Companies, large or small, unquestionably have to juggle numerous plans, projects, and people. Having a tool that can help smoothly organize, plan, and run projects goes a long way in achieving goals. Project Management software is no more symbolized with pencils and papers. As the technology evolves, such solutions offer a packaged deal for Planning, Time Management, Resource Allocation, and Employee Management.
Trello is one such web-based Project Management solution packed with multiple collaboration functions. The most specific thing about Trello is that it is based on the Kanban system and uses a Board and Card system. You can create a separate Trello Board for every project within which there are Cards for every task and lists for following their progress.
This article will introduce you to Trello and Trello Boards. It will also discuss some popular Trello Boards and explain the various customizations that you can implement on a Trello Board. Furthermore, it will also provide you some tips for improving your experience with Trello. Read on to find more about Trello Boards and their workflow.
Table of Contents
Introduction to Trello
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At a glance, Trello tells its users what is being worked on, who is working on which project, and the current location of each task in the process. Companies and teams around the world use it for tracking projects and organizing their work. It is also a Collaboration and Management tool for teams to create and complete their project and tasks.
Besides Project Management, you can use Trello to organize your day, track time, plan meals, weddings, and read lists. You can also schedule a vacation, run a website, keep track while job hunting, manage a personal budget and taxes, and much more.
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Introduction to Trello Boards
In Trello, users can either start with an empty Trello Board for designing their workflow or choose from a wide range of Trello Board Templates. All the Templates are customizable where users can invite team members to collaborate and work together. Here are some examples of Trello Board Templates:
Trello Board 1: Company Overview
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The goal of the Company Overview Board is to help managers and team members get an excellent overview of things happening throughout the company, including completed and current projects.
Trello Board 2: Customer Support
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Companies can have a Customer Support Dashboard for their Support Team. This Board keeps track of all the new, ongoing, and resolved cases. The Cards have details like the user’s plan, type, device, priority, and app.
Trello Board 3: New Hire Onboarding
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New employee onboarding requires hiring managers to have a simple yet thorough onboarding process. You need to cover every base before they can start working on their first project. The New Hire Onboarding Template will help you eliminate human error by keeping track of everything hiring managers have to do for every new hire in the company.
The first two lists have tasks that HR and new employees must complete before and on the first day to the first week. You can create checklists for every task, such as 401k, taxes, paperwork, logistics, and much more. You can also add a list of company culture. Also, keep a directory of resources and resource persons, so employees know who to reach out if they are facing an issue.
Trello Board 4: Employee Manual
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Keeping track of every employee and their resources on spreadsheets can be a little daunting. Switch to this adaptable and scalable Employee Manual Template that helps you keep track of all the benefits, vacations, and travel information. You can enrich these Cards with more details by adding documents from services like Dropbox and Google drive.
Trello Board 5: Product Roadmap
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Whether you are a startup focusing on a single product or a large organization with multiple products, the Product Roadmap is an invaluable Template. It helps you create a consistent roadmap for all your products and helps your teams collaborate from a central point of contact.
It acts as a blueprint of your workflow’s vision, improving decision-making and prioritizing the right products and tasks. Use this Template to create a structured approach for bringing a product to market.
Trello Board 6: YouTube Editorial
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The YouTube Editorial Calendar Template is for keeping track of your video content. There is a ‘Community Idea’ list for keeping track of suggestions and tips from your fans and followers. Next, you can have a list of weekly or daily videos. There is also an option to save all the ready videos that can be posted in the future. The YouTube Editorial Calendar Template will help you maintain a steady stream of ideas and videos for your YouTube channel. You can also create a workflow for your videos by keeping them in ‘ready to publish’ or ‘needs editing’ lists.
Types of Trello Customizations
You can enhance your Trello experience by using the following customizations on your Trello boards:
1) Full Card Covers
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You can use the Unsplash Gallery for customizing card covers and changing the board’s background. You can also upload your images as card covers. Attach a photo to the card cover and select a sizing option for the cover display. Click on the Cover button and choose whether you want the attachment to display as the full height of the card or above the card name. Full card covers are great for improving your board’s visuals. They are also an excellent option for a recipe or a team directory board.
2) Card Colors
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Now you can change the color of entire cards on Trello. In the same Cover button, you can select a color rather than an image. The size will remain the same as images, and you can choose the color to appear as full height or above the card name.
You can use Card colors as list headers. It gives a great visual context to each list, providing additional information for people navigating your board. You can also add ‘How to use this list or ‘Which cards should be moved in this list’ as card headers for better navigation.
3) Add a Giphy Sticker
Add a fun element to your cards by placing stickers on them. There are so many in-built and Giphy stickers to choose from. You can add stickers of cats, pets, tacos, and much more. To access the sticker sets, go to ‘Show Menu’ on the top right corner of the Trello Board. Click on “Stickers” to see Trello’s stickers library. To access the dynamic GIPHY library of stickers, simply type a search term into the white search box which reads “Search GIPHY.” Drag and drop stickers of your choice to add them to a card.
