Custom Field Automation Not Working

[Danielle Rix]

I have custom date fields created for my board. They are contract expiration dates and i have rules setup that when the contract expiration date is within 6 months it needs to move the card to a specific list. When I first imported the 800 cards everything sorted by the rules I setup for those dates with no issue. However, there are cards that the expiration date has passed and they are not moving.

When I have setup rules to move cards based on the standard field due date those cards move with no problem. But they are not moving based on the custom date fields I have created. Please help!

[Hannah Morgan · Accepted solution]

Hi @Danielle Rix ! Welcome to the community :) are you able to share a screenshot or paste in your exact command?  

[Danielle Rix]

This is an example of one of the rules. Thank you for your help.

[Hannah Morgan]

Thank you! So, the command trigger is "when the custom field is set". What you need is a date reminder. So something like "6 months before custom due date". However, the due date commands only apply to the native due date, not the custom dates. 

A couple of ideas that come to mind:

1. Use checklist due dates instead. Trello hasn't released due date reminders for check-items yet, but you could sync these items to your calendar (like Google calendar) and setup a reminder from your calendar.
2. Create a "sub card" for each deadline, take the custom field date from the main card, and set the native due date to match on the sub cards due date. You can set this up to happen automatically with butler, and then use a due date command to create a custom reminder for these cards. These sub cards could exist within the same board, or a seperate board if you don't want to cause clutter.

If any of those options sound viable, happy to provide more detail if you need :)

[Darcy Colling]

Our team is also in need of the Custom Field date value reaching an expiry to trigger automation rather than it being 'set' per the automation limitations. 

We use the Due Date as a critical point that stays fixed, but we were hoping to use the custom field as a trigger to adjust priority based on time since last card modification. 

[milynnus]

@Darcy Colling 

Trello has notification and reminders using the due date but not checklist item due date or custom fields days. The projects listed in this post are aimed at providing a solution for those businesses that wanted more alerts built around items and CF dates. 

[milynnus]

@Danielle Rix 

Trello has its notification built around the card due dates. Just like there is no notification for an checklist item due date, there is none for any custom field due date.

The options described by @Hannah Morgan are viable options.

The project description below is for item due dates but the same can be created for custom fields. In fact, I think it will be a lot easier since you can only add or remove due dates on CF and it has a unique id. For items, the app has to handle item completion, change of dates, reactivation from item to unchecked status, convert to card...etc.

https://github.com/xu2xulim/Trello-Item-Alert

Potentially, if implemented for Custom Fields, it will be able to handle multiple CF dates.

[milynnus]

@Danielle Rix 

The first version of a Trello Custom Field Alert has been completed. The documentation is available at https://github.com/xu2xulim/Trello-Custom-Field-Date-Alert