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Trello looks to streamline tasks with template galleries, automation

Trello looks to streamline tasks with template galleries, automation

New community templates showcase how customers are using Trello to manage workflows, as Atlassian boasts its has reached 50M registered users.

Credit: Trello

Trello is adding new template features and automation capabilities to its work management app in a bid to help users reduce time spent on easily replicable tasks. 

The company, owned by Australian software company Atlassian, today unveiled template galleries that showcase Trello boards curated by a variety of customers, including Grand Hyatt Hotels, UNICEF and Zoho. It also touted numerous project boards created internally by Trello and Atlassian workers.

Users can read a description of each board and how it functions, get details about any power-ups and integrations used, and view an embedded version of the board. They can also try out the entire board and create their own version of it with one click. 

Today’s announcement builds on the company’s now-defunct Inspirations page, a section of Trello’s website that highlights customer templates. Moving templates into the app should make them more accessible, said Trello product manager Justin Gallagher. (The template gallery is accessed from the left-hand side bar of the app.)

Trello also wants to make it easier for users to create and deploy their own board and card templates without having to copy board and card information. As a result, common processes such as on-boarding new customers should be easier to replicate

“One of the hardest things for teams is just getting going,” said Gallagher. “Sometimes that is because there is a lot of setup to do, and sometimes it is because you are not quite sure how to get started. We’ve seen that board and card templates can really help a lot with both of those things.”  

Trello also rolled out Suggested Actions, which uses machine learning to understand frequent tasks and make suggestions. That could include suggestions on adding team members to a board or moving a card to a specific list.

Automation has been a growing focus for Trello and competing task management vendors like Asana. Trello acquired Butler last year to bring IFTTT-style automation to its app and has been gradually making the features more widely available. Butler automations are now available to free tier customers without the need for power-up integrations.

Raúl Castañón-Martínez, a senior analyst at 451 Research, said the latest Trello changes can be useful for organizations looking to change how they plan and execute work. “The newly announced features further enhance Trello’s relevance to support these efforts…, making it easier for new users to get started.”

That’s particularly true as Trello seeks to expand the use of its app beyond IT professionals. “The new features should help them gain traction outside of this user base, making it easier to understand the benefits of Trello across a wider range of use cases such as marketing, HR, sales, as well as day-to-day tasks of knowledge workers,” said Castañón-Martínez.  

Trello also said it now has 50 million registered users, up from 35 million in March. Although the company said earlier this year that 1 million teams were using the app, it declined to provide current details on the number of active or paid users.

Castañón-Martínez said that likely means Trello is still in the process of building its user base. Even so, getting 50 million registered users is an important milestone, he added; it means  Trello has doubled its user base since being acquired by Atlassian in 2017.

“Atlassian has steadily expanded the features in its enterprise offering, but it’s a product that started out in the consumer segment,” he said. “Crossover takes time; we have seen this happen with other products before. 

“Atlassian is in a solid position and can afford to take the time it will require to build up its enterprise customer base. It’s also important to consider that Atlassian is on the curve when it comes to work planning and execution. They are pioneering a new way of working and this will require evangelizing their approach, which will take time.”

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