Bring Consistency To Your Workflow With Trello Card Templates

If you manage a workflow or process in Trello, you’ve probably experienced that moment when a seemingly perfect system gets thrown out of balance because of a lack of consistency between cards. The required information needed to execute a request or task is in the wrong place... or perhaps not even there at all.

Wouldn't it be nice to always have the information you need when processing an incoming request card? What if even your new hire could fill out the perfect project update card week after week?

You can rein in card chaos with our brand new card templates—available on Trello web. 

Keep It Clear With Trello Card Templates

Sometimes, the key to great teamwork is a little guidance. Card templates allow teams to standardize cards on their boards. By adding Custom Fields or including key information that copies over from the template to a new card, you can build a seamlessly repeatable workflow that is clear and consistent. 

Now, when requests are made to Design teams, pitches are made to Editorial teams, or features are scoped by Product teams, they can all be formalized with card templates to make sure no important detail falls through the cracks.

Organizers, get excited! There’s no limit to the number of template cards that can be created on a Trello board.

Bring consistency to your workflows with Trello card templates! Now available on web ✨

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How To Create A Card Template

To add a card template simply:

• Click the card template icon at the bottom right corner of any card
• Click “Create a new template”
• Name your template and then click “Add” 

From there you will be brought to the card back of your template card.

Here you can create the perfect “blank slate”—exactly how you would like cards copied from that template to appear. This could mean formatting the card’s description, adding Custom Fields, creating checklists, and more.

When creating a template card, consider these elements that will be copied to any card created from a template:

• Card title (can be edited for cards created from a template)
• Card description 
• Custom Fields 

These items can be toggled to copy or not copy when a card is being created from a template:

• Checklists 
• Members 
• Attachments 
• Labels 
• Stickers

For example, if you manage a newsroom and are creating a card template to capture incoming pitches from your team, you might want to create:

• A description that can be easily edited to include relevant information 
• Custom Fields where writers can select the category or theme of the post 
• A checklist for the pitch review and draft process
• The board member who is assigned to review pitches so that they get a notification when each new card is created. 

✨Pro Tip: If your board already has a card that you’ve been copying a lot and you want to convert that to a template card, click the Template button from the Actions section of the card back and your card will be converted to a template like magic.

At this point, you can either archive the template card (and always retrieve it from the board’s archive if you want to make any changes) or keep it on an appropriate list such as at the top of an Incoming Pitches list in the newsroom example above. 

Putting Process Into Practice

With your template card (or cards!) created, it’s time to unleash the power of an organized process to your team.

There are two ways to create a new card from a template:

1. Click the “Create from template” icon at the bottom left corner of a list and select the template you would like to create a new card from. The new card will be created at the bottom of the same list. 
   
   
   
   
2. You can also create a new card from the back of any template card. Open the template card and click the green “Create Card From Template” button, located at the top right corner. Creating a new card via this method allows you to select the list that you would like the new card to be added to.

Card templates are available to all Trello users in the browser and we will be working on bringing the card template experience to mobile soon.

We hope that card templates help your team take better control of your workflows and improve the productivity of your teamwork.

Good or bad, we'd love to hear your thoughts. Find us on Twitter (@trello) or write in to [email protected]

Next: 50 Million Is Just The Beginning: Automation, Templates, And More New Features To Keep Your Team Building