Why am I losing activity information when moving cards with Butler function

[rrpalmer]

I created a custom button using butler that would show on every card within the board. When this button is selected it will move the card to another board. The problem is every time I use this button to actually move a card to another board; most or all the activity information on the card goes missing!!! It is very important that each card maintains it's activity history as it moves to the other board. Someone please help as I have already lost some important information when I didn't realize this was happening.

[Andy Heinzer · Accepted solution]

Hi Ronald,

I don't think this problem is a permissions issue.  Instead this is by design within Trello.  When moving a card to a new board, Trello does not maintain all the historical activity from previous locations, such as list names or prior board names.

Sorry if there was an expectation that Trello would do this, but it does not.  Instead of moving the card, it might be possible to use the copy function instead, and then link the copied card together with the original one.  The copied card won't have that previous activity information, but it would allow users to traverse the linked cards to find the original to see that information if needed. Here’s a screenshot of an example rule.

I hope this helps.

Andy

[rrpalmer]

Are there any plans to change this? I am curious to know what situation would anyone want to move a card and not maintain all the activity records of that card? 

I appreciate your answer, but it does not solve the issue. My goal was that once a card has made it's way through each column of board; a member could simply click a button on the card and move the card to another board where it begins moving it's way through that department's board (Trying to organize each board by department). Even if we couldn't use the butler button; I would be happy just moving the card and knowing that I won't lose information. If I'm reading your suggestion correctly... A member from one department has to copy card and then go into the board of another department in order to add a link to the original card? Sounds like wasted effort to maintain records that should already be there. 

[Iain Dooley]

@rrpalmer @Andy Heinzer I could have sworn it didn't used to be like this ... Hmm anyway the actions *are* there in the card's history, they're just not shown on the card.

What seems to make even less sense here is that if you move the card back to its original board, the activities don't show up again.

For example, you can use the same instructions here:

https://help.trello.com/article/783-recovering-the-description-of-a-card-that-has-been-changed

but replace "filter=updateCard:desc" with "filter=all" to get a JSON output of the card actions, eg:

https://trello.com/1/cards/wPp0kAMQ/actions?filter=updateCard:desc

BUT this just gives you JSON output. If you wanted to keep a more coherent audit trail of activity across boards, here is a Trellinator function you could install globally that would attach a Google Sheet called "Audit Trail" to any card, and record any action that occurred on that card, in the sheet:

https://gist.github.com/iaindooley/531239aac98711c8b56b75fd86fa7593

This example just dumps the "entities" involved in the notification into a JSON string, but what you'd do to make it more useful is change what data were included based on what type of action it was (just a little too time consuming for me to do in this quick demo ;)

So for example if it was a checklist item completion, you'd put the name of the checklist and the item in. If it was a list move you'd put the from and to lists and so on. You'd probably also want to ignore some actions, but you could also create a more complete activity log than Trello gives you natively; for example label changes and description changes don't show up in the activity log, but you could include those in the full audit log spreadsheet.

You can see more about setting up Trellinator here:

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

[Andy Heinzer]

Hi @Iain Dooley  and @rrpalmer 

You have both raised some great questions and made some interesting points.  I can't personally speak towards the product decisions or why that data might be in the json/API, but not the interface as Iain pointed out.

At this point I think you would both be better served by creating support requests and/or product feedback posts to the Trello service desk over in https://trello.atlassian.net/servicedesk/customer/portal/1/group/1

This way the Trello team can directly serve you here.   Please let me know if you have any problems creating these, perhaps I can assist you in regards to creating these.

Andy

[Iain Dooley · Accepted solution]

@rrpalmer You can only see activity that you have access to. If activity occurred on a board you no longer have access to, you won't be able to see it. Could it be that you no longer are a member of or have access to the source board?

[rrpalmer]

I am the owner of all boards and the creator of all the cards on these boards. Also, all boards are remaining open. We are trying flow project cards through a concept refinement board, then move it through a development board, and finally move it through an implementation board. It is extremely important that every activity remain clearly documented on the cards as they are moved from board to board.

[Iain Dooley]

@rrpalmer okay I'm able to reproduce this issue. I can see when I go into the JSON view of the actions that they are still present, but I can't see the activity shown on the card. I haven't paid attention to it in a while but I'm sure it didn't used to be this way ... I'll bring this to the attention of the Atlassian team to see if they can shed some light on it.

[Iain Dooley]

@rrpalmer Incidentally this has nothing to do with Butler, it is the same if you move a card manually with the "Move" button.

[rrpalmer]

Thank you

[Randall Ader]

Any resolution on rrpalmer's issue?

I believe I'm having the same type of problem where information isn't flowing back and forth with cards between different boards.

I'm the owner of all the boards and information disappears, and I've invited another user as member to test. When the card is moved back to the starting board, the information is carried forward. When the card is moved to another board, the checklist is incomplete and then unexpectedly gets removed or archived.