Reminders for cards due in 24hrs, regardless of reminder settings

[Anonymous Aardvark]

Summary

I'm having a problem where my phone and email inbox are getting many, many alerts for cards with due dates in 24 hours, and I'm confused about why.

Have I found a bug? Am I misunderstanding a feature? Or am I just confused?

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The details

I have a board that I'm watching, on which some cards have due dates (and times). Those cards with due dates have a due date reminder setting, mostly either "None" or "At time of due date." A few are set up so that the reminder is sent some number of minutes or hours ahead of the due date/time.

So far, this all works great. For the cards that are set up with a reminder "at time of due date" (or some number of minutes/hours ahead of time), I get a reminder by email and via the Trello app on my phone (Android app v2022.14.4.2223 running on a Pixel 4a with Android version 13, last updated Oct. 5, 2022).

Next, I have a Butler rule set up that says:

when a card with a due date is added to the board, move the due date to the same day next week 

So far, this also works great. It means that I can copy a list of cards with tasks that were due today, for example, and anything with a due date has the due date automatically pushed out a week.

Six days later, however, I start getting notifications for the cards with a due date the next day.

For. Every. Single. Card.

A few things are confusing:

• The cards' reminder settings seem to have been copied across correctly. They're mostly either "None" or "At time of due date."
• I get due date reminder notifications 24 hours ahead of the cards' due dates.
• I don't get due date reminder notifications at the time they're configured to be sent.

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Conclusion

What I'd expect to happen is that the card's due date and due date reminder settings are copied when the new cards are created by copying a list... and that then the due date reminders fire based on those settings.

What seems to be happening instead is that the cards' settings are being copied correctly but the due date reminders are firing based on some default setting.

Have I found a bug? Am I misunderstanding a feature? Or am I just confused?

[Carolina Lopez]

Hi, welcome to the Atlassian community! I hope you're enjoying Trello.

We have some documentation that may help you understand if you are receiving the notifications according to what you need. Please see the links below:

https://support.atlassian.com/trello/docs/receiving-trello-notifications/

https://support.atlassian.com/trello/docs/mobile-push-notification-settings-for-trello/

Your situation seems very specific, so I would like to take a closer look at it. Could you please create a ticket with us by accessing https://trello.com/contact and selecting the option "Report a bug"? It would be very helpful to investigate further and report the bug to our development team if this is the case.

[Anonymous Aardvark]

Hi Carolina -

Thank you for your response. As requested, I've created a support ticket, TRELLO-138314.

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Behavior vs. documentation

The pages you linked are helpful, and I think they support your suggestion that the behavior may not be as intended. In particular, the page covering Receiving Trello Notifications says in the Due Date Notifications section (my emphases in bold):

If you set a due date on a card and you are a member of the card (or watching the card), you will receive a notification about the card twenty-four hours before it is due by default. You can set a custom reminder time when setting the due date.

What is maybe happening is that there are two interpretations of default behavior?

• By default: trigger a "Due soon" notification for cards that are created with a due date "twenty-four hours before it is due."
• By user specification: trigger a "Due soon" notification for cards that have a due date notification setting based on the custom reminder time that overrides the default when set to anything other than "1 Day before."

I am experiencing the first interpretation. As a user, however, I would expect the second interpretation because when I check the due date settings, the due date notification reminder is set explicitly for my new card.

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Replicating the behavior

I just ran another test to replicate this behavior. Steps as follows (referencing the Butler rules described in the original post):

1. Create a card (card_a) with a due date tomorrow afternoon and the due date reminder set to "None."
2. Open card_a and create a copy (card_b).
3. The Butler rule for updating due dates then kicks in and moves card_b's due date by a week. Waiting a week for my test case seems tedious, so...
4. Manually update card_b's due date from eight days in the future to six days in the past.
5. Open card_b and create a copy (card_c).
6. The Butler rule for updating due dates then kicks in again and moves card_c's due date by a week. Now, both card_a and card_c are due 24 hours + 5 minutes from now. Other than this, I haven't changed card_c in any way. Haven't even opened it.
7. Five minutes later, I get a mobile notification (and a desktop notification) for the due date reminder on card_c. I don't get any notifications for card_a, which is what I'd expect, because I'd set the due date reminder to "None."
8. Two minutes after that, the email reminder shows up for card_c, completing the trifecta of nuisance notifications for a card on which the due date reminder setting is "None."