Import Excel to Trello: 9 Easy Steps

As a business evolves, the number of employees, workers, departments, and projects also scale up in unison. With an increasing number of teams such as Product Development, Marketing, Finance, Human Resources, and so on, management and collaboration across cross-functional teams have become a daunting problem.

For continuous development, an effective Project Management Platform like Trello is required that will automate the processes and increase productivity.

In this article, you will come to know how to Import Excel to Trello. You will also gain a holistic understanding of Microsoft Excel, Trello, and the limitations involved while you Import data from Excel to Trello.

Table of Contents

• Introduction to Microsoft Excel
  • Key Features of Microsoft Excel
• Understanding Project Management Applications
• Introduction to Trello
  • Key Features of Trello
• Understanding 4 Basic Components of Trello
  • Boards
  • Lists
  • Cards
  • Menu
• Steps to Import Excel to Trello
• Import Excel to Trello: Limitations
• Conclusion

Introduction to Microsoft Excel

Microsoft Excel is a Spreadsheet Application developed by Microsoft, included in the Microsoft Office Suite of Applications. It supports Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS.

It aids with the creation of text and numeric grids, formulas that define calculations, graphing tools, pivot tables, and a macro programming language known as VBA (Visual Basic for Applications).

Numeric Grids organized in rows and columns can be numerically modified using simple and complicated arithmetic operations and functions.

In simple terms, Microsoft Excel is used to record data in the form of tables. The data can range from regular planner data to an organization’s expenditure data. It also helps analyze and make visualizations on top of the data stored in the spreadsheets.

To have further information about Microsoft Excel, you can follow the Official Documentation.

Key Features of Microsoft Excel

• Conditional Formatting: Conditional Formatting highlights the patterns in your data as represented by your Spreadsheet.
• Pivot Tables: Microsoft Excel pivot tables can be used to sort, count, total, or average data contained in a single large spreadsheet and show it in a new table in any format desired by the user.
• Paste Special: While copying data from one cell to another, the user may also copy formatting, value, formula, comments, and so on, or their combinations, depending on the user’s needs.
• Add Multiple Rows: Microsoft Excel enables users to add multiple rows & columns wherever and whenever required.
• Extend Formula Across/Down: Microsoft Excel’s brilliance is its ease of scalability. Once the formula is appropriate, Microsoft Excel will do the correct computation a million times.
• Flash Fill: While replicating data with certain modifications, Microsoft Excel makes suggestions. For example, suppose you have two columns of names and need to generate email addresses from all of them. While you are creating an email address for one row, Microsoft Excel will propose email addresses for all of the other rows based on their names.
• Index-match: This is one of the strongest combinations of Microsoft Excel functions. It may be used to look up a value in a large data table and return the equivalent value in that table.
• Filters: Microsoft Excel provides features to view data according to your requirements and these features are called filters.

Understanding Project Management Applications

Project Management Software is an application that aids an individual or team in efficiently planning and managing their projects and tasks in an organization. Its goal is to make the workflow of a team working on the same project easier.

It is appropriate for small startup teams, large seasoned teams, and even numerous distinct teams that must collaborate to finish a project.

The program enables you to assign and reassign tasks, conveniently track deadlines to ensure they are met, and, of course, control the entire process from a unified management location.

The software is ideal for both workers and executives. It aids in Project Management, Team Objectives, and Work Synchronization. A good Project Management Software suite includes a variety of tools for allocating resources, controlling output, and managing workloads.

Project Management Software is more than just Task Management. It provides a comprehensive, larger-scale solution.

It allows you to lead the team, monitor document efficiency, and counterbalance projects, whereas Task Management Software splits components within the same project, defines individual efforts, allows for self-management, and assigns due dates.

The workflow is automated using modern Project Management Software. For example, it alerts all parties involved when a specific phase is completed and it is time to assign new tasks.

Introduction to Trello

Trello is an easy-to-use, flexible, visually intuitive Project Management & Collaboration Tool that helps you manage and organize anything.

Trello, in a nutshell, shows you what’s being worked on, who’s working on what, where something is in the process, and on what timeframe.

It is just like a virtual whiteboard filled with sticky notes, with notes divided according to team and projects, and categorized according to their status in the work timeline.

Trello was founded in 2011 by Fog Creek Software and was spun out in 2014 to create the foundation of a new business before being sold to Atlassian in January 2017.

Trello uses Kanban Principles, a way of visualizing workflows, to offer a comprehensive picture of a project from start to end. Trello’s boards, lists, and cards are used for this purpose.

To have further information about Trello, you can follow the Official Documentation.

