Relating Cards Through Transactions/Exchanges

[Daniel Little]

I am looking for a project management solution that helps me better keep track of a network of businesses and their transactions. I find the Trello KanBan solution very good for creating a sales funnel for onboarding businesses in stages where each business and the details/status of each business is encapsulated in a card.

However, we need a solution that allows us to "connect" each business we onboard with another business that is also in the sales funnel or already onboarded. 

What's more, each business to business needs to be related to one or more businesses via a transaction. That is, there needs to be a relation between cards, and that relation needs specify a thing that is being transacted, a category of the thing, and how much that transaction would cost. All the while the cards need to be at different stages on the KanBan board (sales funnel).

Is there a project management solution that can integrate with Trello that can allow me to do this?

[Iain Dooley · Accepted solution]

@Daniel Little If I were you I wouldn't try to manage my sales funnel in Jira :)

You can easily link cards to each other in Trello:

https://blog.trello.com/related-cards-related-boards

But this bit sounds a tad more complicated:

That is, there needs to be a relation between cards, and that relation needs specify a thing that is being transacted, a category of the thing, and how much that transaction would cost

In database design terms it sounds like what you're looking for is a many to many relationship with attributes on the relationship.

If that's the case, it won't be enough to simply link the cards together, you would need to have a card which represents a transaction between 2 businesses, perhaps stored in a separate "Business Transactions" board.

If I were to code this up, I'd trigger when a card is attached to another card, and create a 3rd transaction card linking both of them, then remove the attached card and store a link to the created transaction card in a "Transactions" checklist on each of the Business cards involved. It's quick and easy to copy and paste a link from one card to another (you just hover over a card and Ctrl/Cmd+c then hover over another card and Ctrl/Cmd+v).

The code to execute would look like this:

https://gist.github.com/iaindooley/5d5de3d94efe4ff5384f05d67fa3be63

You can read more about Trellinator here:

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Marketplace-Apps-Integrations/Introducing-Trellinator-Automate-Trello-with-Google-Apps-Script/ba-p/925271

[Daniel Little]

When you say "move the link card to a checklist" are you talking about the transaction card?

[Iain Dooley]

@Daniel Little I was referring initially to the card that you had pasted onto the other card, but then when I was writing the code I thought better of it and forgot to update the text in my answer.

Instead of creating a reciprocal link between 2 Transactions checklists between the 2 cards, each card instead holds a linked checklist item to each transaction card created between it and another card.

I've updated the answer text above and the comments in the code to reflect that it will simply remove the attached card link (ie. we use the act of attaching a card as the trigger for the command to execute and create a transaction between them but we don't leave the cards linked because it will become cluttered).

[Daniel Little]

I am confused between the tutorial and the instruction you gave, where the sort command for the code takes place. IN the trellinator tutorial it seems to come through the spreadsheet, but the code you gave me is executed through Benko. I am wondering , what the big picture setup of the code looks like, and how do I know which account the code is syncing with...

[Daniel Little]

Also the code you gave is not executing after installing benko bot and all the API keys. Do I have to customize it?

[Iain Dooley]

@Daniel Little I didn't mention BenkoBot above, the function I gave you can be installed in a Trellinator Google Apps Script setup using the tutorial that I linked to.

The framework is Trellinator, you can install and run it inside Google Apps Script.

BenkoBot is a commercial Trellinator host, ie. instead of running it in Apps Script, you can run the same functionality in BenkoBot.

BenkoBot currently is in an early Beta, it has limited functionality compared with the Google Apps Script version so for your purposes it definitely makes sense to be using Trellinator with Google apps Script.

Once you've set up Trellinator in Google Apps Script, you need to follow the tutorial to install the function I shared with you.

If you need help I also provide this as a service feel free to email team@benkoworks.com

[Ethan Winter]

Hey Iain, I am picking up this thread for Daniel Little.

I am running into some problems while implementing the Trellinator code you linked. So far I have:

• Set up the Trellinator Quick Start Google Sheet
• Implemented the "Hi I'm Trellinator" portion of the tutorial
• Initiated the second half of the tutorial, thus creating the Project Template and Overview boards. Although I am unable to get the "Doing" and "Done" comments to appear.
• Added the code you listed here. After making some minor adjustments to it, I was able to publish this code as well.

This is where I run into problems. I created the "Transactions" board and two dummy cards. When I attached Card1 to Card2, nothing appears to happen. While troubleshooting, I removed all of the tutorial code in an effort to see if there were conflicts. Nothing changed though. Am I missing a step?

Thanks for the help in advance!

[Iain Dooley]

@Ethan Winter note that when you add the new function in script editor and then publish, you need to add the function name into the command sheets. You can also check the Info Log to see if the events are coming through and view the log messages, I typically use http://jsonviewer.stack.hu/

[Iain Dooley]

@Ethan Winter also note that I do this as a service so if you want me to work through it for you just email team@benkoworks.com you can see some more info at benkobot.com

[Deepanshu Natani]

Hi @Daniel Little 

Have you considered evaluating Jira? Your use case can be easily met by Jira.

Also Jira has Kanban boards where each issue can be viewed as a card and issues in Jira can be easily linked to each other.

[Daniel Little]

Thanks for the suggestion. Can cards from Trello be imported in to Jira?

[George Mihailoff]

There is an import functionality -- https://confluence.atlassian.com/adminjiracloud/importing-data-from-trello-951386555.html

You could start from Jira next-gen projects, they are simplified and very similar to Trello and later consider Jira classic projects for ultimate flexibility.

The other benefit of moving to Jira is a richer ecosystem of addons. Practicing Kanban without metrics is like flying blind. There are various addons, one of them is ours https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1218809/quantify