How can I avoid running into a command run quota on Trello Gold?
Asked by Lisa:

I recently purchased Trello Gold for my personal/professional use. I had hoped that paying for the service rather than using it free would enable me to use some of "medium-weight" features such as rules and buttons without running into the command run quota as I did in the free version. It worked well for about a week and I'm now getting the same messages, "The command run quota for your current plan has been reached," and "You've reached the quota of command runs allowed during this period for your current plan."

Can someone help me understand how long the "period" is and when/if the useful buttons I made will ever be useful to me again? I don't mind paying for the Gold version since I do really value the addition of the time-saving buttons, but I don't need something as robust as the Business version (other than, perhaps, if I won't run into this quota issue). I'm relatively technologically inept, so maybe I'm just missing something?


Answers:
author: Esme Crutchley
body: Hi [@Lisa](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/3557326)

Can you give us an idea of how many commands/rules you have running? I will be honest, I ran out of commands 10 days after getting Gold and went to Business, so I can totally understand where you're coming from. I use Trello on my own, so not with a team, so I can totally get the frustration!

If you can share screenshots of your rules and how many things you're asking Butler to do, we might be able to suggest streamlining some, or we might not be able to, but it's worth checking out.

Butler works on calendar months, so if you've used up your quota in the first week, you'll have to wait 3 weeks for it to refresh again. You might find this article helpful: [Butler Features and Quotas](https://help.trello.com/article/1181-butler-features-and-quotas)

Esme :)

comments: author: Lisa
body: Thank you! It's really helpful knowing that they'll reset at the new month, at least. I currently have 8 rules. Maybe I'll try removing some of the "spoil me" ones for the next cycle and see if that gives me more functionality where it really matters. I wish there was something in-between Gold and Business. Thank you again!


author: Esme Crutchley
body: My apologies, quotas are reset on the first of the month.

"Quotas reset on the first day of every month at midnight GMT (Greenwich Mean Time)." (taken from [Butler Features and Quotas](https://help.trello.com/article/1181-butler-features-and-quotas) in the notes section at the bottom of the page!).

At the moment, if you're on Gold, you're limited to 200 command runs and 2000 operations. Command runs are everything that's a 'trigger' (so a button press or automatic run) and operations is everything that you're asking it to do as a result of the trigger.

I ran out mega-quickly! At the moment, it's the 17th and I've already used 252 commands and 537 operations, and that's been streamlined A LOT!!

If you're unsure how to see them, click on Butler on any board, then click on 'account' which will be at the very bottom on the left and it'll bring up a little window like this (remembering that I have a business account):

![Screenshot 2020-01-17 at 13.51.13.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/79467i630301288E4468DD/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "Screenshot 2020-01-17 at 13.51.13.png")But, I will add, that most of my boards are run on automations, hence why it's so high for an individual!

Hope that helps!

Esme :)


author: Roman Frantsev
body: I think 200 commands a month is a joke. That is less than 10 commands a day, which i nothing for a power user. I give you an example: I was trying to setup a flow where butler would create a new card always when I add a new item to a checklist; and mark it checked if I archive the linked card. I suppose that is 2 rules for 1 checklist item. So I can create only 100 such cards a month (and forget about automating anything else)  

What is the point of having an automation module, if it runs only 200 times a month. That is an amount of work not worth automating at all.

I am a very disappointed Gold User.


author: Jim Geuther
body: Even the quota for business plans of 1000 commands are very limiting. I use butler to assign checklists to 100 or more cards, and I run very fast out of quota. The number of commands allowed should be increased a lot!


author: Esme Crutchley
body: Hi [@Jim Geuther](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/3887690)

Welcome to the Community!

Do you use a single rule over and over again? If so, would it be worth adding a 'board button' to do the same thing? You might be able to reduce the number of command runs, if not the number of operations?

Something like 'when the button is pressed (command run) add the Xyz checklist to all cards with the purple label (operations)' - that might save you command runs?

Although you should have at least 1200 command runs, not 1000 (depending on the number of team members you have)

I've been playing around with mine a lot this month, setting up new boards and new automation and this is what I have currently used:

![Screenshot 2020-04-27 at 11.44.32.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/92345i40C0DA8ACAE3918E/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "Screenshot 2020-04-27 at 11.44.32.png")

I am the 'owner' of the team, and it has another member (my husband), so 1000 + 200 + 200 = 1400 command runs and 10,000 operations. (Compared to the last screenshot I uploaded with 1200 and 5,000 respectively).

The quota resets on the 1st of the month.

Esme :)


author: Jim Geuther
body: Hello Esme, I have indeed 1200 command runs. What I usually do is add a rule like "when a card is added to that list add the checklist to the card"

Thanks for your suggestion and clear explanation of using a board button, which can indeed help to reduce the number of command runs.

Now I need to wait for next month , before i can this ;.(


author: Esme Crutchley
body: Awesome Jim, feel free to come back if there's a problem! We're here to help!


author: Jim Geuther
body: Hello,

I checked to use a board-button , unfortunately I didn't find any way on how to do this with a board button. ( What I want to do is: for all cards in a list add a checklist and a comment )

Thanks for any help


author: Esme Crutchley
body: Hi [@Jim Geuther](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/3887690)

Yes, I've just looked at the board button configuration and there's nothing there that would allow this to be done, apologies for that, my mistake!

How often are you running this command?

If you have a trigger like: when green label is added - do this

Then it might be worth having something more scheduled - like - every Monday morning, for every card that had a green label - add this checklist and this comment?

So if you could let me know if this might be something that can work, then we can go through how to set it up for you.

I know that it's great to have rules act instantly, but maybe you can change things slightly, so that when something is done and ready to be worked on next week, you could add a label and then have the command run on a Monday morning so that you know what needs to be done this week?

Esme :)


author: Jim Geuther
body: Hello

Thanks for the fast response, to trigger an action using Butler is straightforward. However it counts towards the command run quota. One manner I'm using the butler is e.g: when a card is added to a list: add a checklist and a comment. With 100s of cards this counts very fast towards the quota :-(

With a board button i was hoping to do this with one button :-(


author: Esme Crutchley
body: How often do you add cards to the list?

If it's multiple times a day, do you need the checklist and comment instantly?


author: Jim Geuther
body: Hello Esme,

Usually once or twice a week, I add 150-200 cards to the list at once.

I don't need the checklist or comment until I start working on a card.

I use butler to add the stuff automatically processing all the cards in the list. This to avoid adding the checklist and comment manually ( or through a card button ) each time I open a card for the first time.

It there another way to mass-update many cards?

Thanks

Jim


author: Esme Crutchley
body: Hi Jim,

The only way that I know of to mass-update is exactly what you're already doing - adding elements on card creation. That's the easiest (and to my knowledge) only way to add a lot to multiple cards at once.

Let me reach out to others and see if they have another option!

Esme :)


author: Iain Dooley
body: [@Lisa](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/3557326) [@Roman Frantsev](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/1678785) [@Jim Geuther](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/3887690) if you're even running out on Business class you might like to try Trellinator for one or two of the heavier weight commands. For example, here's one that adds a checklist copied from a template card based on list name, and posts the first comment from the template card whenever a card is added to a list:

<https://gist.github.com/iaindooley/1313243b718e0d5e3381062195da99a8>

You can read more about Trellinator here:

<https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Marketplace-Apps-Integrations/Introducing-Trellinator-Automate-Trello-with-Google-Apps-Script/ba-p/925271>


Tags: gold