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Benefits of using a dashboard

- [Instructor] Trello doesn't make it easy for us to get a high-level picture of everything that is going on within our Trello accounts. But what if you could create a customized dashboard, like the one you see here, where you can show the key information that you want across all of your boards.

And best of all, you can dive down into it and get access directly to each and every individual card. Well, it only took me about 10 minutes to create this dashboard, and I think you can do so as well.

So let me show you how. (high-pitched hiss) This video is sponsored by Crumble. If you want to use your Trello board as a CRM system, don't, unless you use Crumble.

Crumble allows you to manage your entire sales pipeline by turning your Trello board into a powerful yet easy-to-use CRM. You can store all of your contact details and history in Trello cards and get more advanced reporting and details on how things are performing with your sales and all of your clients.

Not sure if Crumble CRM is right for you? You can get started with a 21-day free trial at crumble.com, or click the link in the description down below. Creating a helpful dashboard within Trello, which gives you the information that you're looking for, is a lot easier than you think.

And in fact, anyone can create a dashboard just like the one you see here without spending any additional money. Yes, we are using a Trello Power-Up, but it is completely free. In fact, the Power-Up is designed by Trello themselves.

So just before I show you how to create this dashboard, let's show you the example and how powerful creating something like this can be. Here you can see at the top, I have four different lists:

Projects, Assigned to Me, Team Tasks and Overdue. And what is so important here is that all of the information that is being displayed is coming from across multiple boards, not just a single board, not just one or two.

No matter how large your Trello workspace is, you can bring in information from everywhere.

So starting with my projects, you can see I have some key numbers showing me all of the tasks which are due on these three boards No longer do I need to be jumping back and forth between my browser tabs or coming up here and finding the board I want to look at.

I can see at a glance what is due right now. And if I click on one of these cards, I can dive down deeper into what those tasks actually are.

And, yes, I can click on these and go directly to that card. In my second list, I want to get a high-level view of all of the tasks that are assigned to me across all of my Trello boards.

And right now it's about 14. But better than just having that number, once again, I can click on this card and go directly to any of those tasks. It'll even show me the due date here within the card itself. Next, I have a list called Team Tasks which can be fantastic if you are either managing other members of your team or just want to see what do they have on their plate right now.

Here I can see that both Jessica and Tiffany have three team tasks assigned, while Sam has two. And just like the other cards that I've shown you,

you can dive deep into what those are. Last but not least, I've created a list called Overdue.

I want to know exactly how many cards are currently overdue across all of our boards.

And so this can be a great starting place that I begin in my morning or maybe at the end of the day, gives me a great high-level view of everything that's going on, and I can dive in deeper whenever I want to.

Adding the Dashcards power-up

So in order to build your own dashboard, like what you see here, we are going to make use of a free Power-Up called Dashcards.

If you come up here to the Power-Up icon and then select Add Power-Ups here, within the Power-Up search bar, I'm just going to type in the word dash, and you'll see a number of other tools which also provide dashboard capability, but we want this one here called Dashcards.

Now, once you've installed this Power-Up, it's actually going to be listed as Track in your browser.

I think they've chosen that just so it's a smaller word than Dashcards. But here with the dashboards Power-Up installed, we can select this option and start to add any type of Dashcard that we like. Now, when you first select the Dashcards Power-Up, you'll be presented with this menu.

And it will give us a number of templates, a number of defaults, which we can get started with right away.

Now we can either select the Track option which will add it directly to our board, or we can select Customize, which means we can edit those particular settings.

Of course, in the lower right-hand corner, you can start with a fresh Dashcard without any filters assigned. But for this first example let's start with one of the defaults.

So perhaps I'm going to select this one, Assigned to me on all Workspace boards. All I need to do is select Track, and it will input it in the top left of my board. If I close this dialog, here you can see this 14 Assigned to me on all Workspace boards.

And just like any other Trello card, I can move it wherever I want to. I can put it in any list,

and I can sort it in any way that I like. But let's keep it up here just for our example.

Now, if I go and click on this card, here with inside the Trello card, you can see under the description area, here is where we have all of the Dashcard information.

So regardless of how many cards matches this criteria, it will show a maximum of 10 right here.

Editing your Dashcards

And yes, we can click on them and go directly to that card. But at the end of that list,

if we want to see everything, here we can see we have 14, or if we want to edit this Dashcard, we can select the Explore and edit button. This will bring up the full view of the Dashcard where we can see everything that is contained, and we can work within this mode as well.

So for example, if I want to sort it by the create date, I can do so very easily here. If I want to sort it by the due date, I can do so as well. So this can be a very powerful way to sort and filter and view everything that is related to this criteria.

