Why Trello templates are important
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If you wanna save time managing all of your projects here in Trello, or starting your projects in just a matter of seconds, this video is for you.
Hello, everyone. Scott Friesen here, at Simpletivity, helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress.
And today we are talking about templates.
In this video, I'm gonna show you how to use both card templates, board templates, and also, to get some inspiration from other people's templates.
So, you don't have to start from scratch.
You can take what other people have used or learned from, and start applying it within your own Trello environment.
How to Create Trello Card Templates
So, let's get started right here at the card level.
And let's say here, I've got a demo board and I've got an Ideas list here, and I've got a New Idea card.
And let's say that for myself and my team, I'd always like a few things to happen when we start or create a new idea.
I want it to have this new project label.
I want it to have this brainstorming document attached.
And I want us to ask ourselves these questions: does it add value? Will our customers benefit? And are we excited about it?
But I don't wanna have to add a new card and then like, oh yeah, I gotta remember to add the checklist, and the document and that type of thing.
I just want this to be available to me each and every time.
Well, all I need to do is open up this card, scroll down near the bottom under Actions and say, Make a Template.
Now you'll see a few things change here.
Not only does the template get a nice green check box, but when you go to the top, we get a nice header telling us that this is a template card.
Now this is important, because whatever we change here now within this card is going to be applied to the template when we use it.
So if I close this, you can see on the front, there's a little icon here as well.
It's sort of a light blue, telling us that this is a template.
How to Use Trello Card Templates
And there's a few different ways in which we can start to use it.
So, number one, if we open this card again, you can see this big green button saying, Create Card from Template.
Perfect, if I click on that, I can give this a new name.
I can say, this is a New idea for the fall of 2021, for example.
And I can choose what I want to keep or leave off.
Now, in most cases, when you're creating a template, you wanna keep all this stuff, right?
This is all the things that you added to the template, but I can also choose to put it in a different list right off the bat.
I'm gonna say Create Card.
And now we're brought to this new card, which has everything that we input before.
It's got the document, it's got the label, it's got the checklist.
And I forgot to mention that I also included myself, because maybe I want to be attached to every new idea as well.
But there's another way that we can create templates as well.
You can see at the bottom of every single list, there is an icon.
Now this is a create from template icon, so if I wanna create that card in one of these lists, maybe I wanna put it right under Task List.
I'm gonna select this one, and now you can see all the templates that I have available to me on this board.
So, here's that New Idea Template.
Same thing as before, I'm gonna click on it, I can give it a new name and give all these things, keep all these things down below as well.
How to Hide & Manage Card Templates
Now, you don't have to keep your templates visible, because this might be confusing.
In fact, someone, even yourself, might come in here and start editing things and then forget that, oh yeah, this is a template card.
So, what you can do, is you can actually choose to hide your templates.
So, in this case, I'm gonna come over here to this little edit stylus, and I'm gonna click on it, and I'm gonna choose Hide from list.
I'm gonna select that option and it's gone.
It's no longer visible to me here on this board, but it's not actually archived, nor has it disappeared.
You can see if I come back to the Create from template option, there it is.
I can still use it, along with my other template cards as well.
Now, if I wanna edit these templates, I come down to the bottom, select Edit Templates, and now you can see I've got both an edit icon, but also a delete icon.
So, if I really truly want to delete any of these templates, I can do so at this level, or if I just wanna make a tweak.
So, let's come down to this one, I'm gonna say edit.
I'm gonna come in here and say, you know what? Actually, I'd like this HR label to be attached to it as well.
Perfect. I don't have to hit save or anything like that. I can just close it at this point, and now going forward, that label will be available to me.
So, this is a really quick and easy way for you to get started on a new card, especially if there's a few different types of cards that you use most frequently within a particular board.
How to Copy Existing Board Templates
But next up, let's talk a little bit about inspiration, and maybe piggybacking on someone who's already created a fantastic board, and you wanna be able to make use of it as well.
So, if we come up here to our Home screen, you'll notice that on the left-hand side, there's an area called Templates.
If we click on Templates, it's gonna bring us to a vast library of great Trello templates that we can take advantage of.
Now on the left-hand side, along with the top of the page, we have a few different categories that we can dive into, or if there's a specific template that you're after, you can just type it here into the search bar.
I'm gonna click on Marketing for this example, just to see some of the other templates that are available to me.
And it gives us some helpful identifiers here, in terms of how many people are actually using it, and how many people have actually viewed that template.
So, if I scroll down here, and let's say I'm looking for an editorial calendar, I'm gonna click on this one here.
What it's gonna do, is it's gonna give me a bit of a description about this template, so I can read a few more details about what it's about, and who it was designed for.
But I can also come down here and see a preview of this entire board.
So, I can scroll over, I can see the types of lists, the types of information that's included.
Now, if this doesn't give me enough detail, what I can do is actually come down here and say View Template, which will open up the board.
And now I can actually open up these cards and I can see, wow, this is a really helpful checklist that they have as a part of this calendar.
These are the types of things that I would like to use in my own editorial calendar.
It's got the checklist, it's got the list, it's got everything that I want. I might make a few tweaks.
Maybe I don't need all of these lists. Maybe I want to revise the labels, but you know what? This is gonna save me so much time.
So, at this point, all I need to do is come up here and select Create Board from Template.
And I can give it my own name, right? I can say, well, this is Scott's Editorial Calendar.
At this point, I can assign it to a team. Again. I can choose whether I want to or not keep the cards and the template cards, but that's kind of the whole point of using a template, and I can say Create.
Now it's gonna take a second to create this board.
And now it's my own.
Now I can come in here and change the labels. I can start removing some of these example cards that they've laid out for me, but I can start using this template right away.
How to Create Trello Board Templates
Now the third thing I wanna show you today, is how you can create your own board template, because there's chances that you have some processes or some boards that you use on a regular basis, and wouldn't it save you or your team time if you already had them in order?
So, let me come up here, and let me go down to my Customer Success Template.
I've already taken a few minutes to flesh out a few lists and a few marching orders, a few descriptions here at the top of each list, along with some custom labels.
Now, let's say that this is the type of board that I want my team members to use for their various clients, their various customers.
So, we're gonna have a number of these boards, but I don't wanna have to write this out, or for them to write out this information each and every time.
And of course, your board may have a lot more detail involved in it as well.
So, once I have my board in place, all I need to do is come up here to Show Menu.
We're gonna come down here to More, and I'm gonna select Make a Template.
So, it's gonna tell me that it's gonna turn this board into a template for others to copy.
I'm gonna say Make a Template.
And now you can see at the very top of my board, I've got the same green button, so members of my organization and even myself, right, maybe I have a few template boards that I just wanna use in my personal life or my personal projects, I can do so as well.
One thing that I would recommend, and you can see that Trello encourages us to do so as well after making the template board, is to add a description down below, because as members of your team may be searching or looking for various boards, this can be helpful to tell them what this board is designed for and who should be using it.
So now I can repurpose this board again, and again and again.
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