Trello Tutorial for 2023: Make the Most of Your Kanban Boards

Trello Tutorial: Setup & Basics

Before seeing what Trello offers, you need to sign up for an account. In this guide, we’ll be showing you how to sign up for a free account. There are paid plans too, with slightly more advanced features, which you can learn about in our Trello pricing guide. Let’s get you signed up for a free Trello account.

How to Set Up a Trello Board & Invite Team Members

Before you can start playing with all of the wonderful tools that Trello has to offer, you need to create an account. Fortunately, as you’ll see below, the process is easy.

1. Go to Trello’s Website

   Getting started with Trello is simple. Head to Trello’s website, and click the “get Trello for free” button in the top-right corner. From here, you’ll be asked to enter your email address.

   

2. Enter Your Information

   Next, name your workspace and add your teammates to the board. The wonderful thing about Trello’s free account is that there are no limits on the number of team members. Next, click the “create your workspace” button. When you click the button, you’ll be asked if you want a trial of Trello’s Premium plan. For this guide, we will accept the trial.

   

3. Create Your Board

   Trello boards are where you’ll get your work done. Click the “create your first board” button, enter a board title and choose between a private board (which could be for a personal to-do list), a public board (which everyone can see) or a workspace for your team. Next, choose a background. Lastly, we will click the “create” button and will skip the Trello templates.

   

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How to Customize Your Board’s Look

If you’re not a fan of the iconic blue background that Trello uses, Trello will let you customize your board. In the next few steps, we will show you how to make your board reflect your personal style a little more.

1. Open the Overflow Menu

   If you make a board and instantly regret your background choice (like we did), fear not. You can easily change how your board looks. You’ll see an overflow menu in the top-right corner of the screen. Click the three dots, and a pop-out menu will appear.

   

2. Choose Your Favorite Image

   Once in the overflow menu, you can choose from a diverse range of photographs, solid colors and gradients, or you can upload an image to use as a background. Choose your preferred background, close the menu, and you’re all set.

   

How to Create Lists & Cards

Lists and cards are what will make your kanban board come alive. Your lists will represent projects or project stages, while kanban cards represent individual tasks. The best part is that Trello makes it incredibly easy to get your board set up. Follow the steps below to create your first lists and cards.

1. Create Your First List

   Now you can start creating your lists and cards. Kanban lists generally have titles like  “to do,” “doing,” “under review” and “done.” The lists then contain cards that represent tasks in your project. The Trello workflow is simple. You move the cards from left to right through each list until the task is complete. To create a list, click the “add another list” button.

   

2. Name and Position Your List

   Next, you’ll be asked to give the list a title. Once you have named your list, click “add list” to add it to the board. Once done, click and hold on the card and then drag and drop the list into the correct place on your board.

   

3. Create a Kanban Card

   Next are the kanban cards. You can see that each list has a “add a card” button. Click on the “add a card” button in the list where you want the card to go. You’ll be asked to give the card a title when you do this. Enter your title and then press “add card.” You simply repeat these steps until every task for your project is represented on the board.

   

4. Explore Your Card

   Once a card has been created, click on it to enter the card. From here, you’ll see options on the right of the card like members, dates, labels, checklists and more. You click on these options to assign tasks, due dates, labels (that will help you filter your cards) and other pertinent information. You can even attach files and images that support the task.

   

5. Creating Comments

   In the middle of the card, you can leave a task description and communicate with the assignee with @mentions. To mention a team member, insert an “@” symbol and either type the member’s name or click on their name from the list that appears. The commenting and attachment systems turn Trello into a decent team collaboration tool.

   

How to Create & Use Custom Fields

At the start of this beginner’s guide, we used the 14-day trial of the Premium plan. We did this to show you how to use custom fields. Custom fields aren’t available in Trello’s free version, but are an important feature in the Standard plan and up. Custom fields allow you to add data to your cards, which can enhance your workflow. Next, we’ll show you how to use them.