But let's go in and edit this particular Dashcard, because you are going to have some specific needs and some specific numbers that you want to keep track of. Here if I select on Edit filters, it will show me what is currently applied:

Assigned, Includes any of, and here is my username. But let's go one step further and add some more filters because I already have a Dashcard that is showing me all of the things that I'm assigned to across my Workspace boards.

So if I select More filters, here you can see I have a full list of all the criteria I can use, including any of my Trello custom fields. Yes, if you've created custom fields you can create a Dashcard based on that criteria as well. But let's keep things fairly simple in this example.

Maybe I want to see all of the cards that I'm assigned but also have a specific label. So I'm going to select Labels in this case.

I'm going to come down to this dropdown, and I'm going to say Includes any of and then it's going to give me an additional dropdown.

Now, this dropdown may be quite large depending on how many different Trello boards you have. Because remember, it's going to bring in every single label across all of your boards. Maybe I only want to see the things that are assigned to me and have the label New project.

So I'm going to select that checkbox there. I could of course select as many additional labels if I want to, but in this example, I'm just going to select this single one. When I'm happy with that, I can hit Save.

And you'll notice that down below, but also the number up above will change dynamically. So now this Dashcard is ready to go. If I come back to my Trello board, here Assigned to me on all Workspace boards. But wait, that title isn't exactly accurate anymore, is it?

No, so in order to change the title you'll just go into the title of the card itself, just like you would with any other regular Trello board, and change it to your needs. I'm going to say Assign to me, and then maybe in parentheses I'll say New project, just so I know that that is what it's showing to me.

But wait, maybe I want to change the look of this card as well.

Well, if we click on this and, again, come down to Explore and edit, here in the top right-hand corner, we can change the tile background. Now I can do one of two things. I can either choose from one of the standard colors that they have here, or I can search for a stock free photo.

So in this case, it's a new project. What if I type in the word new? What does that come up with here? Hmm, maybe something like this, the open road. I'm going to choose that. All I need to do is now close that Dashcard.

And when I'm returned to my Trello board, I have the new background image.

So if you want things to be distinct, maybe from my team members here, which I've chosen to use just a solid color, versus a more dynamic or maybe a more visually pleasing background color, you can do so here as well.

So if you want a better way to view all of your Trello information across all of your boards or just some specific boards, be sure to build your very own dashboard by using Dashcards.

And if you have any questions on how to build or maintain such a dashboard, be sure to let me know in the comments down below. Thank you so much for watching today's video.

And remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.

- [Scott] Are you looking for an easy way to start selling online? Do you want something that's simple to use for you and your customers? And how about free?

Do you like the idea of using a trusted free tool so you can keep more of your profits?

 Well in this video, I'm going to show you how to set up your online store so you can start making money today. (air whooshing Get Started To get started, we want to go to jotform.com and we're going to come over here to products and select Store Builder.

Now, Jotform is the leader in online forms and that's important, because when it comes to creating a store, you want to make sure that you have all the right information and that you can trust the system that you're using not only for collecting payments but for getting all of those orders right. And the best thing of all,

about Jotform store builder is that it's absolutely free.

So let's get going and say Get Started. We are going to be brought to this screen where we have two options. We can either start from scratch, this is going to take you a little more times because you'll be starting from a blank space, or we can start with a template.

And I would typically recommend this option. Not only are there over 300 templates for us to choose from but remember, whatever you start with here you can customize for your own needs.

It doesn't mean that just because this is a ticket selling template that I have to be selling tickets, I can use it for anything I want, whether I'm selling a product or whether I'm selling a service Keywords And instead of just browsing up and down you can also type in some key words.

So let's say that I am wanting to create a store for my massage therapy clinic. Well, if I just type in the words massage, I've got some three great examples right here. And you can also see on the left hand side that we have all these other categories that we can browse as well.

Now, one of the great things about these templates is that if I click on the preview button here, it's going to give me a full preview of this store, not just a screenshot,

it's actually something that I can browse up and down. So if I click on Schedule your Booking, it's going to bring me to this page, I can see what it's going to look and feel like.

Hmm, that's not exactly what I'm looking for, let me try this one out here. And yes, we can even try this preview out between our phone, tablet, and desktop views, so you can be confident in terms of the layout and what this will look and feel like.

Here, if I select book session, here I can say Add cart. Yeah, I like what this is looking like,

I like the workflow, I like how smooth this is. So I'm going to select use template at this stage. Store Builder And in just a few seconds, we are brought to the Store Builder editing page where we can customize every single element that we see.

Now, the first thing you may notice is that there is a difference between the home screen the first place that users will see, and our listings of the different services that we will offer.

