Free CSV importation tool for Trello

[David Bakkers]

If you're after a small, light, free tool for importing Lists, Cards, Checklists and Items into a Trello board from a CSV file, I'm happy to announce TrelloBuddy.

It's a Windows application that comes with an example CSV template and a User Guide. Use it as you see fit, and that's about it.

| Download TrelloBuddy | Visit the website |

[Dave Liao]

@David Bakkers - thanks for sharing David!

Seems like this is more freeware than shareware, right? That is, you're not asking for money. 😊

Have any of your code online on Bitbucket or GitHub? Would love to contribute to your project.

[David Bakkers]

Hello Dave.

Yes, it's freeware, not shareware. I forgot about the distinction between the two. I've updated the discussion heading.

At the moment I'm not hosting the code in the public domain in GitHub or similar. It's mostly PowerShell with some .NET libraries.

[Virginie HM]

@David Bakkers I don't know how this is not getting more love. This freeware is awesome!!! 

I haven't found anything else (even paying) that allows uploading Checklists and checklist items. 

I know you said you are not doing support but I'm running into issues with the Description field not loading. I think it's because of the markdown I'm using. I'll test some variations. 

I'm also having issues with the Due Date. My sample had this date 2020-11-30T10:23:15.000Z and it didn't load. 

Let me know if you want to chat about it any further. 

Thanks again! 

[David Bakkers]

@Virginie HMWith regards the Description problem, I found it was due to the markdown containing pound (#) symbols for headings. The bug also affected Comments if they contained pound symbols in their markdown. I've fixed the cause of the problem.

Please download the updated version, which now also:

• Parses and adds multiple Labels with Label Colors to cards
• Parses and adds multiple Members to cards, based on the board member's email addresses.

With regards the Due Date, it needs to match the date format your Trello instance / Atlassian account is configured for. If you're using US date format, swap the day and month around. IE 2020-30-11

[David Bakkers]

A general update on some recent improvements to TrelloBuddy:

1. Added - Can now parse and import multiple Comments, delimited by semicolons, into each Card.
2. Added - Can now parse and add multiple Members, delimited by semicolons, to a Card using their usernames or email addresses.
3. Changed - Labels and Label Colors are now all delimited by semicolons, to allow commas in Label names.
4. Changed - The name of the Custom Field is logged when attempting to import data into it.
5. Changed - The Due Date is set after the Card is created, to allow for a supplied Due Date being invalid.

[David Bakkers]

A general update on some recent improvements to TrelloBuddy v1-14:

1. Added - Can now parse and import a due date and a member into each Checklist Item.

[Dave Liao]

@David Bakkers - nice! I'm guessing we can import by Trello username now?

[David Bakkers]

Yes, you can use either a Trello username or an email address. It doesn't check to see if any person found is or isn't a member of the Board, it only logs an error when trying to make that person a member of a Card or Checklist Item.

[Hallina]

I'm trying to download cards from one board specifically to Excel or cvs file - is this possible

[Dave Liao]

@Hallina - hi Hallinan! If you're part of a Premium workspace, you can export a Trello board in CSV format:

https://support.atlassian.com/trello/docs/exporting-data-from-trello/

Definitely start a new question if you have another one - click "Ask the community" in the header!

[David Bakkers]

A general update on some recent improvements to TrelloBuddy:

• Added - Can parse and import a Start Date into each Card
• Added - Can parse and import a Cover Color into each Card
• Added - Can parse and import a Cover Size into each Card
• Changed - Errors when searching for usernames are now correctly logged
• Fixed - Cards are correctly created if they have no Description
• Fixed - Checklist Items will not be uploaded if the prior Checklist was not created

I'm also looking into parsing unlimited Custom Fields, instead of just one.

[Alejandro Flores Mosquera]

Thanks for sharing @David Bakkers !!

Have you made progress in importing more than one custom field?

[David Bakkers]

Hello @Alejandro Flores Mosquera 

Yes, I did make a version that supports unlimited custom fields, but I decided against releasing it, because I didn't want to make a tool that competes against commercial products.

I know what it's like trying to make a living from being a small scale developer, and then someone produces a free version of what one of your products does, so I was keen not to be that someone.

[Alejandro Flores Mosquera]

Understood @David Bakkers , thxs anyway ;)

[David Bakkers]

A general update on some recent improvements to TrelloBuddy:

• Added - Can parse and import a Cover Brightness into each Card

The logic of the cover brightness is bizarre. If you set it to 'light' the text comes out black, and it you set it to 'dark' the text comes out white. Brightness is really referring to the brightness of what's behind the text, so the text has enough contrast to be read.

The brightness setting only has a visible effect if the cover size is also set to 'full' to make the text of the card's name overlap the cover color or image.

[David Bakkers]

A general update on some recent improvements to TrelloBuddy v1-20:

• Added - Can parse and import an option into a dropdown list Custom Field for each card
• Changed - Will no longer parse unrecognised types in the CSV file

When importing an option into a dropdown list type of Custom Field, TrelloBuddy will go through all the options available for that Custom Field and try to find one that matches the value you supplied in the CSV file, irrespective of whether you supplied text, a number, a date or true / false.

[David Bakkers]

A general update on some recent improvements to TrelloBuddy v1-21:

• Added - Can parse and import multiple Stickers, delimited by semicolons, into each Card

For the default sticker pack, the stickers are 'check', 'heart', 'warning', 'clock', 'smile', 'laugh', 'huh', 'frown', 'thumbsup', 'thumbsdown', 'star' or 'rocketship'.

For the Taco sticker pack, the stickers are 'taco-love', 'taco-confused', 'taco-cool', 'taco-angry', 'taco-celebrate', 'taco-robot', 'taco-alert', 'taco-active', 'taco-money', 'taco-reading', 'taco-trophy', 'taco-sleeping', 'taco-pixel', 'taco-proto', 'taco-embarrassed' or 'taco-clean'

For the Pete the Computer sticker pack, the stickers are 'pete-happy', 'pete-love', 'pete-broken', 'pete-alert', 'pete-talk', 'pete-vacation', 'pete-confused', 'pete-shipped', 'pete-busy', 'pete-completed', 'pete-space', 'pete-sketch', 'pete-ghost', 'pete-award' or 'pete-music'

Unfortunately, for custom stickers, they don't have names, they only have ids, like '60d7ab7573518d6c8de0432a'. The web interface doesn't provide those ids, so you're forced to use the REST API to look them up first. Refer to this article on how to use the REST API to lookup the ids of custom stickers for board members.

[Kate Bourland]

Where will I find my key and token? I don't see it anywhere.

thanks

[Dave Liao]

@Kate Bourland - have you figured this out?

[David Bakkers]

I've moved the location where TrelloBuddy is stored to here, in my DropBox, as Google keeps flagging *.ZIP files that contain *.EXEs as 'abuse' according to their new, more oppressive "If it's not a Google document, we'll make your life miserable" policy.

Grrrr!!