1. Create a Custom Field

   To create custom fields, click on a card and then click the “custom fields” button — a pop-out menu with suggested custom fields appears. You can use these fields or create your own by clicking the “new field” button.

   

2. Choose a Custom Field Type

   Next, click the “add new field” button, give the custom field a title and choose if you want it to be a dropdown box, a checkbox, a date field, a number box or a text field.

   

3. Customize the Fields

   The next step is to add as many custom fields as needed to make the card fit your project and workflow. You will need to enter any required information into the fields, such as links, or options for a dropdown menu. As a bonus, custom fields are visible on the card from the kanban board view. Custom fields make Trello versatile and should be considered when setting up your account.

   

How to Search & Filter Cards

Now that you know how to set up lists and create cards in Trello effectively, you can learn how to find cards or tasks on a populated kanban board. From experience, we tell you that keeping track of cards on a heavily populated kanban board can be tricky, so it’s worth learning how to filter and search.

1. Label Your Cards

   Cards in Trello are filtered by assignee, keywords, due dates and more. However, one of the best ways to filter your cards is via labels that can help categorize your tasks. For example, on our board, we have made red represent human resources and purple represents design tasks. To add labels to a card, click on a card, then select labels from the right menu.

   

2. Edit Your Labels

   In the pop-out menu, you can select a color for a card by clicking the box to the left, and you can give a color a title by clicking the pen to the right. Next, go through your board and categorize your cards. You can use multiple labels for a single card if needed. When you’re finished, click out of the card to view your kanban board.

   

3. Open the Filter Menu

   To see the filtering options, click the “filter” button that’s located in the top-right corner of your board. You’ll see several filtering methods in the pop-out menu. For example, you can search for a card with keywords or by cards assigned to you or other team members. You can even search for cards without a due date, with a due date or for tasks that are due soon.

   

4. Filter by Label

   Of course, you can also filter your searches by choosing one of the labels you created. When you click next to a label, only the cards with that label will be shown on your board. You can also use the search bar at the top of the screen to search for a card. Trello’s search and filter system is powerful and, when used correctly, can save you lots of time.

   

Trello Advanced Features: Power-Ups & Automations

We’ve covered a few Trello project management basics, and you should now have a simple yet effective board with cards that can hold plenty of Trello data. Still, there’s so much more to Trello. In this section, we’ll touch on a few advanced features that every project manager should know about.

1. How to Add & Use Trello Power-Ups

Believe us when we say you can make Trello powerful with Trello’s power-ups. Without much fuss, you can make Trello play nice with many other project management tools (read our best cloud storage services roundup for ideas), such as Asana (here’s our Asana review). In addition, tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams, as well as time-tracking apps and more, can join forces with Trello.

1. Click the Power-Up Button

   To start adding unlimited integrations, click on the “power-up” button that’s located in the top menu bar. You’ll be whisked away to a power-up store that houses native Trello power-ups and third-party integrations. Be sure to check because some of the third-party options require a fee.

   

2. Search for Power-Ups

   Once in the power-up menu, you can quickly search for power-ups by using the search bar on the left, or you can click through the categories. You can also click on each power-up card for more detailed information. When you find a power-up you want to use, click the “add” button on the power-up card.

   

3. Configure the Power-Up

   Some power-ups will start working immediately, while others may need to be configured. The power-ups that generally need attention are services such as Google Drive that need to be connected to your account. When inside a power-up card, click on the card’s “settings” button to configure the service. When done, head back to your kanban board.

   

4. Manage Your Power-Ups

   When a power-up is activated and configured, it’s ready to use. You can find and manage your power-ups in the menu bar above your workspace. To disable or reconfigure power-ups, click on the power-up icon. Now you can change the settings or disable any of your power-ups. Trello has made it easy to use integrations, which is a win.

   

Trello Butler Automations: How to Set Up Automation Rules

Are you tired of manually sending status updates via Slack? Are you sick and tired of assigning tasks? Ugh! Who has time for that? Well, Trello can handle all of these things for you via butler automations. Below, we’ll take a quick look at how to set up automations in Trello so that you can relax a little.

