How can Trello help my admin assistant?
Asked by Pietro Mazzoni:

Our administrative assistant handles schedules, meetings, office matters for \~7 faculty members in our university department. She started \~4 months ago. She is struggling with task management (not sending reminder emails, dropping non-urgent things off her list). I'd like to introduce her to Trello as a tool to get organized and succeed at her task management. However, I have never used Trello for this purpose (I only use it only for my own to-do and grocery lists).

Can anyone suggest:

1) a workflow for using Trello in the responsibilities of an administrative assistant.

For example: a Workspace for each faculty member; a Board for each task related to that member; Lists would be "Status", "Next steps", etc.

Or perhaps a single Workspace; a Board for urgency (Urgent, Medium, No rush); A List for task status. Card labels could be used to code which faculty member is linked to each task.

I favor a simple workflow, at least to begin with. A single To-do list might be the best place to start. But perhaps there is something more structured that is not too daunting for a Trello beginner.

2) a Trello template that implements such a workflow.


Answers:
author: Alina Kurishko
body: Hi Pietro,

Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

As a member of the Trello Team, I'm not in a place to tell you which specific way to go with using Trello as we don't offer workflow customization and consulting. We also usually let our users explore Trello on their own to let them find the best way to utilize the tool that would benefit them.

I'll definitely leave room for other Trello users to comment on your post and share their tips and tricks, but I can agree with you on making the first acquaintance with Trello as simple as possible.

Thus, I'd suggest avoiding the creation of multiple Workspaces. Keeping everything in one space is easier to manage. Additionally, you might consider keeping all tasks on one board until you feel come comfortable switching between boards and projects. Your colleague can start creating multiple lists for different types of tasks on one board, add due dates, add labels to mark priority, and additional checklists for managing larger tasks in one place.

As for templates, I'd suggest checking the available options under the "Productivity" section here: <https://trello.com/templates/productivity>

Hope you'll find something that suits your needs!

Also, since your colleague is only starting to use Trello, I might recommend going through the following resources available for your own learning:

* User Guide: [++https://trello.com/en/guide++](https://trello.com/en/guide)
* Webinars: [++https://trello.com/webinars++](https://trello.com/webinars)
* Help Docs: [++https://help.trello.com/++](https://help.trello.com/)
* Trello fundamentals course: [++https://university.atlassian.com/student/path/1043254-trello-fundamentals++](https://university.atlassian.com/student/path/1043254-trello-fundamentals)

And if you're actually looking for some customization and consulting services, you can reach out to a Solution Partner to see if they can assist you with building Trello to your needs. Solution Partners specialize in tailored demonstrations and/or consultations, training, hands-on configuration, and custom development of our products.

You can check this page to choose a Solution Partner that suits your needs: <https://partnerdirectory.atlassian.com/>

Hope this information helps!

Alina \| The Trello Team

comments: author: Pietro Mazzoni
body: Thank you! This is a great start!


Tags: administration

workflow