You can create your store just like you would any other webpage. And down below you can see that distinction as well, between the homepage and then the area where they will be able to book a session.

Of course, you can change this. Maybe you only want to show the cart available items and you can do so as well. But now it's time to customize the look and feel and almost everything is clickable and ready for us to change.

Customization So obviously this is not the name of my massage therapy clinic, so I'm going to click on it and I can easily change the name of the title.

I can also, of course, come up here and add my own logo and change these style as well. So if I have a custom background color that I want to use, or a specific background image I can change anything that I want on this page.

Paint Roller But I can also click on this paint roller icon and change any of the colors and themes for my entire store. So maybe I want a brighter color, hmm, maybe that's a little too bright. Let's try this pink. Hmm, I maybe prefer this darker purple.

I can even of course add my own colors if I have custom branding that I want to apply. And remember, none of this requires any code at all. On the left hand side of the screen we can add further elements.

So if we want to add our own images or additional buttons we can do so here on the left hand side, so you truly have the ability to add anything that you want Edit Offerings as a part of your store.

Next, let's make sure that we go and edit some of these offerings. So if I double click on this item here I can bring up the edit screen and maybe I don't offer a hot stone massage, maybe I offer a cold stone massage. I know, that's not really a thing, I don't think. Let me know in the comments

if you've had a cold stone massage and maybe my pricing for this is only 9.95 so I can come here and change my pricing, change my descriptions, all at the click of a button. If needed, we can also come up here to the options tab and add a quantity selector.

Now, in my example here, since I'm providing a service, I am not going to be offering more than one at a time. But if you are selling a product, this makes a lot of sense allowing people to have multiple items.

But perhaps the most important thing to pay attention to when it comes to selling online is making sure that you get paid. And Jotform Store Builder makes that very easy as well.

Get Paid Here you can see this little payment card called Store Properties, and if I click on this, it's going to give us the ability to integrate with a number of payment processors.

Now I'm just going to delete this Stripe option here so I can show you all of the different payment gateways that are available. Whether you use Square, PayPal, Stripe, Venmo or almost anything else, you can make sure that you get paid and you get paid today.

So whichever payment option you would like, let's just select Square in this example

and it will walk you through how you can connect it to your payment provider. Now, once we're happy with how our store looks let's come up to the top and select settings. Now, there's a few different options that we want to pay attention here.

Number one, is this store going to be open? You can choose if it's enabled or disabled, or if you're wanting to run a very special sale or a special promotion,

you can choose to disable it on a specific date. But where we really want to pay attention is to the app, name and icon. Within this menu, we have the option

of giving it a specific name for those users who choose to add it to their home screen. Yes, the bonus of using the Jotform Store Builder is that they have the ability to add this directly to their phone or mobile device.

So in this example, I'm just going to call it something simple like book massage, because maybe I want them thinking more about booking the massage than necessarily my name. And then I can come over here and edit the icon to whatever I like.

Now I can come over here and upload my own image, such as my own logo, which would probably make the most sense

but I can also come over here and choose an icon. So I'm going to type in the word relax and see what comes up. And although this is really for meditation I think that works well with book massage.

In fact, it almost looks like someone is on a massage table. So, I'm going to use that for my icon in this case.

Lastly, we want to come over here to the publish button so we can look at the various ways in which we can connect our store to our website or simply share it directly with our customers.

So number one, here is your direct link. So you can copy this link and put it or share it anywhere that you like. You can also generate your own unique QR code.

So if you'd like to share this on existing materials or maybe you do have a brick and mortar store, you can add this QR code there as well. Lastly, on the left hand side, we can choose the embed option. So if you don't want to send them to a separate page

you can choose to embed your store within your existing website. So if you want to create your own online store in a matter of minutes, do it for free and get paid today.

Be sure to check out Jotform Store Builder. To get started, go to jotform.com or click the link in the description down below. Thank you so much for watching today's video.

And remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.

- [Scott] Sharing your work with your clients is never easy. Spreadsheets are often confusing,

slideshows take way too long to create and giving clients access to your project management tool is a recipe for disaster. But what if you could share a single page that tells the whole story,

looks amazing on any device, and doesn't require your clients to create an account? In this video, I'm going to show you how to do all of this for free. Hello everyone. Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress.

And what we are looking at here may look like a webpage. It may look like I quickly designed a simple webpage to share

with my client, but it's not a webpage at all. In fact, this is a part of a tool I'm using that not only can I share with others, but I can actually use it to manage my work and manage the research,

manage the concept, and manage the execution all at the same time. So what am I using and how am I doing this for free? Well, I'm using an application called Walling. Walling has been described in a number of different ways.

