Automation for Task List

[Deleted user]

Hello! Can someone please point me to an article that shows how to use Butler automation to move cards in a dated list to a list labeled "To Do Today"? Also, can I use Butler to create lists by date from a single "Backlog" list?

[Iain Dooley]

@[deleted] to automatically create new dated lists, you can use a calendar rule like this:

You can see how to format the date of the list however you like here:

https://help.trello.com/article/1157-variables

Then you can have a separate command that renames today's list and moves cards you didn't get done yesterday into the backlog:

[Deleted user]

@Iain Dooley Thank you, I'm following and I think we're close here! Now my question is how to get cards in the backlog to automatically appear on the newly-created dated lists. In @Brittany Joiner 's answer below, we talked about a due date command that moved a card to a static list. But how do I tell Butler to move cards due on date +4 from "Backlog" to a list for date+4?

[Iain Dooley]

@[deleted] you might be able to do this by having a second trigger when a card is moved to Backlog.

So above we have a function that moves all cards out of Today that are still there as of 4am, into a Backlog list, after creating the next 5 days' worth of lists.

When a card moves into a list, you have access to the {triggercardduedate} variable and you should be able to use arithmetic like {triggercardduedate+5d} to move the card to one of the newly created lists.

If you have them with varying labels based on urgency you could then move any card that goes into Backlog with the Urgent label back to Today, and any card with the "Major" label to the list in 2 days, or "Minor" to the list in 3 days and so on.

[Deleted user]

@Iain Dooley I'm confused by the {triggercardduedate} variable...where can I set that up? My current "scheduled commands" are below. Does this look right to you?

I also have a due date command reading "on the day a card is due, move the card to the top of list "Due Today", but I'm thinking we may want to delete that if we can cover it with the triggercardduedate.

[Iain Dooley]

@[deleted] the {triggercardduedate} variable is available when a card button or rule is used to trigger a command.

You can read about Butler variables here:

https://help.trello.com/article/1157-variables

[Brittany Joiner]

@[deleted] not sure there's a specific article, but just go to Automation --> Due Dates, and then create a command like this and it should work!

[Deleted user]

@Brittany Joiner Thank you for your help! I added the automation, but for some reason my cards are still showing in my "To Dos" list rather than "Due Today", after numerous refreshes and even after logging in. Did I do something wrong here?

[Brittany Joiner]

@[deleted] i believe this is because it doesn't apply retroactively, so for those cards where the due date is already today, it isn't running, but from the moment any card turn to "due today" (aka, if you have cards due tomorrow, then tomorrow morning) those cards should move over

[Deleted user]

Got it, thank you! Since you're being so helpful...is there a way to automate the creation of new lists by date? So it automatically creates lists for the next 5 days of tasks and keeps everything else in the backlog (I assign deadlines to each card)?

[Brittany Joiner]

@[deleted] hmm, let's see. I'm trying to wrap my mind around what the logical statements would be for that. So you'd want like a due today, due tomorrow, due in +2 days, due in + 3 days, due in +4 days list? 

You should be able to create that by using the same rule in the screenshot above, just modify it to use the trigger for "due date is x days away" and then moves it into the corresponding list: 

[Deleted user]

@Brittany Joiner Thank you! I'll play with this. Ran out of time today. I know for sure I'd need to figure out how to get each of those independent lists to automatically be titled with the date. I'm not sure if this is possible. I thought I had a template that did it, but found it didn't have the automation built in.