Is is possible to develop code for Trello to automate specific client reuirements
Asked by Peter Cranston:

Hi,

I am already familiar with Trello Butler and using it widely for my current clients however I am now getting more complex automation requirements for which Butler does not have a solution.

For example my client has a rental out date and a rental in date. He would like trello to automatically calculate the duration and in addition to use this duration to update a new rental in date when he manually changes the rental out date.

I appreciate this may require some coding experience and would appreciate it if anyone can advise if there is a language or a power up solution.

I see similar requests as my clients become more experienced with Trello

I am not a coder and if we can justfy the cost would subcontact this.

Thanks,

Peter C.


Answers:
author: Trello
body: Hi. For my company, I also supplemented Butler with the code that I wrote myself, as a result, 80% of the automation is now done by my code.

At first I used web applications in Google Apps Script (run javascript code), and its logging in Google Cloud.

Then I wrote my server in Node.js (+ Express ) and ran it on an Oracle virtual machine.

Contact me, let's chat. I will tell you in detail about the points that interest you, maybe I already have ready-made solutions for your requests.


author: Vongsawat
body: The Trello REST API allows for HTTP requests to hook it up to say a dedicated program on some server to do more complex operations. Or up to Zapier/Make and similar freemium automation sites for simpler things. Though others are more specialized in this than me.

But specifically to the example problem stated. After some tinkering, I'm pretty sure that's still within the realms of Butler, if a tad high-level. Still figuring out some niche cases and would have to rework it entirely for client-use, but I think it can be done entirely natively.

Feel free to get in touch if you're interested.


author: Dreamsuite Mike
body: Hi Peter,

You can crudely do what you are asking with automation because you can perform arithmetic and you can format the date variables based on this:

<https://momentjs.com/docs/#/displaying/>

This will allow you to do a \[rental out date\] - \[rental in date\] and return a result in days for example...

I have created a time tracking solution using just Butler.

Give me a shout if you want further help with this.

Cheers,

Mike


author: milynnus
body: [@Peter Cranston](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4997002)

You have probably noticed that Trello does not do much calculation nor does it handle conditional if else type logic. It does provide a http request which can be embedded within your automation. Your endpoint can, in turn, call other software api or Trello api.

comments: author: milynnus
body: [@Peter Cranston](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4997002)

![Screen Shot 2023-04-21 at 6.24.24 AM.jpg](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/253137i1074876FF6A49424/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "Screen Shot 2023-04-21 at 6.24.24 AM.jpg")

Just completed this for a client. Cash added via comment. Subsequent cash added will trigger a call to zapier via HTTP to create a new total and update the cardname.


author: Peter Cranston
body: Thanks to everyone for your comprehensive answers. I now know that code can be written for more complex automations if the business casewarrents it.