I've heard some people describe Walling as Google Keep on steroids. I've heard others say that Walling is what they'd hoped Notion would be, that it's a much more intuitive and much easier to use tool than Notion.

But no matter how you describe Walling, it is an incredibly intuitive system where you can add images, you can add text, you can share, you can collaborate, you can manage databases. Almost anything that you would like, but in a much more user friendly interface.

So let me give you a quick tour of the example that we are in. I'm pretending to be a chair designer and I'm designing a new chair for a client. Here's the title, New Chair Design.

But down below, not only have I outlined things in terms of the brief and what we are going to measure our success on but everything here is easily drag and drop. So for example, maybe I want this image on the left hand side.

I can simply drag the text over here. And if I want these goals to stand out a bit more, I'm going to give it this sort of light blue shade in the background So in just a matter of seconds, I can really customize the look and feel of what the information is here on the page.

But unlike a PowerPoint presentation or a standalone webpage, we're not limited to just images. For example, here I have a section called Budget because I want to keep my client informed as to where we are within this project.

And I've even got an approved checkbox here on the right hand side. So as we go through, I can check things off letting them know where we are at with this particular budget. And yes, even simple calculations can be performed right here from within this wall.

Further down below, I have an entire Kanban board. So if I want to manage all of my tasks

or manage all of my deliverables just like I would within other tool such as Trello, Asana, or Monday.com I can do so down below here as well. But perhaps one of the best features of Walling is that I don't have to share every single section or every single component with my client. Maybe this Kanban list at the very bottom is something that I do not want to share

with my end client. So how do we go about and share this with just a single link? Here at the top of the screen, you can see that we are in editing mode, which is going to be the default mode when you log into Walling.

But we can toggle this into publish mode over here. Immediately, we are given a unique link which we can share either by selecting this copy link code or we can also create our own QR code.

But over here to the right, we get to choose which sections we would like to share. Now, by default, it is going to be set to all sections but if I click on this dropdown, I can come down here and say, you know, I don't really want to share the tasks

and maybe I don't want to share the budget either. I'm going to uncheck those two sections.

Now when I hit that copy link, I can now proceed to share that link with my client and they will view the following page. Now, it looks very similar to what we saw earlier.

But if I scroll down, you'll see that that budget information is not displayed and that task information is not displayed either. So I can share exactly the components that I want to with my client and keep hidden the specific details or specific tasks within my wall.

The other thing that I really like about this view is that it makes it very easy for the client to browse through the different sections. So if they want to jump down to the design section, they've got this easy menu here on the left hand side that's really going to impress your clients rather than giving them some static PDF document, or slideshow or long spreadsheet, which is going to be confusing to look at.

And as mentioned before, don't even think about sharing your project management tool. That's going to require them to create an account to log in and then learn how to use that tool as well. Now, jumping back to our Walling account, let's take a look at another example. In this case, I'm working

on a project called Employee Engagement and Productivity, and my intent is to share my work to share a lot of the things that you see on the screen here. But I am going to keep other components hidden as well.

Unlike other tools that we might consider to share our work, Walling makes it super easy for us to add information. So for example, maybe I want to share this mock-up with my client. I'm just going to drag it over. It appears here, and maybe I want to share this video.

Immediately, they are brought into this particular section. Best of all, when I go to publish this and share it with my client, they can access it in full screen mode. No longer do they have to fumble around with email attachments or small previews.

Here, if they want to look at this image in full screen, they can do so right here. They even have other options such as seeing the entire color palette or if I want to give them the ability to add comments.

Here, this video, they're not going to be sent somewhere else. They can start to play this video directly

from within their wall. To learn more and to get started with Walling absolutely for free, go to Walling.app or click the link in the description down below. And if you have further questions,

be sure to let me know in the comments. Thank you so much for watching. And remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.

Intro

- [Scott] Creating labels within Google Contacts can be very helpful, but did you know there's an alternative way to create email groups, which gives you a lot more flexibility?

In this video, I'm going to show you how to use Google Groups, so you can contact many people with just a single email address. (machine screeches) This video is sponsored by SaneBox, the email inbox lifesaver.

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To get started, click the link in the description to get your free 14-day trial.

Contact Labels

Within Google Contacts, we have the ability to create labels, which is really another way of saying we can create groups. So, for example here, I have a label called "Client Team," where I have a collection of six different individuals.

Now, not only can I organize them here within Google Contacts, but what is most helpful is that I can then use that label within my Gmail account. So, if I start to type in "client," as in client team, there is my group.

