12 Best Trello Power-ups To Use in 2021
Trello is a boon for marketers, solopreneurs, salespeople, entrepreneurs, and anyone looking to streamline their entire work. This project management tool comes with a host of power-ups that makes Trello a powerful tool for you and your team.
These power-ups are native integrations with Trello that help in syncing your work across your work apps. If your work app is not listed in the power-up list, you can always integrate it with Trello using no-code automation tools like Automate.io (which incidentally is one of the power-ups in Trello to help you in such times).
In this article, we will look into why and what are benefits of using project management apps like Trello, as well as highlight the 12 best Trello power-ups that you need to start using right away.
Let’s go.
Why use project management apps like Trello?
Trello is a powerful tool for project and task management. Their visual Kanban boards make project planning flexible, shareable, and detailed. Trello cards help keep teams organized and on track. With Trello, teams can:
- Collaboratively plan projects with checklists, milestones, due dates, and assignees.
- Keep the team up to date by commenting and adding status updates to Trello cards.
- Use Kanban boards to drag and drop projects or tasks into different lists (I.e., Todo, doing, and done).
And we’re only scratching the surface here.
What are the benefits of using power-ups and automation tools?
Trello power-ups are free and give teams the ability to, well, power up their Trello application. With power-ups, you’re able to sync Trello to your calendar and Google Drive, add custom fields for better sorting, and send Trello cards within Slack. But, more on all of these power-ups later. The point is, teams can customize their Trello workspace to fit their existing workflows. Plus, if a workflow or integration doesn’t exist as a Trello power-up, you can always use automation tools like Automate.io to fill in the gaps.
It’s also important to note that, if you’re on Trello’s basic plan, you’re only able to activate one power-up at a time.
Best Trello Power-ups to Power Your Project Management
1. Google Workspace
Power up your Trello across all G-Suite applications and never miss a deadline again
(i) Google Calendar
Category(s): Board Utilities || Communications & Collaborations
Trello has a separate Calendar power-up that allows you to drop your cards on the calendar to automatically set a due date. Add to this, if you have this calendar power-up added, you can see all your cards in the calendar format, giving you an instant overview of what is due when. You can filter your cards with due dates in monthly or weekly view as well as export each board’s calendar to any third party calendar using the unique iCalendar link.
Since a majority of us use Google Workspace, a Google Calendar power-up can be of great help. Just like it happens in the Google workspace — where everything is synced with one another — You can connect your Trello and Google Calendar to set up an automated workflow. Next time, whenever you add a Calendar event, a Trello card is automatically created in the assigned board, or vice-versa. Since Trello doesn’t have a Google Calendar power-up, you can create this power-up for yourself using Automate.io.
What does this power-up do?
Your Trello and Google Calendar gets synced instantly. Whether you add new events or modify an existing one, your Trello board is always updated. Similarly, a new card or a new checklist on Trello instantly creates a Calendar event for you. This means you never miss out on your due dates, ever. Try it now.
(ii) Google Drive
Category(s): File Management || Communications & Collaboration
Whether you want to add a project brief or a demo day presentation to your Trello board, the Google Drive power-up in Trello makes it easy to directly attach Google Drive links to your Trello cards. Google Drive links consist of –
- Google Docs
- Slide presentations
- Google Sheets
- Forms
You can either copy and paste your Google Drive link or create and attach a document directly on the card. Your team will automatically have access to all relevant documents they require to get the task done.
Apart from this, on Trello, you can directly search for a file saved in Drive and attach it to a card, irrespective of the Trello version you are using. This power-up takes team collaboration one notch higher as it reduces the chances of creating multiple versions of the same document.
While this power-up lets you collaborate with your team effortlessly on Drive, you can do more than just add your Drive links in the cards. You can set up automated workflows to make updates in your files inside the Drive directly on new comments in Trello or vice-versa. Set up quick automated workflows for deeper sync between Trello and Google Drive.
(iii) Google Sheets
Trello does not have a power-up for Google Sheets but that does not mean you cannot sync your sheets with Trello. With Automate.io, you can easily integrate Google Sheets and Trello in a few minutes.
Whether you want to stay on top of your task list within Trello or keep the information up to date within Google Sheets, you can create two-way communication between both of these powerful apps easily. With this integration, you can –
- Create new rows within Google Sheets
- Automate tedious tasks like copying and pasting order or project updates within Trello that live in Google Sheets
- Export new and archived Trello cards as rows in Google Sheets; and so much more.
Set up customized workflows to sync your Google Sheets and Trello by setting up triggers and actions from here.
