Butler - creating an action for condition No Due Date
Asked by Marbeth Wickliffe:

I'm setting up my trello board for task management and i would like to use columns for my ideas/tasks that may or may not need to be done and then have a list of things that have no due dates on them to review every week. I set up a rule so i can see this weeks tasks in a custom list (i add them to the column, get my label inserted by butler, then i add the due date). But, I would like a column that has all the things to review so that i can easily see what does have a due date.

I found i can create a button to run a report, but i can't find the report and really what i want to do is filter the board by no due date....

I guess if i can find the report that helps!


Answers:
author: Vongsawat
body: I don't really understand the question.. but I might have some solutions for you anyways??  

If you want to just filter your entire board so that you only see the cards with no due date. Hit F to access Menu\>Search_Cards. Then you can filter the board to only see cards with No Due Date.  

You can also Sort a list by Due Date, which is a bit more permanent, which is a command that is accessible in both the Butler Rules, as well as Board Buttons. I've never used it though, but that may be an option.  

I'm not sure if I misunderstood this one or not. But if your cards are moving around from list to list depending on what you want to focus on. Then you can make a card button that first Finds a certain card, then Collects all cards on the board that \[add whatever filters you want here\] to a checklist as links, then for each card linked in checklist, move to list Column_for_reviewing_no_due_dates? Kinda confused on the setup though, so this solution may not be applicable.  

Hope that helps

comments: author: Marbeth Wickliffe
body: Yes, thank you - i found i can create a search from the settings area, I would like to turn this search into a button so that my process has less clicks. I don't think there is a way to do this with butler...


author: Vongsawat
body: The second solution might be the closest, if its just sorting in each list. But Search Cards is clearly the superior solution if that was all you wanted.  

It sounds like you might want to recreate the search/filter functionality, but in a way that would move the cards in to different lists according to which format you want to view them in? Which would require a whole bunch of rules that would shuffle the cards around. Sounds like a lot of work and discipline to save a few clicks? I feel like it should be doable still.. if some care is taken to batch the commands properly so you don't run out of command runs in the first week.. but technically doable....  

A lot of solution 3 in that case. This is just brainstorming: Having a control card that trawls through the entire board, collecting them in to separate checklists. Then triggering a separate sub-rule for each checklist (via label application) which each of them renaming the existing lists, then For Each card in the hardcoded checklists to be moved to their respective new lists (such as no due date or more than a week etc). You'd need one rule for each view, and one sub-rule for each list. But once you have the format down, its just changing the list/checklist names to hardcoded values. Each button trigger would eat up the number of lists for that view +1, so its probably not too bad on the command run for Business Class, or Gold if you don't have that many lists. Operations I'm not quite sure how Butler counts them, but I'd roughly estimate 1 to 2 times the total amount of cards being shuffled? so a 40 card board can handle 25-50 triggers at Gold and double or triple that for Business per month? Better numbers when not as many cards of course, but that's probably the more relevant chokepoint to keep an eye on.  

Still feel like Search Cards is the superior choice hands down though, especially as now that I think about it, you only save a single click (hitting F). The actual downsides are only if you have a lot of lists so you have to scroll left/right a lot to view them.  

Could also be a power-up that would fit your needs, but this is a pretty different workflow than mine so I've not explored that area. I know at least 2 that rearrange how you view cards, so its definitely possible.


author: Marbeth Wickliffe
body: yeah that makes sense, thanks for taking the time to answer! I appreciate it ;)