I can select that, and now, all six email addresses have been input into my to field, and I can go ahead and send this email. But there are a couple of problems when it comes to using labels.

Problems with Labels

Number one, it's going to be much harder for me to determine, did I send this to the team, or did I just individually add these email addresses? I won't be able to filter by client team here within my Gmail account.

And number two, you may notice that if you try to access your labels within the Gmail mobile app, most often, it will not be displayed, meaning that you will not be able to access these labels from your mobile device.

But what if instead, you could create a custom email address like the one you see here, and have as many people within that group? Not only do you not have to share that information with others, but more importantly, you can now filter, and you can do special things with this new email address, which will contain other members.

So, let me show you how to set this up. To make this happen, I am using a free service called Google Groups, and to access your Google Groups account, all you need to do is go to groups.google.com,

Google Groups Interface

and you'll see an interface like what you see here. Now, in my example, I just have the one group here. You can see I have that custom email address. If I click on this group,

I can see the members of this group.

Here, you can see I have those three different members, including myself here, and this gives me a lot more flexibility in not only managing this group, but as I mentioned before, I can now have a single email address to manage, which gives me a lot more flexibility within my Gmail account when it comes to labels, when it comes to filters, when it comes to managing this group as a whole.

Create a New Group

So, let's go ahead and create a new group. In the top left-hand corner, you can see that there is this Create Group button. I'm going to select that, and we'll be prompted with a new dialogue box. Now, you can call your group anything that you want.

I'm going to call this my test group in this example. But where we need to pay special attention is the group email, because this must be a unique email address. Remember, the domain at the end will always be googlegroups.com.

That means the front end must be unique. Now, I'm going to assume that test-group is already taken.

If I attempt to say Next, oh, this is already taken.

So, let me try something a little more unique. I'm going to call this orthoplessimeter. Let's see if simpletestgroup is taken in this case, and I'm going to say Next. Mm, that's taken as well. Maybe I'll add a number at the end just to make it that much more unique.

Who Can Access

Keep in mind, this unique email address is not something that you're going to be sharing publicly, so it's all right if it has a few numbers or if it's not the easiest to read.

The important thing is that it is unique. Now, in the second step, we have a number of options here, in terms of who can access or who can be a member. So, who can search for this group?

Well, I would recommend that you leave it at group members only. Otherwise, you can make it available to anyone on the web, but that would be if you are wanting to create some type of mailing list.

So, I'm going to keep this at group members. Next, who can join the group? Well, I'm going to say only invited members, but you do have the options to allow people to request to join, or anyone can join. Again, these options would be if you are creating some type of mailing list,

so I'm going to keep it at only invited users. And then, down below, we have three other important options to consider. Who can view conversations, who can post,

and who can view members. Now, these first two options are referring to the ability to see these conversations within Google Groups. I would recommend you keep these at the group member level.

But in terms of who can view the members, you may want to adjust this to group managers or group owners. This is especially important if you do not want to share others' email addresses with others when you're sending out to these particular groups.

Adding Members

I'm going to hit Next, and last but not least, we have the opportunity to start adding our members. Now, of course, we can always add our members, but I'm going to come down here and select Directly Add Members.

I don't want to send out a bunch of invitations. Again, this might be appropriate if you're wanting to create a mailing list, but I'm going to say Directly Add Members. And here, I can simply copy and paste

the members I would like to add to my group. So, let me add a few sample email addresses here. Let's say this one here. We're going to add those two email addresses.

I can distinguish if they're going to be a member, or if I want to give them other abilities, such as being a manager or a group owner. I don't have to include a welcome message. And lastly, we want to take a look at the subscription level.

Now, each email is what we are going to keep for our purposes, but it does give us a few other options. Again, these are more in line if you are using this as a mailing list.

We're going to keep that at the default of each email, and I'm going to say Create Group. It's going to ask me for my CAPTCHA. No, I am not a robot. And in just a matter of seconds, we are now brought back to the My Groups section, and here, we can see we have our test group created with our unique email address.

Starting a Conversation

Now, if I click on this test group, the first area it's going to bring me to is to Conversations, because I can start to have a conversation right here within Google Groups.

I don't actually need to go to my Gmail account to start conversing and start sending a message. If I click this Start a Conversation link, it will prompt me with a dialogue box, which looks very, very similar to a Gmail account. I can start to add a subject and add my message down below. But I'm going to cancel this for now,

and I want to come over here to the People section. Here, you can see our full list of all of the contacts,all of the email addresses included in this group. I can see when they joined, I can change their permissions.

I've got a lot more flexibility here, and of course, I can add new members whenever I like. But the last thing that we want to stop at is the About section here. This is probably the easiest place we can go to.

