How to archive mirror cards?

[Bridget Knowles]

Forgive my use of slightly incorrect lingo, but if I mirror a 'parent' card to a different board and create a 'child' card, can I write automation that will archive only the 'child' card on the second board, without archiving the 'parent' card on the original board?

I've built an employee schedule board for my department and want to mirror the specific day's schedule of employees on our order fulfillment board, so people know at a glance who is all working that day without having to open the scheduling board as well. I believe I've figured out how to mirror the necessary cards with a due date trigger and would like to write a due date trigger on the fulfillment board to keep the 'today's staff' list updated each day without yesterday's staff cards. I don't believe we will need to reference the 'child' cards again, so a direct to archive option would be ideal. But is that possible without archiving the 'parent' card? 

I think I can just create another list such as 'to be archived' or 'previous day's staff' to constantly update my 'today's staff' list as I would like, but I still don't know if I can archive those 'child' cards if they are mirrors, and if I can do so automatically. I do not want to archive the 'parent' cards, as I have written automation that enables us to quickly create future schedules off them in the other board.

It seems like there is an option to hover over the 'child' mirror card without opening it and press c to archive, which should not affect the 'parent' card, but I have not tried this, and would still prefer a way to automatically do this.

[Renato Fagaraz · Accepted solution]

Hi @Bridget Knowles !

Yep, you can definitely do what you're aiming for. Mirrored cards are treated as separate cards with a special role (the mirror role), and they just have the link to their source card as their title. So, archiving a mirrored card won't affect the original "parent" card at all.

If you want to archive the mirrored cards manually, you can do it by right-clicking on the card and selecting "Archive," or by using the 'c' shortcut, just like you mentioned. Both methods will archive the mirrored card without touching the source card.

For automation, you can set up a rule to archive all cards in a specific list (like your "today's staff" list) at the end of each day or week. This won't affect the source cards on your original board, so you're all good there.

Hope that helps!

[Bridget Knowles]

@Renato Fagaraz thank you for confirming that I can archive the mirrored cards without it affecting the original cards! I feel like that answers my initial question perfectly. But now I've discovered that I'm having title issues with my mirrored cards as well.

My issue might be bug related based on other community posts I've been going through. The automation I have written to do the mirroring I want works. But when I go to look for the new mirrors, all I have are cards with a URL as the title, not the actual card title I'm trying to mirror. Nor do I get any of the rest of the card info (due dates, custom fields, labels, comments, etc.).

Additionally, all the mirrors end up assigning me as a member on the card, instead of retaining the original members. Is this a bug that will very soon be fixed for everyone? Or is something specifically perhaps not right with my board?

I'm mirroring cards with a different build to them (as in I have different customs fields for each board, I have a checklist on the receiving board but not on the original I'm mirroring from, etc). I've tried other checks I've seen on other people's similar questions. Refreshing does not impact anything, and I have no automations on either board set to automatically create any labels (I only have due date trigger automations). I'm working on seeing if I can become an admin for my company's paid Trello subscription so I can open a ticket, but as of right now that's not something I can do myself.

[Renato Fagaraz]

Hi @Bridget Knowles !

Good to know the initial issue got solved!

Now, could you double check on the automations on the board? They don't have to specifically add labels, they could be adding members, dates, custom field info, etc, and that would prevent the card from staying as a mirror card and would instead convert it back to a regular card.

https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/TRELLO-927 This bug report might be relevant on the topic!

[Bridget Knowles]

@Renato Fagaraz I did a quick skim of the bug report, and it makes me think that since all the cards I am mirroring are being generated by automations and buttons that auto change our date, that might be the issue? Curious what you think.

Scheduled automation (used on the recipient board) reads as 

- every day at 6:00 pm, archive all the cards in list "Today's Schedule"

Due date automation (used on the generating board) reads as

- on the day a card is due, create a new mirror card with title "{cardlink}" in list "Today's Schedule" on board "G1-Greenhouse"

The two buttons I've created to make our schedule creation easier (on the generating/parent board) are below as well. The card button is basically how most of our cards we will be mirroring will be created, so if that's what's causing the issue, that's a big deal for me.

