Card content
If you want to trigger certain actions based on words or characters that are contained in a card, this is the area you’ll do that in.
Figure 6.16 – Card content trigger events
If you can’t think of any reasons you want to use this, just keep it tucked away in the back of your head as an option. I thought I’d never need these types of triggers, but I recently started to use them on my meal planning board to add labels (such as produce, dairy, or meat) to items on my grocery shopping list, making it easy to sort my shopping list by sections of the grocery store.
Advanced pro-tip
This is extremely advanced and not for the faint of heart. Consider yourself warned. If you want to include multiple criteria in your text filter, such as card name contains milk or creamer, there isn’t a button to click for that. You’ll need to use regex in the text field and write your own code for “or”. It looks like this: regex:/.*(salt|Salt|oil|Oil|water|Water).*/.
Figure 6.17 – Example of using regex in automation
If that feels too advanced, don’t worry—you might never need it. But now you know it’s here and possible if you do!
When the name/description of a card contains specific text
Just like we did with the items in the previous section, you can trigger actions to happen when cards contain certain text in the name or description. This has the same settings where you can say “starts with,” “ends with,” “contains,” or not one of those things.
Real-world example
When the card name contains Q1, create a due date of March 31st.
This rule is useful for creating relative due dates on cards by using the title, especially if it's a vague or undefined term that wouldn't be recognized with other triggers.
When a comment is posted to a card
This is the same as the name/description, but this one looks for text inside comments.
Real-world example
When a comment containing the word urgent is posted to a card, add the red High Priority label.
This is useful for making important tasks more clearly visible and helping them stand out on your board.
When a person is mentioned in a card
This checks the card for someone mentioned. You might use this to create an action for adding the person to the card to ensure important cards don’t get ignored because someone missed a comment.
Figure 6.18 – Options for locations to watch for mentions
Trello watches a few sections of a card for mentions, and you can specify which one you’re interested in watching. If you want to check all of them, you’ll need to make three different rules since there’s no way to combine all three.
Real-world example
When someone is mentioned in a comment, add them to the card.
This is useful if the people you tag in comments tend to be stakeholders of a project and will likely want to receive other notifications about activity on a task.
Feeling a little overwhelmed? You don’t have to remember all of these. Your goal right now is to just get familiar with all these sections to understand what you can work with and know what’s available. One more section to go, and we’ll be done with the standard trigger options. Let’s talk about triggers for when something changes on custom fields.
