board, and under the menu for that board click on Butler > Rules > and Enable the rule you just created on that board. You will have to repeat this step for every board that you want this rule applied.
Do a test, create a card and add yourself as a member. You should see a card pop up in your To Do board.

Hope this helps!

And for further context here's a screenshot.

Screen Shot 2020-08-12 at 1.33.30 PM.png

unknown

Hi Marta,

2 years later and still no solution. Could this be upped in Trello's priority?

I have a friend who's into programming and coding. He said he could solve this within a day or less, so it's not an issue if it's doable or not, but I guess there's a financial intensive in keeping your current solution to this problem.

I know a few people who stopped using Trello due to issues like this one. My own workplace are considering going for Trello Gold, but we're having doubts.

Greg Marshall_d0zv8y

I am also looking for a very simple card mirror feature. The provided options or 3rd party suggestions all seem to revolve around mirroring or syncing from one board to another.

I would simply like to have a list called "feature requests" at the far right of my board that contains every card. From there I want to be able to copy/clone the card to a list on the left, e.g. "to do" "working on" "implemented" and have these cards sync all the data between the "root" list on the right.

I know I can 2 way relate the cards but this does not help with the data or tags saved to the cards

Heinz Ochsner

The three solutions on the market don't really do the job. Not syncing the whole card when power-ups, custom fields, linked cards, etc, are used, or syncing few groups of many cards rather than many groups of a few cards, are only some of the issues. Prohibitive pricing ends the story.

Rather than syncing or mirroring cards, the best solution would be - as one competitive product is doing - for one single instance of a card to live on several boards.

Natalia Manrique

I have Trello Gold but I think I would still have to pay for the Unito PowerUps... I was happy to pay something to have these syncing features but I don't think I am covered with my plan

Ashraf Madkour

totally agree

Sue Wahl

Hi,

I have a clumsy workaround. I used the butler to create a 'unique' card, rather than copy a card. I used the Trello variables to copy the information from the card. This "unique card" feature seems to check for the same card in the list of the same name, but does not check the whole board for the same card. SO...

when I am added to a card on a project board, (trigger), butler then: creates a unique card with name {cardname} (using the curly brackets tells Trello it's a variable), with description {carddescription} in the list {cardlistname} on my MASTER TO DO board.

when I create a card on my MASTER TO DO board : When I label it with a project label (trigger), then Butler will: create a unique card with name {cardname}, description {carddescription} in the list {cardlistname} on the correct board for the label. (you have to put a rule in for each label). (you could add things like duedate, members etc, there are variables for all of that)

What is clumsy about this is that if you dont have the same list name betwen your project boards and your MASTER board, Trello will create a list by that name. It will create it to the far right, and you have to sometime find the card over there and drag it to the list you want it in, and archive the list. Paying for Unito might be better, but I'm going to try this for a while first and see how awkward it is. I don't mind spending some $$ each month for this awesome software but both Trello and Unito seemed to be a bit pricey for what I was looking for for my very small business!

ihlas aka sali

Thank you, sir.
I use your solution for this problem.

And now it's going 5 years since the first thread, and still no official 2-way sync from Trello.

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