Simply copy the email address itself, because this is what we want to start using

within our Gmail account, or you can really use it within any email account, and start sending messages out to this group.

Sending a Message

Now, jumping back to our Gmail account, here, you can see that we have been notified that our group, Test Group, has been created and ready to use, so it will give us a notification.

But now, if I go to compose a new message, all I'm going to do is paste in that single email address here. Remember, it's going to contain these different members down below. If you hover over it, it'll show you which members are included, but there is only one email address here. It's not going to load my to line

with 27 or 38 different email addresses. And then, I will also not know if I sent them as a group, or if it's just part of the group. Here, I know that everyone within this group will be sent this message. In this example, I'll just ask if we can meet later this week,

and to send me a quick reply to confirm. So, a single email address, a fairly simple message, and I'm going to hit Send Now, let's see what it looks like for people who receive that email.

So, here I am within one of my recipient's account, and the first thing you may notice

is that people who have been added to your group will be notified.

Here, you can see the first message they received is, "You have been added to Test Group." So, you may want to reserve this Google Groups functionality for people that you know well, since they will be notified that they've been added to that group. But up above, here, you can see they've received your message from your email account, and if we open up this email, we can see that they do not have access to the other email addresses.

They can see that it was sent to this group email, which they are a part of, but the messaging, the formatting, everything else is the same. The other thing to note is that there is some additional information at the very bottom of the email.

This is below your signature line. Things such as, "You received this message because you are subscribed to this Google group." They will also have the opportunity to unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails in the future.

This type of language, of course, is more common when we are receiving newsletters or marketing information, but the Google Groups functionality

is based on allowing people the opportunity to leave if they choose to. So, some of these things to keep in mind when you're creating your Google groups, or when to see when it is most appropriate to use this functionality. Lastly, if they hit Reply,

their reply will go to you because you are the sender, but if they hit Reply All, you will see that they still do not have access to the other email addresses in this group.

Everyone else within this group will still receive this message, so they can safely reply all and continue a group thread, but they too only have to manage a single email address, rather than replying all, or maybe being hesitant to reply all if they see that there are seven or more people within this particular group.

Last but not least, keep in mind, as we return to the Google Groups interface, you can manage and see all of your group conversations here within Google Groups. Here is the message that I just sent out.

I can click on this, and I can continue to respond. Either Reply All, Reply to Author, or Forward. But you don't ever have to come back in here unless you want to manage the people within this group, because otherwise, all you need to know is to use this unique email address, and you have your own custom and very flexible group.

Now, if you're wanting to learn even more ways to simplify your software and get more done, join me at simpletivity.com, where you can access my free guides

and additional software tutorials. Thank you so much for watching, and remember,

being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.

- [Scott] Trello does not make it easy for us to export the information within our boards. I could come up here to menu. I could select export as a CSV file but when I open up this file, is this really helpful? I mean, I guess this is my entire board but I don't know what to do with this.

Well, what if you could not only export your Trello board into a spreadsheet, but also have it sync both ways? Well, in this video I'm going to show you how to set up this type of sync and also why you should consider adding this as a part of your workflow.

Hello everyone. Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress.

First things first, why would you want to set up a two-way sync between your Trello board and a spreadsheet? Well, depending on the way that you or members of your team work, you may just be more comfortable viewing this information within a spreadsheet.

And of course, it's especially helpful if you want to apply some formulas or other data when it comes to the information here within your Trello board.

But perhaps the most helpful reason for setting up this two-way sync is to be able to share certain pieces information with others without having to add them to your Trello board.

As a Trello user, you recognize that anyone that you add to your board has access to every single card. You can't limit a particular list or a particular card by criteria. But by setting up such a sync, I can share this information with anyone that I want.

They are up to date with what's going on within that Trello board. And in addition, they can come in here and change cards themselves if they want to change a due date or change a time estimate or change really any other field that I include here, and it will automatically be synced back to my Trello board.

So what is going on and how can you set this up for your needs? Well, to make this happen, we are using a power up from Unito. To add this Unito power up, all you need to do is select power ups, go to add power ups and search for sheets as in Google Sheets.

And the very first result here is Google Sheets plus Trello. Two way sync. Once you've installed this power up, you will see the Unito sync option here amongst your other power ups.

Now by selecting this option, you can open up the Unito sync menu without having to leave your Trello board. But once you've set up your unido account, I would recommend that you access this screen from a separate tab.

You can log in directly from Unito and have access to the exact same screen. I find this is a little more convenient so I can toggle back and forth between these tabs. Let me close that menu here.

And so here I can adjust and use my settings and here I can see what is going on within my Trello board. Now, Unito is a leader in connecting productivity and project management tools together.