Tips to Improve Trello Boards
1) Watch Cards, Lists, Or Boards
Do you constantly need to keep track of something within a workflow or task? Instead of requesting team members to tag you on tasks that require your input, you can use the “Watch” option on Cards, Lists, or Boards. When the Watch option is turned on, you will be notified whenever something changes.
When you’re ‘Watching’ a card, you’ll get notifications for:
- Comments.
- Adding, changing, and upcoming due dates.
- Card moves and archives.
When watching a List or Board, you’ll get notifications for all newly created Cards.
2) Switch Up Your View
Trello’s new Timeline, Table, Dashboard, Map, and Calendar Views are available with Business Class or Enterprise plans. With these Views, you can improve Project Visualization and watch what work has to be done, who needs to do it, and which tasks are close to the deadline.
With these Views options, teams can gain a new perspective, improve decision making, and get tasks done before deadlines.
Let’s take a look at Trello’s New Views:
- Timeline View: If you have start dates and deadlines set for Cards on your Board, Timeline View helps you stay on top of every change. You can visualize the pipeline and ensure there are no Cards that can derail your project. You can adjust dates as your priorities shift. Also, Timeline View ensures you never lose sight of critical tasks as projects move across the finish line.
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- Table View: If you have multiple Boards and projects planned for months in advance and Timeline View simply gets too big to keep track of, that’s when Trello’s Table view comes into play. Table View takes Cards from selected Boards and turns them into a convenient spreadsheet-style list. You can sort and filter list items to drill down to specific Cards that you need to check.
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- Dashboard View: To get a bird’s-eye view of projects, switch to Dashboard View. It pulls all key metrics like Assigned Cards, Due Dates, and Cards per list for visualization on a single screen so you can prevent bottlenecks. You can also create customized and unique reports for various use cases. Also, you can use Charts and Graphs to track the project’s progress or identify inefficiencies.
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- Calendar View: This View option lets teams check their work and tasks that lie ahead for every workday. This View helps manage a monthly Marketing Calendar and also for staying on top of to-dos. With Calendar View, you can check the advanced checklist’s start and due dates of all assigned cards and items. You can also drag and drop the card to a new date for updating its start/due date.
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- Map View: If your work requires location details, you can clearly organize and visualize them with Map View. It adds an extra layer of visual information when your team works with clients from different places.
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3) Create Card From Your Email Inbox
Trello allows you to create an email address for your boards and cards. In the board’s sidebar settings section, open email settings, and copy the email address. Whenever you send an email to the given email address for your board, a card will automatically appear on the board.
The email’s subject will become the card’s title, and the body will become the description. All the new cards will be added to the bottom of the first list by default. However, you can change this setting and choose the list and position you want the new cards to appear.
You can also do the following customizations:
- Any attachment on the email will be attached to the specific card.
- To assign cards to specific team members, use the @mentions in the subject or body of the email. Alternatively, you can also add anyone’s email address in the CC field to assign cards to them.
- To add labels, use hashtags and then the number, color, or name of the label. This information will be stripped out, and the label will be applied to the card.
If you are a Gmail user, you can use the Trello add-on for Gmail for creating cards directly from the email.
4) Let Butler Do The Heavy Lifting
Butler is a powerful feature that brings automation to Trello boards. You don’t need to learn coding skills for automating your cards. You can easily have to create rules, buttons, and commands for repetitive tasks. Butler can perform simple tasks such as sorting and archiving cards. The commands are represented as a plain sentence, and you can type the following types of commands:
- Card Buttons to automate workflows such as adding or removing card labels, archiving cards, etc.
- Board Buttons automate workflows such as reordering cards in lists or create new lists.
- Rules are activated in reaction to a particular action in Trello.
- Due Date commands trigger actions on a card when its due date matches a specified time.
5) Snooze Tasks For Later
Whenever you miss a deadline for Trello Cards, it turns Red by default. If it’s because you underestimate the time it will take to complete the task, you can Snooze the Card instead of pushing the due date. With the Card Snooze Power-up enabled, you can archive the Card until a specific date and time, after which it will be back on your Board.
Conclusion
The article discussed Trello and listed some of the popular Trello Boards. It also explained the various types of customization that you can perform on these Trello Boards to improve them. Furthermore, the article mentioned some tips which can be beneficial for you while using Trello.
Be it for brainstorming meetings, organizing a party, or managing team projects, Trello not only eases your workload but also increases efficiency. You can either find a Template that almost resembles your workflow and customize it or choose to create the Board from scratch. From daily to-do lists to editorial workflow and complex projects, Trello houses thousands of unique workflows that are waiting to be discovered by you. So the next time you want to create a workflow, start with some inspiration from Trello’s community gallery.
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