Date-Based Automation

While you can trigger automations to occur when certain things happen with triggers, and you can manually make them happen with buttons, there are two other ways you can trigger automations, both of which are related to dates. We’ll dive into how they work in this chapter.

Here’s what you’ll learn in this chapter:

• Automation for creating a new card each day
• Testing your date automations
• Automation for joining a card when it’s due

Just like in the other chapters, you may not use these every day, so there’s no need to obsess over every detail if this is your first time learning about them. Get comfortable with what’s available and come back to re-read this chapter whenever you want to dive deeper into how to set these up.

Scheduled automation

So, you get it – there’s a lot you can do with Trello automation, and buttons are great for when you want to manually trigger something. But what about the trigger of time?

Scheduled automation is Trello’s version of telling specific actions to happen at a recurring interval, such as daily, weekly, monthly... or just about any time you can think of.

When to use scheduled automation

Use scheduled automation when you have processes that you do every day or week, such as creating daily reminder cards or moving cards between lists at the start or end of a week. If you explain your workflow in Trello and catch yourself saying “Every Monday morning, I...,” then that’s a cue that you should probably automate it with scheduled automation!

Because of the nature of scheduled automation, we need more triggers than we’ve seen so far. Let’s see what we can find. From the Automation modal, make sure you’...

Due date automation

We’ve almost covered all the ground regarding Trello automation, but if you’ve been following along, you might have noticed there’s one more section we haven’t discussed yet. Let’s talk about Due date automation.

When to use Due date automation

You’ll use Due date automation if you have specific actions that you need to happen concerning a card that’s due. If you felt that the date triggers in Rules were pretty limited, you’ll be happy to know you have some additional triggers here. The difference is that these relate more to monitoring the relation of the current day to a due date, whereas Rules focus more on changes in the fields, regardless of their relation to the current scope of time.

Because we need to automate based on time, some new triggers are available. Let’s explore them!

Start by making sure you’re in the Due Date section of the Automation modal:

...

Summary

You’re basically a Trello wizard at this point! You can automate so many things, and you can make them happen at specific intervals or prioritize automations when you need them to happen based on due dates.

Keep playing around with automation – this is what lets you build applications for your workflows inside Trello, with no code needed. I’ve worked with several clients who can take automation principles inside Trello and create systems that manage their companies’ operations virtually on autopilot.

You can build anything you need! If you’re ever stuck or need help, reach out in the Trello section of the Atlassian Community: community.atlassian.com/t5/Trello/ct-p/trello. In the next chapter, we’ll talk about expanding the wonderful world of Trello with Power-Ups!