Butler Rule not working to link cards that a butler board button creates
Asked by Evan Meinerts:

I made a board button that Creates 2 cards (one new card and one is a copy of another card on the board) that I need to complete a Purchase Order process.

What I need to happen next is have the 2 new cards linked together and then have one of those cards moved to another board.

I made a rule that seems like it should do that, but nothing is happening when I create those 2 new cards, even though that is set as the trigger.

Please let me know how I can fix this, or if there is a better way to get the two cards linked with one on a different board. I have tried a couple slightly different ways but each time the rule doesn't do anything.

Button and rule shown in picture below:

![Butler board button and rule.png](/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/59510i25A30EA5EC702BD9/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "Butler board button and rule.png")


Answers:
author: Katrin Anger
body: [@Evan Meinerts](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/3024910)

Hi Evan, from what I can see the two pictures show the board button only. Can you add another screenshot of the rule?

comments: author: Evan Meinerts
body: There is only one picture, you will have to scroll to the right to see the rule.


author: Katrin Anger
body: [@Evan Meinerts](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/3024910)

Okay, let's move step by step.

I re-created the board button and I get it to work for the first part. The second creates a copy of an already existing card. Right?

So, I tested this. And it worked. Here's the command I set up:

![Bildschirmfoto 2019-07-12 um 18.44.48.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/60436iCBA2E94DC3A0C288/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "Bildschirmfoto 2019-07-12 um 18.44.48.png")

And this is the result I got:

![Bildschirmfoto 2019-07-12 um 18.45.10.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/60437i152653CF95649D3B/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "Bildschirmfoto 2019-07-12 um 18.45.10.png")

And this is what you wanted to accomplish, right?

So, comparing my Board Button with yours, I suspect that the icons you are using in your list name is something that Butler cannot deal with and doesn't recognize. -- Can you try and remove them and run your command again?

Let me know how it goes and I'll check back on the 2nd command.


author: Katrin Anger
body: [@Evan Meinerts](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/3024910)

In regards to the 2nd command:

It appears to me that the trigger isn't well chosen.

Instead of "when a card (...) in list XYZ is added to the board" \[=\> which is a condition that makes not really much sense\], I would try something like "when a card (...) is added to list XYZ"

The actions in this rule look pretty much okay. I would have chosen the same (except for any possible icons or emoticons in the list's name).

-- Can you try with a different trigger if the rule is working now?


author: Evan Meinerts
body: [@Katrin Anger](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/2708783)

After adjusting the trigger like you suggested, the rule now works!

I swear I looked at all the different trigger options and did not see that one before, but it makes perfect sense that the new trigger of 'when a card with XX name is copied to list XX' works.

To clarify, the board button had always worked just fine, It creates the two cards I need as expected. So butler can handle the different icons.

THANK YOU so much!!


author: Katrin Anger
body: [@Evan Meinerts](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/3024910)

You are very welcome, Evan! I am glad it is working now and you can even keep the original list names :)


author: Iain Dooley
body: [@Evan Meinerts](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/3024910) Butler can't react to actions that Butler itself takes so if you create a rule that links 2 cards together, and it's a Butler button that creates those cards, it won't trigger the rule.

So what you need to do is include all the actions you want to take in the original button.

I also created this framework for automating Trello with Google Apps Script that doesn't have the same limitation, so might be a better option in some cases where you need to "chain" commands together:

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

comments: author: Katrin Anger
body: [@Iain Dooley](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/1416112)

Actually, that's not correct.

The Butler Power-Up acts as the user, not as an external user. This means, that - contrary to the ButlerBot - it can react on its own actions.


author: Evan Meinerts
body: Ok, if it can react to its own actions then I would be very interested to learn why my rule doesn't trigger the actions.


author: Katrin Anger
body: [@Evan Meinerts](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/3024910)

Can you have a look into the command logs of both rules if there are any error messages showing up?


author: Evan Meinerts
body: There weren't any errors other than one at the very beginning of the list for the Rule (It was because I had my board button create the card the rule was triggering off of before it copied the card that the rule was looking for, so the order was mixed up. I then switched the order around and there weren't any errors again, not for any of the different changes I made to the rule to try to get it to work.)

I also ran the board button again and it still failed to do it and neither the button or the rule had any errors.

Is there a way for someone to take a look in my account to see if it can be figured out? This commenting back and forth seems like it could take quite a long time to resolve the issue and the delays between replys (mostly on my end) make it hard to remember what the issue is and requires re-researching every time.


author: Katrin Anger
body: Hi [@Evan Meinerts](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/3024910)

This is a community forum and not the official Trello support, and we are doing our best to help you out (for free). I understand that time restrictions can be tough, but in such cases it might be better to ask a consultant to help you out.

Also, when you write a comment, it's a really good idea to tag us in the comment so that we know there has been a reply. Otherwise, these requests just end up in cyber space.

---

I have had another look at your commands and I think I know what the issue is.

There isn't anything executed, because Butler is looking for purchase orders "PO####" and there aren't any purchase orders with such a purchase number. Am I right that you are trying to use '####' as placeholders? If so, you should use wildcards {\*} instead.

In the 1st board button, are you addressing the same purchase order in the two parts of the command?


author: Evan Meinerts
body: [@Katrin Anger](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/2708783)

Thank you for your help and clarifications - I really do appreciate your free help and did not mean to be rude, I just thought it would be easier for someone to help if they could poke around more instead of being limited by what I can describe. Also, I didn't realize that Trello staff were not the ones responding to these things.

I have tried submitting a help request via the Trello Support and I can't even get my request to submit. I have tried multiple times and just cant get it to submit, the page just goes away but I don't get an email confirmation that they received it and no one has reached out to me about it yet.

------

You are right, we are using '####' as placeholders, but that is literally what I want the rule to trigger off of. When I click the board button to make these new cards, I don't know what the actual PO# will be, so I will modify the titles of those cards after I create the PO in my inventory system. But I want the cards to be created to literally say 'PO####', and therefore I want the rule to trigger off of that name. So yes, I am addressing the same purchase order in both parts of the board button, literally 'PO####".

This allows me to use the same board button for each PO I create and then I simply change the title of the card to the correct number when I have one generated by my inventory system.

And I will only have one set of cards being generated with 'PO####" at a time, because I will be changing the title shortly after so there won't be any issues with trying to relate more cards than intended.


Tags: board

butler

rule

wildcard