Acute

What is Trello

Trello is a visual collaboration tool that helps teams and individuals organize their projects and tasks. Its main function is to manage workflows using a system of boards, lists, and cards, which is based on the Kanban methodology. You can see what is being worked on, who is working on it, and where something is in a process. Trello was created by Fog Creek Software in 2011 and later became its own company. In 2017, it was acquired by Atlassian, a major software company. Trello is known for its simplicity and flexibility, making it useful for everything from personal to-do lists to complex team projects.

Trello Features

• Boards: A board represents a project or a workflow. You can create a board for anything you need to organize, like a marketing campaign or a new website launch.
• Lists: Inside a board, you create lists. These are columns that represent different stages of your workflow. Common lists are "To Do", "In Progress", and "Done".
• Cards: Cards are the basic units of a board, representing individual tasks. You can move cards from one list to another as they progress through the workflow.
• Card Details: Each card can contain a lot of information. You can add descriptions, checklists, due dates, attachments, and comments. This keeps all task-related information in one place.
• Members: You can invite team members to your boards and assign them to specific cards. This makes it clear who is responsible for each task.
• Power-Ups: These are integrations and features that add more functionality to your boards. You can connect Trello with other apps like Slack, Google Drive, and Salesforce, or add features like calendars and voting.
• Butler Automation: Trello's built-in automation tool. Butler can perform actions automatically based on rules you set. For example, it can move a card to the "Done" list when you check off all items in its checklist.

Trello Pricing Plans

Trello offers several pricing plans to fit different needs. There is a free plan for individuals and small teams. The paid plans offer more features for growing teams and large companies.

• Free Plan: This plan is for individuals or small teams starting out. It includes the core features like unlimited cards and up to 10 boards per workspace.
• Standard Plan: Designed for small teams that need more collaboration tools. It offers features like unlimited boards, advanced checklists, and custom fields.
• Premium Plan: This plan is best for teams that need to track multiple projects. It includes all features from the Standard plan, plus different views like Calendar, Timeline, and Dashboard, along with more administrative controls.
• Enterprise Plan: For large organizations that require advanced security and control. It provides organization-wide permissions, public board management, and dedicated support.

Trello Free Plan

Trello offers a very generous free plan. With the free plan, you can create unlimited cards, unlimited lists, and up to 10 boards per workspace. You also get unlimited storage (with a 10MB per file limit) and a limited number of Butler automation runs per month. The main limitations are the number of boards and the number of Power-Ups you can enable per board (one per board).

How to use Trello

Getting started with Trello is simple. Here is a typical workflow:

1. Sign up for a Trello account and create a Workspace for your team or company.
2. Create a Board for a specific project. For example, "New Website Design".
3. Add Lists to your board to represent the stages of your workflow. A simple setup is "To Do", "Doing", and "Done".
4. Create Cards for each task in the "To Do" list. For example, "Design Homepage Mockup" or "Write About Us Page Content".
5. Add details to each card. Assign members, set a due date, add a checklist of sub-tasks, and attach relevant files.
6. Move cards across the lists as you work on them. When you start working on a task, move its card to the "Doing" list. When it is finished, move it to "Done". This gives everyone a clear view of the project's progress.

Pros and Cons of Trello

Pros:

• Very easy to use: The visual interface is intuitive and requires little training.
• Flexible: It can be adapted for many different types of projects, both personal and professional.
• Excellent free plan: The free version is powerful enough for many users and small teams.
• Good mobile apps: You can manage your projects on the go with their iOS and Android apps.

Cons:

• Limited for large projects: For very complex projects with many tasks, boards can become cluttered and hard to manage.
• Basic reporting: Trello does not have advanced reporting or analytics features compared to other project management tools.
• No dependency management: It is difficult to set dependencies between tasks in a simple way.

Trello integrations

Trello integrates with hundreds of third-party applications through its Power-Ups feature. This allows you to connect your boards to the tools your team already uses.

• Slack integration: You can send Trello notifications to Slack channels, create cards from Slack messages, and link conversations.
• Google Drive integration: Attach files and folders from Google Drive directly to Trello cards and see previews.
• Jira integration: Link Trello cards to Jira issues, which is useful for teams that use both tools for different purposes.
• Salesforce integration: Attach Salesforce contacts, leads, and opportunities to Trello cards to manage customer-related projects.
• GitHub integration: Attach pull requests, issues, and branches to cards to track development work alongside project tasks.

Trello Alternatives

• Asana: A popular project management tool that is more list-based than Trello. It is better for managing task dependencies and has more powerful reporting features.
• Jira: Developed by the same company (Atlassian), Jira is designed specifically for software development teams. It offers advanced features for agile workflows, bug tracking, and roadmapping.
• Monday.com: A highly visual and customizable Work OS. It offers more views than Trello (like Gantt charts and workload views) and is suitable for a wide range of business processes.
• ClickUp: An all-in-one productivity platform that aims to replace multiple apps. It is more complex than Trello but offers a much wider set of features, including documents, goals, and time tracking.

Trello API

Yes, Trello provides a comprehensive RESTful API for developers. This allows you to build custom integrations, automate workflows, and interact with Trello data programmatically. You can get a free API key by logging into your Trello account and visiting the Trello developer portal at trello.com/app-key. You will need to generate a token to authorize your requests.

Here is a simple example using curl to get information about a board:

curl "https://api.trello.com/1/boards/{boardId}?key={yourApiKey}&token={yourApiToken}"

Replace {boardId}, {yourApiKey}, and {yourApiToken} with your actual board ID, API key, and token.

Trello Affiliate program

Trello does not have a traditional, public affiliate program where you can sign up for a link and earn a commission on sales. However, as Trello is part of Atlassian, you can explore the Atlassian Partner Program. This program is more for solution partners, resellers, and consultants who work with Atlassian products. If you are an influencer or have a large audience, you can try contacting their marketing or partnership team directly to discuss potential collaboration opportunities.