Need to Automatically Update a Card's Custom Field with Its Board List Name

Question

MY CONTEXT I have a board named GTD that contains six lists. Here are the list names:* Soon
* Next
* Doing (Now)
* Blocked/Follow-up
* Done
* Someday/Maybe

Each card contains a custom field named GTD that is a dropdown that has these values:* Soon
* Next
* Doing (Now)
* Blocked/Follow-up
* Done
* Someday/Maybe

MY NEED I am exploring using Automation to enforce the notion of an edit validation rule when a card is created/edited:* The value of the GTD custom field must equate to the name of the list that contains the card

For example, if a card is in a list called Soon and a user edits the card and makes a change to the GTD custom field value, the validation rule needs to set the GTD custom field value to Soon, regardless of what the GTD custom field value was set to by the user. I can't figure out a way to do this in Automation. Any ideas?

Hannah Humbert - Simpla Workflows · Answer

Hi @Chuck Boudreau ! Welcome to the community :)  from what I understand, it sounds like you may need two types of automation commands:

1. One that updates the GTD field to the list name value when the card is moved between lists.
2. One that overwrites edits to the field to ensure it's always set to the value that matches what list it's in.

Did I get that right?

If so, the first command will have to look something like "when a card is moved into list "Soon", update the GTD field to "Soon" and so on.

(You may also need another rule that sets the custom field value based on a card creation trigger - i.e. "when a card is added to the board, set custom field "GTD" to "{cardlistname}")

For the second part, you could create a command that reads something like this: "when custom field "GTD" is set, set custom field "GTD" to "{cardlistname}"