The rules available in Placker are designed to streamline your workflow, save time, and ensure that your projects run smoothly. Let's dive into how you can leverage these automation rules to enhance your project management experience.
You create the workflow, Placker does the automations
Automation rules in Placker are predefined actions that automatically trigger based on specific conditions. These rules help you automate repetitive tasks, ensuring consistency in your boards.
By setting up automation rules, you can focus on more strategic aspects of your projects while Placker handles the routine tasks.
One of the most frequent use case is for card mirroring. It helps you save time by not having to manually mirror cards. In cases where mirroring follows a standard, you can create rules that will trigger the creation of mirrors. Learn how this works with a practical example in the following section.
How to Set Up Automation Rules in Placker
Suppose you are working with many colleagues in a project, but would like to keep track of what you need to do in your personal board.
You can set a rule where every time a card is assigned to you, it gets mirrored to your board. Setting up automation rules in Placker is straightforward. Follow these steps to get started:
Click the gear next to the title of the board in a view to access the board settings, and access the "Rules" tab. There, you will find the "Add new rule button" and create the rule based on your context. If needed, you can edit, disable or delete the rule later.
Rules usually consist of three blocks of elements: triggers, actions when conditions are met and actions when conditions are no longer met.
Options for Triggers
Triggers are events that initiate the execution of an automation rule. In Placker, you have several trigger options, including:
When a card or checklist item is created or moved: The rule is triggered whenever a new task is added. You can specify if it's on a specific list or anywhere on the board.
When a member is assigned: The rule is triggered when someone is set as a member in a card or checklist item.
When a label is added: The rule is triggered when a specific label is updated.
When a checklist item has a status: The rule is triggered when the status of a checklist item is modified. The title of the item has to be specified.
When a custom attribute has a value: The rule is triggered when there is a specific value in a selectable text field for example.
The mirror rules allow you to make a logical trigger that may include multiple conditions. It may happen that all conditions need to be True (AND), or only one condition needs to be True (OR), while other cases may not require these advanced statements.
For example, if your case is to mirror all cards that are moved to the "Doing" list to a personal board, there is only one condition to be met. But let's say you want to mirror cards moved to "Doing" AND that are assigned to a specific member of your team - in this case the + AND condition button will be helpful.
There can even be a more complex case where a card would be mirrored either if it's moved to "Doing" OR if the approval checklist was marked as complete - but still considering that the member Sam was added to the card. The screenshot below shows how this rule would look like:
To delete any of the conditions, click the X icon next to it.
Options for Actions when conditions are met
Actions are the tasks that are performed automatically when a trigger event occurs. In Placker, you can choose from various actions, such as:
Copy card: Automatically copy a card to a specific list.
Mirror card: Automatically create a mirrored card on a specific list (cards will be kept in sync).
Remove mirror link: Unlink card from its mirrors but keep it active.
Move card: Automatically move a card to another list or board.
Assign member or label: Automatically assign a task to a specific team member or label.
Set card attribute: Change the details of a task, such as its Progress, Priority or Milestone.
Set or clear a custom attribute: Update a custom field with a specific value.
Archive card: Delete card but keep it available to restore.
When the rule applies to a checklist item, the options are to update its status or mirror it as a card, using the parent child card system.
Options for Actions when Conditions are no longer met
After the main action is completed, there may be an option of how the rule should work when it's no longer met. This applies specially for mirroring cards.
For example, a card could be mirrored to an individual member board when they are added as a member on the original card. But if the member is removed from the card, you may want the mirrored card to become archived or unlinked.
Applying Rules to Existing Cards
When you create a new rule or edit an existing one, you will see a message just like this one. If you want to apply it to existing cards, just click "Execute now" and voilà, your existing cards will now follow the new automation rules. If not, only cards created after the rule is set will be affected.
Copying rules from a board to another
If you would like to have the same rules of this board in another, you can copy the board settings (as long as both boards are imported in Placker).
This is done in the board settings, as highlighted in the screenshot below:
Rule Execution Information in the Card Overview
You can click the card overview, open the card history and hover your mouse over the action that created or edited the card, such as an automation rule, and know exactly which was triggered and when.
While you won't be able to open the rule if it has been removed, you will still be able to see its name.
Errors or info in the mirror rules
There are cases where mirror rules are not triggered to prevent issues. If you see this in your mirror rules tab, check if it could be one of these issues:
Duplicates. Cards with a blue label get mirrored, and cards in the "To do" list get mirrored. A card in that list that later gets that label wouldn't be mirrored a second time.
Mirror loop. Example: every card in board A is mirrored to board B, and every card in board B is mirrored to board A.
Mirroring would create a mirror group not available in the current plan or exceeding the current limit. Example: every card in board A will be mirrored to boards B, C and D. However, the mirror group limit in the Pro plan is 3.
An attribute related to the rule is no longer available. Example: Cards in the “To do” list get mirrored, but this list is now archived.
When an error occurs, additional information will be displayed to help you visualize and fix the issue. This makes it easier than ever to keep your rules active and error-free.
This is shown in the screenshot below, where the first rule is triggered correctly, the second shows additional info, and the third is inactive.
The reason for the blue info button is because it is preventing duplicates. For example, there was a card where the green label was added, which made it be mirrored. When the blue label was added, Placker shows additional info instead of mirroring the same card a second time (which could cause an infinite loop eventually). Hovering the mouse over the blue button would show the message "Mirrored card already exists on target board".
And what caused the red inactive button to be shown is the fact that the red label, which used to be the condition for this rule, was archived.
These improvements were added to help you understand how your mirror rules are performing. In case you see these buttons but still can't figure out what is not working, feel free to reach out sending a screenshot and we can investigate the mirror rules for you.
Other use cases
Mirroring cards to a personal or team board according to members assigned is a very common use case. However, there are more situations where automated card mirroring can save a lot of time, such as:
• When a the "Meeting" label is assigned to a card (topic), mirror it to the board that will be used during the meeting
• When a new card (task) is created in a personal board, mirror it to the team board
• When a card (client) is moved to "Contract signed" list in a sales board, create a mirror in the production board
• When a card named "Order #123" is moved to the "Done" list, this means that everything is completed. The rule below will make sure this is set on the checklist items that are under the "Tasks" checklist. The bottom part of the rule sets it back to "Open" if the list is moved away from "Done".
• When a project card is moved to the "Design" list, mirror task cards to a professional responsible for Design:
Questions or comments about this feature
Automation rules in Placker are a powerful tool to help you manage your projects more effectively. By automating routine tasks, you can save time, ensure consistency, and focus on what truly matters. Start setting up your automation rules today and experience the benefits of a streamlined workflow.
If you have any questions or need further assistance, feel free to reach out to our support team. We're here to help you get the most out of Placker!