Why can't I open office files uploaded as attachments without a paid power up?

[Laura Wrigley]

I have introduced Trello into the business I'm employed at and secured a budget for the roll-out of Trello Premium to all 95-ish members of staff. I'm driving the implementation of Trello as a main activity management tool one department at a time. One of the key functions we're performing is uploading various attachments to the cards so that documentation is all in the same place for the senior leadership to view for each sale.

What is definitely not a good look is when the CFO phones me to ask why he can't open a Microsoft Word file from Trello without being prompted to sign up to a paid power-up. I understand that the power-up itself is rather low cost in comparison, but considering I secured funding by demonstrating functionality which has now come into question, the CFO has his back up and so do I. Trello Premium is a one-off subscription...what I'm not going to be able to secure is Trello Premium + bitty power-ups that make it actually work for us. It kind of takes away the "Premium" element.

My questions in relation to this issue are:

1. Is there a free solution to this or do I have to tell my colleagues to save their office files elsewhere and then the CFO that he will have to view them elsewhere (which defeats the object). 

2. We have Sharepoint. If the files are linked to this Sharepoint location as an attachment rather than uploaded, will they open in the browser regardless of file type? As this could potentially work for us if so - I'd just need to change the current process.

3. What's the likelihood this will happen with PDF's in the future as well? Considering 90% of attachments are PDF's it would be a huge problem if the same thing happened.  

[Lara · Accepted solution]

Hi Laura,

Thanks for reaching out!

You should definitely be able to open or download Microsoft Word files without being prompted to pay for a third-party Power-Up.

Could you please send over a screenshot of what your CFO sees when they attempt to open/download a Microsoft Word file from Trello?

I'll keep an eye out for your reply,

Lara
The Trello Team

[Laura Wrigley]

[Laura Wrigley]

Hi Lara,

Thanks for your response. This is what we are all seeing on the cards - the attachments that are office are now showing separately to the PDFs and when they are clicked the second screenshot shows the pop-up we're seeing. 

When we've looked into this power up it's part of the "Tiny Power Up Club" which is a paid subscription. 

Best regards,

Laura 

[Lara]

Hi Laura,

Thanks for that.

It looks like you're using Office File Viewer, which is a third-party Power-Up built by a company outside of Trello.

You should be able to attach files to your cards and preview them using Trello's in-built attachment system: https://support.atlassian.com/trello/docs/adding-attachments-to-cards/

Let me know how that goes,

Lara
The Trello Team

[Laura Wrigley]

Hi Lara,

I'm not sure how Office File Viewer happened. I have been in and unauthorised it and that has resolved the problem. Thanks very much for your help. 

Best regards,

Laura