Card button reads as

- copy the card without comments to the bottom of list "New Cards Holding List", and move the due date to the same day next week

Board button reads as

- copy all the cards in list "Normal Schedule Preferences" to list "New Cards Holding List"

[Renato Fagaraz]

Hmmm, from what I'm looking at, it doesn't seem like these should be interfering. When you open the card that was supposed to be a mirror but is instead being converted into a regular card, does it have any information outside its title? If it does, that would clue you to what could be causing the issue.

Also, you should probably also check if there are automations that weren't created by you that are also working on the board. If you're a board admin, you can check those by selecting the Admin button on the top-right of your automation menu:

The buttons don't read to me as anything out of the ordinary that could be having a negative impact on those cards.

One more thing that might be helpful here, when you're specifying cards in your automations, you can mark them as specifically under "cards with the role none". This will definitely help exclude Mirror cards from automation actions.

[Bridget Knowles]

@Renato Fagaraz I do not have the admin button option in my automation menu to check myself. I was able to connect with one of our admins though, and she said there are a couple other automations set. Following screenshot are the things I couldn't see:

So one of those would explain why I'm getting assigned to all these mirrors since I wrote the automation, but not why it isn't retaining the other members. And I'm not sure if the others would be impacting the ability to mirror either.

Here is what my mirror card looks like when created:

It shows the custom fields from the destination board, not the origin board. The screenshot cut off, but it also has the checklist from the destination board, per the automation that I couldn't see. It does not have the due date, correct custom fields, or correct member on the mirror.

Is the mirror issue of not showing any of the info needed on the card a bug do you think? Or automation caused?

I haven't been able to make the 'role none' phrase make sense to me. What does that actually mean? And how does that play into the mirror aspect? If I'm trying to automate the original card's creation, mirroring it, and then automating the mirrored card afterwards as well, what would the 'role none' impact and where would I want to put it?

[Renato Fagaraz]

All right, let's break it down:

1. Automations Impact: Yep, all those automations you mentioned can definitely affect your mirror card. They can add info like dates, members, and checklists to it. So, if you're seeing unexpected changes, it's likely due to those automations doing their thing.
2. Custom fields: The custom fields you're seeing are from the destination board because, at that point, the card isn't really a "mirror" anymore. It's just a regular card with a link pointing to another card. So, it's showing info from where it currently "lives."
3. 'Role = None' phrase: Cards can have different roles. By using "none" in your automations, you're saying the card should only be interacted with if it’s not a special type, like a mirror card, separator card, link card, etc. If you're curious about card types, you can check out this article: Card Types.
4. Mirrored vs. Regular cards: When you make changes to a mirrored card (like adding dates or members), it turns into a regular card. If you want changes to show up on the mirrored card, make them on the source card. The mirrored card reflects the source card, not a copy of it. If you need a separate card, you might be better off just copying the card instead.

Hope that clears things up!

[Bridget Knowles]

@Renato Fagaraz thank you for all that info! It does help explain why things aren't doing what I expect. Returning to the automations I didn't know were running (image reattached for ease), do you think adding the 'cards with the role none' to the second and third automations, that would maybe allow me to mirror as I was hoping? Or, since the cards I'm trying to mirror have automation that sets due date, will mirroring just not work for me?

[Renato Fagaraz]

@Bridget Knowles No problem!

Any automations that add information to the mirror card will make it a regular card right now, so even yours that adds a Due date will prevent the mirror card from being created on that board. 

With that said, we're seeing some development and prioritization on https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/TRELLO-927 that might resolve this issue without having to workaround the automations, so it might be worth waiting for any resolutions to come through. You can click to watch that ticket to get notifications on any developments!

Hopefully I at least gave some clarification!

[DiMaggio Tucci]

@Bridget Knowles 

@Renato Fagaraz 

In the meantime, you can use Cascade automations to find card with link {cardname}, since the name of the card is the link to the original card.

This will allow you to do automations to the original card quickly and easily, and they will be reflected in the mirror :-D

[Bridget Knowles]

@Renato Fagaraz @DiMaggio Tucci Thank you both! I tried the couple workarounds my admin was comfortable with trying with no luck. So I think we'll be waiting and watching for some bug resolutions. I don't suppose you'd have any kind of guess on a timeline for that?

[Renato Fagaraz]

No guess on a Timeline, but the short backlog status is a good sign! That's probably getting addressed sooner than later!