Can Butler Automate my Onboarding?
Asked by Michael Brzezowski:

I have spent the past two weeks trying to solve my problem with the Butler Power-up, but I have not been successful. I would like to use the Power-up instead of the bot due to the impending, eventual death of the bot.

I would like to create a card with the name of the new person at our school. There are four categories of new people, 3-4 student, 5-8 student, teacher, and support staff. Each category has a specific list of tasks required to be done to onboard them to our school.

I want Butler (or another power-up) to be able to create the task cards for all of the required tasks, put the new person's name at the front of the task card's name, and put a specific member onto that card (for example, I do the IT tasks, but the secretary has some paperwork tasks).

Does anyone know a good way to do this efficiently?

Thanks,

Mike

Technology Integrator/Coordinator

Pemetic Elementary School

Southwest Harbor, Maine


Answers:
author: Iain Dooley
body: [@Michael Brzezowski](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/3667782) here's a method I posted for using Butler to create sub-tasks:

<https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Trello-articles/Trello-Subtasks-with-Butler/ba-p/1060392>

You can prefix all created cards when converting items in a checklist, so you can put the name of the person at the start of the card using the "with pattern" option when converting a checklist.

To handle the "adding members" bit, what you do is have a checklist for each "role" (IT, Secretary and so on) then you have a Butler command that triggers when a new card is created that does something like:

Add member @itperson and convert all items in checklist "IT" into linked cards in list "{triggercardname} IT" with pattern "{triggercardname} {itemname}" copying members and remove member @itperson and add member @secretary and convert all items in checklist "Secretary" into linked cards in list "{triggercardname} Secretary" with pattern "{triggercardname} {itemname}" copying members and remove all members from the trigger card

I haven't built it but it would look something like that.

comments: author: Michael Brzezowski
body: I cannot get the {itemname} to work. It is just blank. I wonder if it is one of the variables that that are Enterprise only.

So, here is the final solution that I put together that is functional:

* Created a list with a template card for each type of user that contains a checklist of what needs to be done to onboard them.
* Created a "Create Tasks" button that uses creates a list for the user based on card name, then creates linked cards for each item on the task.
* Created a rule to check linked item when the card was archived.
* Items on the checklist will have [@IT ADVITOS](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/17199), @Principal, and [@Office](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/406223)
* Created a rule to add the appropriate user to any card based on card content (For example, it adds me if there is [@IT ADVITOS](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/17199) in the card somewhere.

My final desire is to create linked cards on my personal GTD board for all items tagged [@IT ADVITOS](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/17199) to keep it simple for me, but I am not sure about that yet.

Thank you for your help. It was just what I needed.

![Screen Shot 2019-12-12 at 10.57.00 AM.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/76118i9B05266D8C18FF24/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "Screen Shot 2019-12-12 at 10.57.00 AM.png")![Screen Shot 2019-12-12 at 10.57.16 AM.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/76119i4088FC80251E0D43/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "Screen Shot 2019-12-12 at 10.57.16 AM.png")![Screen Shot 2019-12-12 at 10.57.23 AM.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/76117iCEEFFF6DBCFB2B28/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "Screen Shot 2019-12-12 at 10.57.23 AM.png")


author: Iain Dooley
body: [@Michael Brzezowski](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/3667782) cool! the variable seems to be checklistitemname ... there are no enterprise only variables.

Anyhoo, if you're after a "GTD style" board, you might be interested in this thing I created which creates a linked copy of any card you're added to (and integrates with Gmail so you can use Trello as an email client):

<https://trello.com/integrations/#benkoboard>

I wrote about the "task shortlisting" method I developed which is kind of an extension of GTD/Inbox Zero here:

<https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Trello-articles/Task-shortlisting-with-Trello/ba-p/988117>


author: Michael Brzezowski
body: Thank you all. I am working on testing solutions today and will let you know what ends up working best for me.

Mike


author: carolyn french
body: Hi Michael and welcome to Community!

I understand you have been trying to automate onboarding using Butler. This suggestion is a different tack, but possibly much easier.

Have you tried using the new Board and/or Card Templates? Depending on how many tasks you have per onboarding and whether you need to assign each task, you could either set up a template board for the new person or a template card. If you do need to assign each task, then you would need a template board per person, so you can assign the card to a member. However, if you don't assign the tasks, you could do one card per new person with all the tasks in a checklist.

Carolyn

comments: author: Michael Brzezowski
body: Carolyn,

Thank you for the reply. This solution was simpler in many ways, but I ended up not doing it because I already am suffering from Trello board creep. I am getting more and more boards and right now working on consolidating manually and with Butler.

Thanks again,

<br />

Mike


author: carolyn french
body: Hi Mike,

Thanks for following up here with the solution that worked for you! That's what helps others that are searching for something similar to do. I need to weed through all my boards now too. 2020 is right around the corner!

Best of luck,

Carolyn