Trello Subtasks with Butler

[#1]

A common request on the Atlassian community is to track progress on subtasks, for example assigning checklist items to people or adding due dates to checklist items.

As discussed in this article, a great way to do subtasks in Trello is using a checklist, with each item linked to a card:

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Trello-articles/Trello-Subtasks-with-Trellinator/ba-p/1020531

That article discusses how to do this with Trellinator, but you can also do the same thing with Butler!

One of the cleanest ways to trigger this is to create a button called "Create Subtasks" that will create linked cards for all items in the checklist "Subtasks", as per this screenshot:

Here is what that button looks like in action:

https://www.loom.com/share/24b6b25e15cc4797bdf8a69a1506e974

Now that you have a list of linked cards you can move them around, assign them to different people, set different due dates etc.

Next, you can set up a Butler command that triggers when a card is archived and checks off the corresponding checklist item on the "master" card.

That looks like this:

Here's what that command looks like in action:

https://www.loom.com/share/9bca506dd7544cda90fe5f421e6f639b

[marc -Collabello--Phase Locked-]

Great workflow!

[Brian Rafferty]

I'm new to Butler, so I may be missing something.

When I choose the "Card Button" option, I have no option to free-text a command, and the droplist commands within the interface don't include a "convert" option.

What am I missing, please?

Thanks!

Brian

[Iain Dooley]

@Brian Rafferty It's in the "Cascade" tab:

[Brian Rafferty]

@Iain Dooley Thanks so much for your help!

[Christopher Buckley]

I like the idea, but this will create a new list for every set up subtasks (making your board get cluttered very quickly). I tried to reduce this by archiving the subtask list after it is created, but this creates a new problem in that if you ever add new subtasks to the same original parent task, it will create an entirely new list (rather than refer to the one in the archive) and make all sorts of mess.

Is there any way to archive the subtopic list with Butler? I'm only seeing this for cards.

Is there any way of doing if logic to check if the archive exists or not and if so, send back to board, repopulate and rearchive?

If not, do you have any suggestions for how to manage the clutter this workflow will produce?

[Geri Rawlins]

Hi 

Thank you for this. I'm unsure how to complete the last step in the Rule to check off the card once it is archived, would it be possible to do a screen shot? I have just copied the {triggercardlink} text but it doesn't seem to be working. 

Thank you

[Iain Dooley]

@Christopher Buckley "it will create an entirely new list (rather than refer to the one in the archive) and make all sorts of mess."

Why not just archive that list too? It doesn't matter that the cards aren't in the same list.

If your goal is to create "hidden" cards that just allow you to discuss subtasks separately, rather than actually using the cards to manage the tasks, then I don't think there's a way to archive the list with Butler but you could use this Trellinator function instead of Butler:

https://gist.github.com/iaindooley/daf15db182dfbe8e9a5bc22decf0a5e5

You can install this on our BenkoBot platform as a Listener here:

https://app.benkobot.com/

Or you can install it in Google Apps Script. You can read more about Trellinator here:

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Marketplace-Apps-Integrations/Introducing-Trellinator-Automate-Trello-with-Google-Apps-Script/ba-p/925271

[Iain Dooley]

@Geri Rawlins Here you go:

[Geri Rawlins]

Thank you @Iain Dooley - sorry I'm very new to this so probably missing something very simple but it was the step after - so this is my end result which I was hoping would mark the item in the original checklist as complete once I moved the linked card to my complete list, but it doesn't seem to be working and doesn't look the same as yours. I found the command "check item" but then just copied your text as wasn't sure what to do. Thank you for your help.  

[ServiceDesign SüdWest]

We have rules set to change the due date on cards that are overdue. However, we haven't found a way to do the same automatically for checklist items that are overdue. We are not able to find any triggers on checklist-items that would allow us to do so. Any ideas on how that would be possible?

[Majestix]

Many thanks @Iain Dooley , I implemented your suggested workflow and it works out very well. For some reasons it would be beneficial for me to adjust this workflow in order to have two improvements:

1st adjustment:

• Find the 1st item from checklist X
• which isn't a linked card yet
• and convert this checklist item into a linked card using pattern "{cardlink}"

2nd adjustment:

• Using your original workflow I would like to copy all labels onto the new linked cards.

I tried to create these workflows by myself but failed....maybe you can give me a hint!

Thank you

Maximilian