Key Features of Trello

• Progress Meter Checklist: This helps in keeping track of subtasks within a card in a Trello Board.
• Card Records Archive: You can archive cards when you no longer need them on the Board.
• Data Filters: You can use keywords to filter and display cards with their card names as per the individual words in the filter keyword.
• Deadline Alerts and Notifications: If you set the due date of a card and you are a member of that card then you will receive a notification about the card 24 hours before its deadline by default.
• Automated Email Notifications: Trello enables email alerts that can be triggered when anything happens to a Card or a Board to which you are subscribed.
• Activity Logs: The activity feed displays any updates that occur throughout your Trello board.
• Information Backup: Rewind saves incremental backups of customers’ Trello Boards and restores them in an automated fashion. 
• Mobile-Friendly Views: Trello supports user-friendly interfaces for easier navigation on mobiles and tablets.
• Developer API: Trello provides a basic RESTful web API via which you may interact with each type of resource (e.g., a card, a board, or a member) through their URL.

Prerequisites

• A Trello account.
• Working knowledge of Trello.
• Working knowledge of Excel/CSV.

Understanding 4 Basic Components of Trello

The 4 basic components of Trello are:

• Boards
• Lists
• Cards
• Menu

1) Boards

A Trello Board is a location where you can keep track of information or tasks, which is useful for large projects, teams, or workflows.

Whether you’re launching a New Website, Tracking Sales, or Arranging your Next Office Party, a Trello Board is the place to organize tasks, and minor details, and, most importantly, interact with your coworkers.

The image given below is a board that goes by the name “Project Management”.

2) Lists

Trello Lists arrange and keep cards, or individual tasks or pieces of information, at various levels of development in a specific Board.

Lists may be used to construct a workflow in which cards are moved through each stage of the process from beginning to end, or they can simply be used to keep track of ideas and information.

There is no limit to the number of Lists that may be added to a Board, and they can be organized and titled in any way you choose.

The image given below illustrates a Trello Board with 3 Lists i.e.,

• To Do
• Doing
• Done

3) Cards

A Trello Card is the smallest but most intricate unit of a Board. Tasks and ideas are represented by Cards.

A Card can represent something that has to be done, such as a blog article, or something that needs to be remembered, such as a Corporate Vacation Policy.

To add a new Card, just click “Add a card…” at the bottom of any list and name it anything like “Hire a new sales manager” or “Design a logo for the post.”

The image given below represents a Trello Board named Team Tasks with 3 Lists i.e., To Do, Doing, and Done. And within each List, multiple Cards represent the name of tasks. The pointer is on the “Create deck for presentation” Card.

4) Menu

The Trello Menu—your Board’s Mission Control Center—is located on the right side of your Trello Board. The Menu is where you manage Board permissions for members, control settings, search cards, enable Power-Ups, and build automation. In Menu’s activity stream, you may also see all of the activity that has occurred on a Board.

In the image given below, you can see the Menu panel to the left side of the Board which appears after clicking on the three (…) dot option to the left with the Text Show the Menu. 

Steps to Import Excel to Trello

Since, there is no inbuilt integration tool that will seamlessly Import Excel to Trello, hence the process has to be done manually.

The steps involved to Import Excel to Trello are as follows:

• Step 1: Log in to your Trello account.
• Step 2: Go to the workspace where you want to import data.

• Step 3: Open the particular Trello Board or Create a New Board. For creating a New Board, click on the “+” button in the top-right corner or click on “Create new board”.

• Step 4: Name the Board based on the topic you’re working on according to your convenience. You can also rename the Board by clicking on the name and changing it.

• Step 5: Now, you can add lists to the Board marking the different statuses of your project timeline such as “To Do, “In Progress”, “Done”, “Withheld”, etc., by clicking on the “Add a list” option.

• Step 6: Now, to Import Excel to Trello, you have to copy individual columns at a time. Go to the Excel sheet, select the records in a column that you want to import, and copy them.

• Step 7: Now, go to your Trello Board, and click on “Add a card” in the List where you want to import the copied data in the process to Import Excel to Trello.

• Step 8: Then paste the copied data. And click on Add and select whether you want to add them as a Single Card or in Multiple cards.

• Step 9: You can also make customizations to the Cards by clicking on them individually.

For further information on how to import Excel to Trello, visit here.

Import Excel to Trello: Limitations

There are numerous limitations and difficulties involved when you manually Import Excel to Trello.

The limitations involved when you import Excel to Trello are as follows:

• When you Import Excel to Trello, you have to manually copy and paste the fields individually from Microsoft Excel to Trello cards, hence the flexibility of the whole process decreases.
• Manual copying of records from Microsoft Excel to Trello involves the redundancy of tasks. Hence importing Excel to Trello manually is quite time-consuming.
• You have to continuously move between Microsoft Excel and Trello hence the manual process is quite less efficient.

Conclusion

In this article, you have learned about the steps involved in Import Excel to Trello. This article also provided in-depth knowledge about Microsoft Excel, Project Management Tools, and Trello, their key features, components, and the limitations involved while you import Excel to Trello.

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