When I select on connect a new tool here you can see the full list of all of the tools in which you can connect together. So whether it's from a project management tool to a CRM or syncing your calendar to other database tools you can do all of it here within Unito, but in our example we're going to keep it between our Trello board and within a Google sheet.

So here is the sync that I have set up. Here is the example board cards and I have set up a two-way sync with my sheet. Now if I click on this, we can go under the hood and see exactly what is going on.

So here, if I select edit tools, you can see that I can choose any of the boards that I want on the left hand side and on the right hand side I can choose which ones I want to sync to. Next up, we can choose if we want to sync in just one direction or in both directions. So there may be a use case where you just want to

feed your spreadsheets certain information but in this example, I find it's most helpful

if we have information going back and forth. So no matter where you update that card whether it's within Trello or within your spreadsheet everything will stay up to date. Now the third step that we need to select are the rules created.

And what this means is which cards are going to be synced which ones are going to be sent to our Google spreadsheet. So here we have a combination of if and and commands.

So if a card in this board is open, meaning it's not archived and the member is myself, we want to then create a matching row in Google Sheets. So this is very important.

I can add as many rules as I like. This is exactly where we can filter out certain cards and I can only share certain cards with others. If I want, I can select to add a new rule, and I can say and the label is, let's say, medium priority.

So I can add and layer on as many rules as I want so that the things that appear within my sheet are only a fraction of what is going on in the board. And then down below we have a rule for the other direction meaning that if a row in Google sheet, and I haven't added any rules here, we want to create a matching card in Trello and keep them in sync.

And if I'm creating brand new cards from the Google sheet side, I want them to appear in my ideas list. This is a list which is located within my Trello board. So with these rules set up, I have the freedom to create and also edit that information wherever I am.

Lastly, and perhaps the most important step is mapping our fields together. So let's select this icon. In this example, I have mapped six out of a total of 23 fields, meaning there are 23 total fields within Trello in which I could map to my Google sheet but I've only decided to map six.

Remember that first example, that huge dump of CS information? That's not useful to anyone here. You can choose exactly what you want

and only what you want on the Google Sheets side. So down below here, you can see everything from the title, description, label, due date. The link to card is just one way, and this is referring to the link directly to that Trello card. So it only makes sense

that it's going to be displayed on the Google Sheets side. And then here is my estimated time in minutes. And yes, this sync works with all of your custom fields

so you can include all of that quantitative data and have it match over on the same side. And if I need to go ahead and add any new mapping, I can just come up here and select the add mapping button.

It will give me two new dropdowns so I can select which in my Trello side will be mapped to that on the sheet side. Now the only other thing that we need in order to make this work is to add two special columns here on the Google Sheets side. And Unito has made it super easy for us to do so.

Here you can see my first column is Unito id and my last column is called Last Modified. Now, no, I didn't have to add these manually here Within my Google Sheets extension, I can select the Unito extension and select getting started. And with just a single click, it will insert those two columns in this sheet or any other sheet where

you want this synced to occur automatically. You must have the rest of your information in between these two. This is required, so Unito knows which rows to back to Trello. With our setup now complete, let's take a look at a few real world examples.

So first, to make sure that our sync is working let's take a look at how many items we have here. You can see that the last row is row number 13. I want to see if we can populate this next row by adding a new card on Trello.

So here within my Trello account, I'm going to come up here to the task list. I'm going to add a new card, and this is a new task created in Trello.  So I'm going to hit enter. And at this case, nothing is going to sync over until I am assigned to that card.

Remember, we told Unito that we only want to have cards where I'm assigned to appear within our Google Sheets.

Now, when we jump back into our Google sheet here you can see on row number 14 is our new card complete with the title, the due date, and the label, which is assigned to it.

And remember, you'll always have access to that direct link at just a single click here in this link to card row. But let's see if our sync is working in both directions.

You can see that there is no description for this card and I have not given it a time estimate. So I'm going to give it a time estimate of 60. In this case, in the description, I'm going to say let's do this in August.

And then as a result of this description I'm going to come here to the due date and I'm going to choose the August 31st, 2023

as the new due date. Let's jump back to Trello and see if everything is working. Here at the bottom of my task list, we have that same card but now the due date is August 31st. And if I open it, here's the description and the estimated time is added as well.

So a perfect sync between my Trello board and the specific cards that I want to see within my spreadsheet. So if you want to export your Trello boards in a more meaningful way or share information without having to add someone to your boards,

Unito may be the best solution for you, to get started, simply add the power up to your boards or go to unito.io. And if you enjoyed this tutorial, you'll probably like the video which is being recommended to you right now.