(iv) Google Tasks
If you’re anything like us, you’re likely using a personal to-do list app or a productivity app like Google Tasks outside of your project management tool. Google Tasks is one of the simplest to-do list apps that sync with the entire Google workplace, keeping you on track with your tasks.
Trello does not have a separate power-up to integrate Google Tasks, but you can connect your Trello board using Automate.io.
Create your own set of workflows and sync your Google Tasks seamlessly with Trello. After all, you need to have your tasks placed properly everywhere (and what better way to do it than creating automated workflows between both the tools).
2. Gmail
Make email management and project management work together to save you time and energy.
Category(s): Communications & Collaboration || Sales & Support
Gmail power-up is ideal for Google Suite users. With this power-up, you can add your email thread to your Trello cards and directly send out replies to your email from Trello itself. Your cards are automatically updated when you get a reply on that email thread so that you can respond and move your card to a new list. Be it byline replies, assigning emails to team members, or collaborating with your team on a specific email via comments, Gmail power-up gives you the power to integrate your inbox into your project management tool.
P.S. This power-up on Trello is powered by Cardbox
If you want to boost this power-up by a few knots, then you can integrate Gmail and Trello using Automate.io, and set up automated workflows to create new cards in Trello boards on new emails or send an email on new comments in a card, and more.
3. Butler
Bring automation and insights to your Trello boards across your team
Category(s): Communications & Collaboration || Sales & Support
With this Trello power-up for agile teams, you can create buttons, rules, and schedule commands to perform different actions on your boards. Trello’s Butler power-up enables users to create buttons, rules, and schedule commands like automatically reacting to your actions on boards. With Butler set up, you’ll minimize the number of clicks needed to perform tasks.
Note: The Butler power-up is not available in the power-up list. To access this power-up, click on the menu option on any of your boards. You will see the Butler power-up. Click on it to add this power-up to your board.
There are 5 types of Butler commands:
- Card buttons: Create and access buttons from a Trello card to perform a series of actions
- Board buttons: Similar to card buttons but they are accessible from your board
- Rules: Trigger commands when specific actions are performed, or conditions are met
- Calendar: Schedule commands for recurring tasks
- Due date: Set triggers and actions for upcoming due dates (due dates can’t be retroactive)
4. Card Aging
Easily spot inactive cards to keep your todo lists and backlog fresh
Category(s): Board Utilities
This nifty power up uses a color-coding system to help you identify cards that have been inactive within certain time thresholds. This will enable you to have a visual way to understand what projects need to be revisited, should be archived, or simply just require a status update from the owner.
According to Trello, Card Aging thresholds are 1, 2, and 4 weeks. Once a card has been updated, it’ll return back to its normal state. When you have this power-up integrated, cards that fade indicate aging. The more it fades, the more is the age.
5. List Limits
Set a limit on your lists across all of your cards to prevent creating overwhelming to-do lists.
Category(s): Board Utilities
Whether you’re planning a project or planning out a quarter, it can feel tempting to want to list out every single detail. However, that’s not just going to make you feel overwhelmed, but your team as well. That’s where List Limits Power-up comes in. With this Trello power-up, you’ll be able to set limits on your lists to prevent you from going overboard. And in the case that you do go overboard, Trello will highlight the card to let you know that you’ve gone over your list limit. For instance, in the image below, the To-do list is highlighted because the list has exceeded its limit of 3.
6. Card Snooze
Stay laser-focused every day by snoozing tasks you don’t need to get done that day.
Category(s): Board Utilities || Automation
Nothing boosts productivity more than focus. That’s why Card Snooze Power-up is such a powerful Trello power up to take advantage of. This power-up lets you snooze cards until a later date, decluttering your existing board, and helping you stay focused on the task at hand for the day. Once the snooze is over, the card will reappear on your board.
7. Slack
Share project updates easily by sending Trello cards directly within your communication channels.
Category(s): Communications & Collaboration || Automation
Getting project update notifications just got easier if you’re a Slack user. That’s because, with the Slack power-up, you can enable notifications and reminders about your Trello board to send directly into Slack. You’ll get notified when a due date is coming up or if something has changed within one of your Trello boards.
Slack power-up on Trello makes team collaboration and communication hassle-free. Whether you want your team’s feedback on a particular task or want to set up alerts to get instant notifications on Slack for any Trello updates, this power-up is a power-house in itself.
Incidentally, you can boost this power-up and take Trello-Slack syncing to a new level. Trello for Slack app is a customized app designed for Slack that links your Trello and Slack.
