Can Butler Automate my Onboarding?

[Michael Brzezowski]

I have spent the past two weeks trying to solve my problem with the Butler Power-up, but I have not been successful.  I would like to use the Power-up instead of the bot due to the impending, eventual death of the bot.

I would like to create a card with the name of the new person at our school.  There are four categories of new people, 3-4 student, 5-8 student, teacher, and support staff.  Each category has a specific list of tasks required to be done to onboard them to our school.

I want Butler (or another power-up) to be able to create the task cards for all of the required tasks, put the new person's name at the front of the task card's name, and put a specific member onto that card (for example, I do the IT tasks, but the secretary has some paperwork tasks).

Does anyone know a good way to do this efficiently?

Thanks,

Mike

Technology Integrator/Coordinator

Pemetic Elementary School

Southwest Harbor, Maine

[Iain Dooley · Accepted solution]

@Michael Brzezowski here's a method I posted for using Butler to create sub-tasks:

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Trello-articles/Trello-Subtasks-with-Butler/ba-p/1060392

You can prefix all created cards when converting items in a checklist, so you can put the name of the person at the start of the card using the "with pattern" option when converting a checklist.

To handle the "adding members" bit, what you do is have a checklist for each "role" (IT, Secretary and so on) then you have a Butler command that triggers when a new card is created that does something like:

Add member @itperson and convert all items in checklist "IT" into linked cards in list "{triggercardname} IT" with pattern "{triggercardname} {itemname}" copying members and remove member @itperson and add member @secretary and convert all items in checklist "Secretary" into linked cards in list "{triggercardname} Secretary" with pattern "{triggercardname} {itemname}" copying members and remove all members from the trigger card

I haven't built it but it would look something like that.

[Michael Brzezowski]

I cannot get the {itemname} to work.  It is just blank.  I wonder if it is one of the variables that that are Enterprise only.

So, here is the final solution that I put together that is functional:

• Created a list with a template card for each type of user that contains a checklist of what needs to be done to onboard them.
• Created a "Create Tasks" button that uses creates a list for the user based on card name, then creates linked cards for each item on the task.
• Created a rule to check linked item when the card was archived.
• Items on the checklist will have @IT ADVITOS, @Principal, and @Office
• Created a rule to add the appropriate user to any card based on card content (For example, it adds me if there is @IT ADVITOS in the card somewhere.

My final desire is to create linked cards on my personal GTD board for all items tagged @IT ADVITOS to keep it simple for me, but I am not sure about that yet.

Thank you for your help.  It was just what I needed.

[Iain Dooley]

@Michael Brzezowski cool! the variable seems to be checklistitemname ... there are no enterprise only variables.

Anyhoo, if you're after a "GTD style" board, you might be interested in this thing I created which creates a linked copy of any card you're added to (and integrates with Gmail so you can use Trello as an email client):

https://trello.com/integrations/#benkoboard

I wrote about the "task shortlisting" method I developed which is kind of an extension of GTD/Inbox Zero here:

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Trello-articles/Task-shortlisting-with-Trello/ba-p/988117

[Michael Brzezowski]

Thank you all.  I am working on testing solutions today and will let you know what ends up working best for me.  

Mike

[carolyn french]

Hi Michael and welcome to Community!

I understand you have been trying to automate onboarding using Butler. This suggestion is a different tack, but possibly much easier.

Have you tried using the new Board and/or Card Templates? Depending on how many tasks you have per onboarding and whether you need to assign each task, you could either set up a template board for the new person or a template card. If you do need to assign each task, then you would need a template board per person, so you can assign the card to a member. However, if you don't assign the tasks, you could do one card per new person with all the tasks in a checklist.

Carolyn

[Michael Brzezowski]

Carolyn,

Thank you for the reply.  This solution was simpler in many ways, but I ended up not doing it because I already am suffering from Trello board creep.  I am getting more and more boards and right now working on consolidating manually and with Butler.

Thanks again,

Mike

[carolyn french]

Hi Mike,

Thanks for following up here with the solution that worked for you! That's what helps others that are searching for something similar to do.  I need to weed through all my boards now too. 2020 is right around the corner!

Best of luck,

Carolyn