Why are my custom emailed reports not showing any info?
Asked by Gem:

I created a custom report to be emailed every two weeks to view cards assigned to a specific person from each list. I received it this morning, but it has no info in it. I wanted to use the {cardboardname} variable, but now I see in the documentation that it's only "available only after find card with id", and I haven't figured out where that's located. I modified the report and sent a test, but there's never any info in it. Can someone please help?

every 2 weeks on monday at 6:00 am, create a report in variable "_cardboardname_" with all cards assigned to member @kp33 in list "Overdue" in list "To Do" in list "Recurring" in list "In Progress" using pattern "\\"- \[{cardname}\]({cardlink}) =\> DUE on {cardduedate}\\"" group by list, and send an email notification to "admin@kpersolutions.com" with subject "Karen's {cardboardname} Trello Tasks" and message "This is an automated list of {cardboardname} Trello tasks assigned to Karen. They are grouped based on whether they are Overdue, To Do, Recurring, In Progress, or Completed.\\n\\n\\n\\n{$report}"


Answers:
author: Mutya A
body: Hi Gem!   

I'm looking at your email report and can spot two things:.

1. Can you try removing all but one list on this part:

* in list "Overdue" ~~in list "To Do" in list "Recurring" in list "In Progress"~~

The reason why it's not showing any data/cards is that the above line is interpreted as cards belonging to the list "Overdue" AND the list "To Do" and the list "Recurring" and the list "Progress". As we know, a card can only belong to one list. This means, there is not one card that belongs to all of those lists at one time. Right now, we do not display cards in a report from different lists. This is a known limitation on our side.

I've added your query to our feature request to allow cards from different lists. Even though this would not guarantee that such a feature would be built, it would certainly bring it to our Product team's attention to be considered, especially if more users have asked for the same thing.

This isn't the best solution but you can try creating separate email reports for each list as a workaround.

2. When using the **Report name** variable "*_cardboardname_* ", can you try renaming it to something else to not confuse it with the [automation variable](https://support.atlassian.com/trello/docs/butler-variables/#Board-variables) *{cardboardname}* . When you rename it for example "tasklist", you will need to use that inside the message as ~~*{tasklist}*~~ {$tasklist} instead of *{$report}*. For guidance, please review the instructions here: <https://support.atlassian.com/trello/docs/creating-reports-with-butler/#Customized-reports>

After those changes, you can do a test run of the [schedule automation](https://support.atlassian.com/trello/docs/creating-and-managing-butler-commands/#Scheduled-automations) by clicking the Launch or rocket icon to see if you're now getting the information you need:  

![2023-09-13_11-06-23.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/280300i35BD236349442705/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "2023-09-13_11-06-23.png")

Let me know if this helps or if you have any more questions!  

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comments: author: Gem
body: Thank you for getting back to me. I reviewed the instructions repeatedly and tested the reports numerous times in different ways before I first submitted my issue here. The instructions aren't helpful to me and I'm not sure what I'm missing. I changed the report as you instructed, but I had already tried it that way to no avail. Here's the syntax for the new report, that still didn't work. What am I missing?

every 2 weeks on monday at 6:00 am, create a report with all cards assigned to member @karenpatterson33 in list "Overdue" using pattern "\\"- \[{cardname}\]({cardlink}) =\> DUE on {cardduedate}\\"", and send an email notification to "admin@kpersolutions.com" with subject "Overdue Tasks" and message "This is Karen's list of overdue tasks.\\n\\n{tasklist}"


author: Gem
body: Also, what I see in my Trello looks different than the instructions from the link, so I'm not convinced even in the correct place to create this report.


author: Cody C.
body: [@Gem](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/5309444) [@Muta](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4100271) We're on the right track, there's just one additional adjustment I can suggest here, it's related to the report variable.

In order for the report you create to be included in the email notification, the report variable needs to be the same between the action used to create the report, and the action used to send it.  
I believe all you'd need to do is define the report variable at the beginning of your rule, and then also reference it later in the message. For example:  
every 2 weeks on monday at 6:00 am, create a report **in variable "tasklist"** with all cards assigned to member @karenpatterson33 in list "Overdue" using pattern "\\"- \[{cardname}\]({cardlink}) =\> DUE on {cardduedate}\\"", and send an email notification to "admin@kpersolutions.com" with subject "Overdue Tasks" and message "This is Karen's list of overdue tasks.\\n\\n**{$tasklist}**"  
Could you give that a try and let us know if you see the report come through?


author: Gem
body: Thank you for trying, Cody. Unfortunately, it still didn't work. I am using the free version of Trello, so I don't know if that has bearing on it working, but the image below is what I always receive whenever I've tried to run a custom report.

![Screenshot 2023-09-18 063731.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/281237i328644022C971694/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "Screenshot 2023-09-18 063731.png")