Can Butler Automate my Onboarding?

Michael Brzezowski December 9, 2019

I have spent the past two weeks trying to solve my problem with the Butler Power-up, but I have not been successful.  I would like to use the Power-up instead of the bot due to the impending, eventual death of the bot.

I would like to create a card with the name of the new person at our school.  There are four categories of new people, 3-4 student, 5-8 student, teacher, and support staff.  Each category has a specific list of tasks required to be done to onboard them to our school.

I want Butler (or another power-up) to be able to create the task cards for all of the required tasks, put the new person's name at the front of the task card's name, and put a specific member onto that card (for example, I do the IT tasks, but the secretary has some paperwork tasks).

Does anyone know a good way to do this efficiently?

Thanks,

Mike

Technology Integrator/Coordinator

Pemetic Elementary School

Southwest Harbor, Maine

3 answers

1 accepted

0 votes
Answer accepted
Iain Dooley
Community Leader
Community Leader
Community Leaders are connectors, ambassadors, and mentors. On the online community, they serve as thought leaders, product experts, and moderators.
December 11, 2019

@Michael Brzezowski here's a method I posted for using Butler to create sub-tasks:

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Trello-articles/Trello-Subtasks-with-Butler/ba-p/1060392

You can prefix all created cards when converting items in a checklist, so you can put the name of the person at the start of the card using the "with pattern" option when converting a checklist.

To handle the "adding members" bit, what you do is have a checklist for each "role" (IT, Secretary and so on) then you have a Butler command that triggers when a new card is created that does something like:

Add member @itperson and convert all items in checklist "IT" into linked cards in list "{triggercardname} IT" with pattern "{triggercardname} {itemname}" copying members and remove member @itperson and add member @secretary and convert all items in checklist "Secretary" into linked cards in list "{triggercardname} Secretary" with pattern "{triggercardname} {itemname}" copying members and remove all members from the trigger card

I haven't built it but it would look something like that.

Michael Brzezowski December 12, 2019

I cannot get the {itemname} to work.  It is just blank.  I wonder if it is one of the variables that that are Enterprise only.

So, here is the final solution that I put together that is functional:

  • Created a list with a template card for each type of user that contains a checklist of what needs to be done to onboard them.
  • Created a "Create Tasks" button that uses creates a list for the user based on card name, then creates linked cards for each item on the task.
  • Created a rule to check linked item when the card was archived.
  • Items on the checklist will have @IT ADVITOS, @Principal, and @Office
  • Created a rule to add the appropriate user to any card based on card content (For example, it adds me if there is @IT ADVITOS in the card somewhere.

My final desire is to create linked cards on my personal GTD board for all items tagged @IT ADVITOS to keep it simple for me, but I am not sure about that yet.

Thank you for your help.  It was just what I needed.

Screen Shot 2019-12-12 at 10.57.00 AM.pngScreen Shot 2019-12-12 at 10.57.16 AM.pngScreen Shot 2019-12-12 at 10.57.23 AM.png

Iain Dooley
Community Leader
Community Leader
Community Leaders are connectors, ambassadors, and mentors. On the online community, they serve as thought leaders, product experts, and moderators.
December 12, 2019

@Michael Brzezowski cool! the variable seems to be checklistitemname ... there are no enterprise only variables.

Anyhoo, if you're after a "GTD style" board, you might be interested in this thing I created which creates a linked copy of any card you're added to (and integrates with Gmail so you can use Trello as an email client):

https://trello.com/integrations/#benkoboard

I wrote about the "task shortlisting" method I developed which is kind of an extension of GTD/Inbox Zero here:

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Trello-articles/Task-shortlisting-with-Trello/ba-p/988117

0 votes
Michael Brzezowski December 11, 2019

Thank you all.  I am working on testing solutions today and will let you know what ends up working best for me.  

Mike

0 votes
carolyn french
Community Leader
Community Leader
Community Leaders are connectors, ambassadors, and mentors. On the online community, they serve as thought leaders, product experts, and moderators.
December 10, 2019

Hi Michael and welcome to Community!

I understand you have been trying to automate onboarding using Butler. This suggestion is a different tack, but possibly much easier.

Have you tried using the new Board and/or Card Templates? Depending on how many tasks you have per onboarding and whether you need to assign each task, you could either set up a template board for the new person or a template card. If you do need to assign each task, then you would need a template board per person, so you can assign the card to a member. However, if you don't assign the tasks, you could do one card per new person with all the tasks in a checklist.

Carolyn

Michael Brzezowski December 12, 2019

Carolyn,

Thank you for the reply.  This solution was simpler in many ways, but I ended up not doing it because I already am suffering from Trello board creep.  I am getting more and more boards and right now working on consolidating manually and with Butler.

Thanks again,


Mike

carolyn french
Community Leader
Community Leader
Community Leaders are connectors, ambassadors, and mentors. On the online community, they serve as thought leaders, product experts, and moderators.
December 13, 2019

Hi Mike,

Thanks for following up here with the solution that worked for you! That's what helps others that are searching for something similar to do.  I need to weed through all my boards now too. 2020 is right around the corner!

Best of luck,

Carolyn

Suggest an answer

Log in or Sign up to answer
TAGS
AUG Leaders

Atlassian Community Events