1. Locate the Automation Button

   First, locate the “automation” button on the top menu (it’s next to the power-ups button). Click the “automation” button to enter the automation home screen.

   

2. Navigate the Automation Menu

   Once you’re in the automation screen, you’ll see several choices in the left menu: rules, card button, board button, scheduled and due date. Rules trigger automations when a particular event happens. Buttons on cards and boards trigger events immediately. Due date automations occur when a task is about to be due or overdue, while calendar events run on set days.

   

3. Choose Your Automation Type

   Decide which type of automation you’d like to use and click on the option. Then, click the “create” button in the top-right corner.

   

4. Select Your Trigger

   The next step is to and then click the “add trigger” button. Now, you need to tell Trello what action will trigger the automation (for example, a card moving to a new list, a change in status, or whether a checklist has been completed). Next, define the “if this happens, that happens” rules. Read the options and then click the plus sign next to the trigger that will be a part of your rule.

   

5. Choose Your Action

   Next, you need to choose the outcomes for your chosen trigger. Take your time and read each option and choose which one works for you. Once you have made your choice, click the “save” button.

   

Building automations is as simple as that. If you’re still confused, don’t worry; we’ll walk through some automation examples next.

Trello Butler Automation Example: Automate Due-Date Notifications

We want to create a rule that says when a due date is added to a card, every member of that card will receive an email notification.

1. Choose Your Trigger

   From the create a rule screen, click the “date” button. The top option has a few dropdown menus with changeable parameters. We have ours set to “when a due date is set on a card by me.” The bold text here shows what options in the rule can be changed. Change the options as needed to create the first part of your rule, and then press the plus sign.

   

2. Choose an Action and Configure It

   Now you need to set the action. For this example, we’ll click the “content” button. A menu is populated with actions. Scroll down to the email section. There are two options here: message everyone on the card, or message the board. We want to notify those on the card, so choose the “to every member on the card” option. Next, add a subject for the email and a description. Next, click the plus button.

   

3. Save Your Rule

   Now you can see your fully built rule at the top of the screen. Check all the information; if all is well, click the “save” button. Your rule is now set. From now on, every time you add a due date to any card, the members of that card will be notified automatically.

   

Trello Butler Automation Example: Automatically Archive Completed Cards

For the next automation example, we will create a simple rule that will archive all of the task cards in the done list on the first Monday of every month.

1. Navigate to the Automation Screen

   Click the “automation” button located above your kanban board to get to the automation screen. Choose the scheduled option from the main automation screen menu, then click “create automation.” Now, click “add trigger” and scroll to the fourth option. Change the parameters with the menus as needed. Finally, click the plus sign and then click “save.”

   

2. Add an Action

   First, click “add trigger” to display the list of actions. Click the “move cards” button and look at the fifth option about archiving cards. You can choose to archive cards from a specific list (we chose the “done” list), and you can tell Trello to only archive cards that are a certain number of days old (we chose 30 days). Next, click the plus sign and then the “save” button. Voila! Your scheduled automation is complete.

   

3. Managing Trello Butler Automations

Managing your automations is just as easy as creating them. Trello designed an easy-to-use system that allows you to see and manage the automations you have created. Next, we will show you how to manage your rules.

1. Edit or Delete Your Rules

   Click on the “automations” button from the main board screen. If you have set up any automations, they’ll be displayed for you. You can quickly edit your automations by clicking the pen icon and delete them by clicking on the trash can icon. Play around with rules and automations. You’ll soon find that they can save you so much time.

   

Final Thoughts: Using Trello

Of all the software that uses kanban boards, Trello is easily one of the best kanban apps and is far easier to use than software that relies on Gantt charts. Thanks to its ease of use, Trello is ideal for teams just starting to use software to help them plan, organize and track tasks. We hope this Trello guide helps you and your team hit the ground running.

Now that you have read our beginners guide to Trello, will you be signing up for a free account? If so, what about Trello are you looking forward to most? Let us know in the comment section, and as always, thanks for reading.

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