Automating due dates
Asked by James Carr:

Hi! We are trying to create an operations calendar in Trello based on the known launch date of a product. We have several tasks that are tied to that launch date and need to be completed 1, 2, 3 etc. weeks prior in order to ensure a smooth delivery.

So far I've created a card for the product launch date (Titled 'New course') and included a checklist (called 'Milestones') with the other tasks that need to happen before hand. I've also implemented a Butler Rule so that when a card with the title = New course is added to the board, all of the items in the checklist are converted into linked cards.

![2021-11-24 19_13_12-Course Ops Calendar _ Trello.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/170832iACF047AD55E0EE0B/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "2021-11-24 19_13_12-Course Ops Calendar _ Trello.png")

This is working fine, however I have no idea how to add due dates to the linked cards that are based on the product launch date. I've looked around for answers and tried to create rules using the {triggercardduedate} variable but I can't get it to work. Could anyone offer advice? I'm **very** new to butler automation so screenshots would be helpful!

Essentially what I need to do is:

1. Create a card with the launch date for the product
2. Have cards created off the back of the launch date card for key milestones
3. Have the milestone cards populated with a date based on the launch date e.g. Milestone 1 is due 3 months before the launch date.

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks

cc. [@Iain Dooley](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/1416112) , [@Dan Ivory](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/1842230) (I've seen you've both posted on several similar questions so hoping you might be able to help)


Answers:
author: Iain Dooley
body: [@James Carr](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4312419) if you're creating linked cards, then the cards that get created will have a link back to the original card, and you can also choose to copy labels from the original card. What this means is that you can create a second rule that reacts to cards created with a given label, \*lookup\* (not find) the first card linked in the attachments and get the due date from it.

IIRC you can then set the value in a date custom field using that date variable with whatever arithmetic you need:

<https://help.trello.com/article/1159-arithmetic-in-date-variables>

Note that you are just setting the value of the custom field:

![2021-11-28 at 2.56 pm.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/171129i53D5CF7DAFDBC91E/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "2021-11-28 at 2.56 pm.png")

Then you can use the option to set the due date to the value in that custom field.

I don't have time to try all this right now but let me know how you go! If you can't get it working in Butler we can put you in touch with a dev who can do this relatively easily using BenkoBot:

<https://app.benkobot.com/>

comments: author: James Carr
body: Hi [@Iain Dooley](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/1416112) thanks so much for your reply! I think I've managed to get this working correctly :)

![2021-11-29 18_59_25-Course Ops Calendar _ Trello.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/171291iF2B32DA3AC623420/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "2021-11-29 18_59_25-Course Ops Calendar _ Trello.png")

I'll check this with my team and if we need anything else I'll get in touch with the benkoworks team!


author: Iain Dooley
body: [@James Carr](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4312419) well done! You can always chuck your request into our site here:

<http://www.benkobot.com/>

You can use BenkoBot in conjunction with existing Butler rules or port them over. It can be useful for example if there are one or two rules that run with very high frequency that dominate your quota, or a particular thing you need that Butler \*almost\* does, but not quite :)


Tags: automation

butler