In short, you can create a sync between Trello and Slack from any of the platforms — either by adding Slack power-up on Trello or Trello app on Slack. Nifty, right?
If that’s not all, you can create multiple automated workflows between Trello and Slack using Automate.io to keep the communication and collaboration loop going on. By integrating Slack and Trello, you can send out instant updates to your Slack channel for new cards, modification in cards, card movements, assigning new cards, as well as Get Data from Workflow in Slack when a card is added or updated, etc.
8. Shopify
Boost your eCommerce business with Shopify and Trello integration.
There are countless small businesses on Shopify that manage their daily tasks on Trello. While Trello does not have a power-up to connect Shopify businesses with Trello, this is possible through Automate.io.
From new orders to abandoned cart notifications to new fulfillment orders — Shopify business owners need to track so many things. Instead of manually creating cards, you can just connect Shopify with Trello and get this nitty-gritty updated automatically. With Shopify and Trello integration in place, you can add new comments to Trello cards on a new customer or update a card on a new fulfillment event in Shopify, and more.
9. Hubspot
Add superpowers to any marketing team with the HubSpot and Trello integration.
If you’re a part of a larger marketing team, especially within content marketing, this integration will ensure that all team members are in the loop once certain tasks are completed. Not only will it help you notify your team once a new blog post is live, for example, but you can also create new cards and tasks for those involved with distributing that content.
For example, every time a new blog is published on HubSpot, you can add a checklist to a Trello card to keep your team accountable for distributing that piece across every channel you’ve committed to. This is a great way to keep the team on track with every new marketing piece you publish. Build your own customized workflow and connect Hubspot with Trello (as well as other apps to create multi-app workflows).
10. Custom Fields
A favorite power-up that empowers teams to keep Trello cards (and themselves) more organized.
Category(s): Board Utilities || IT & Project Management
The Custom Fields power-up enables teams to customize cards by adding more information to your Trello cards that are specific to how you work. This is ideal for anyone looking for Trello power-ups for time tracking and organized collaborations.
According to Trello, the custom fields you can add include:
- Text fields — Enter names, email addresses, or other text-based information
- Numbers — From story points to guest counts, add numbers to your cards
- Checkbox — From special approvals to other considerations, if you need a checkbox, this power-up makes it possible
- Dates — Milestones, checkpoints, order dates, estimated delivery date, the list goes on
- Dropdown lists — For moments when there are only a select number of “right” answers like what status a blog is in (I.e. outline, draft, editing, published), or even an SKU list
All of the information you add within the custom field will show up on the front of your card making it easy to access from your board view.
11. Todoist
Make your personal productivity app work for you.
Category(s): IT & Project Management || Communications & Collaboration
Todoist power-up in Trello lets you plan, organize, and collaborate on tasks and projects seamlessly. You can plan projects as a team on Trello but continue to build your personal to-do list on Todoist. After all, no rule states that you have to use just one tool to organize your work, right?
With this power-up in place, add tasks to your to-do lists directly from your Trello cards in a single click. The task that you create generates a link that you can access to return to your Trello card. Whether you are on mobile or desktop, use this power-up to super-organize your work as well as your team’s.
If you want to do more than create to-do lists from Trello cards, integrate Trello and Todoist using Automate.io. Create automated workflows to automatically update Trello cards on new Todoist tasks and vice-versa.
12. Asana
Break down cross-functional silos without breaking down your team’s workflow.
Category(s): Automation || IT & Project Management
While the logical choice would be to use the same project management tool org-wide, it’s not always the case. While Asana works great for the marketing team, for example, Trello works better for the finance team. Even though this enables every team to work with the tools and workflows that make them most productive, it builds workplace silos.
Probably, Trello knows that too! The Asana power-up helps in bringing all the teams together despite using two project management tools. This is an ideal choice for teams looking for a Trello power-up for reporting and collaborating. You can sync projects and tasks on Asana to cards on Trello without deleting any due dates, comments, custom fields, and other details to each task or project, as well as track the progress of your teams. This power-up gives power into your hands to manage tasks, organize work, and let everyone enjoy the liberty of using any of the two project management tools.
P.S. This power-up in Trello is powered by Unito.
However, if you want to automate your entire project management process, integrating Trello and Asana using Automate.io can help you set up automated workflows for deeper integration.
In Conclusion
Trello is a powerful project management app that’s used by thousands of teams worldwide. With Trello power-ups, teams are able to customize their workspace to fit within their workflows and increase overall productivity. Power-ups in Trello let you integrate your workspace with hundreds of cloud applications, keeping your team synced up and organized across all the tools they’re already working with.