Thank you so much for watching. And remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.

Make your tasks repeat

- [Scott] Whether you're brand new to Google Tasks or you've been crossing things off for years, I can guarantee in this video, I'm going to show you something new because we're looking at seven must know tips and tricks that every Google Tasks user needs to know.

Hello everyone, Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity, helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress. Number one on our list has to do with using recurring tasks, probably one of the most powerful yet simple features of any task manager.

You probably have a number of tasks that you need to do on a daily, weekly, monthly, or some other interval. And rather than clicking on that task

and updating the due date manually, it is so much easier if we make it a repeating or recurring task. So here I have something called "Send out a weekly newsletter", and if I come over here and select Repeat, I can choose how often I want to repeat this task.

Well, it is a weekly newsletter, so yes, I'm going to send it out once a week and maybe Tuesday is the day that I've set aside for it. I can change that here within my screen,

and if I want, I can give it a specific time. Now this can be very valuable because if I leave this alone, it will appear up here within my Google Calendar as an all day task,

but if I choose a specific time, it will place it here within the calendar itself. In this case, I'm going to say it ends never and I'm going to select OK.

And so, now, every Tuesday, and I can see if I go ahead here on my Google Calendar, it is always going to show up. Now, one important note, when it comes to repeating tasks within Google Tasks, is that we can always come here and change the repeating interval if we need to.

If I select on this, I can come in here and change whatever I like.

However, if I want to stop repeating this task, I will not be able to add a repeat in the future. You can see here, if I click this X, it's actually going to give me a warning, do I want to remove all future occurrences?

Yes, but I won't be able to make this task repeating again. So if I hit stop repeating, it will cross it out but I don't have the option to add it again.

Add sub-tasks to your tasks

Tip number two is all about creating subtasks for existing tasks. So here, for example, you can see I have a task called "Write copy for my website homepage," and down below, I have two indented tasks.

These are subtasks which are related to this task above. And even if we change our view, in this case, I'm viewing all of my tasks in my preferred order. But if I come up here to the list options and select by date, it will mix it in depending on the due date of that task, but you can see if I come over and hover over the check mark, it will show me what other tasks will be completed at the same time.

So I can easily see what will be changed if I choose to select this one. So how can you add your own subtasks? Well, this task called "Review Q4 marketing report", I'm going to select it, and then here on the More Options, I'm going to select Add a Subtask. And here I can say this is going to be Task 1, if I hit Enter on my keyboard,

I can continue to add as many subtasks as I like, so I've added three subtasks in this case and some may have due dates, some may not, that's completely up to you.

Now in this view, by due date, you can see that the tasks are nested nice and cleanly,

they are indented below the master task. However, if you change your view to the date view, that will not necessarily be the case, here you can see we have Task 1 and Task 2 under the no date section, Task 3 is under Wednesday, June 28th, and then the master task itself is down here at July 12th. Now, once again, we could hover over

to see which tasks are related to this task. So as I hover over the master task, it's going to show me what else is related, but make note of the different ways in which subtasks are displayed, depending on which sort order you choose.

‍Using multiple task lists

Now speaking of grouping our tasks together, tip number three is all about using and adding new lists. Far too often, I see people use just the first My Tasks or default list

for all of the work that they want to accomplish. But remember, you have the option

to add as many additional lists as you like. In this case, maybe I want to create a list called Work so I can separate things from my personal life and my professional life.

So here, within this list, I can keep things separate and add things related to my work.

Moving tasks between lists

But that also leads us to tip number four, where we can move tasks in between our lists. So for example, here I am within my task list and I notice that this Email Tom

is actually a work-related activity. All I need to do is select the task options, and then I can choose down below which of my three lists I would like to put it in. I'm going to select Work, and now it will move over to my Work task.

And you can change things and move things back and forth as often as you like. This can also be a great way if you want to move things through different phases or stages.

Any of you who may be familiar with the Kanban method of working could set up multiple lists as you move things through different stages or different phases.

Converting email to a task

Now, of course, we can access Google Tasks from a variety of different Google products, including Google Calendar, Google Drive, and Gmail. And this last one makes it very easy for us to follow up on particular messages. Not only can we access our task list here on the right hand side, but if I open up this email

and determine that I need to follow up on this, rather than adding a note manually,

I can add a connection to this note in just a single click. Here at the top of the message, you will notice this Google Tasks icon, and if I hover over it, it tells me it will immediately add it to My Tasks.

So here on the right hand side, it will use the email subject line as the name of the task. Now, I don't need to keep it at that, maybe I want to rename this "Review RoboForm email", something along those lines.

And of course, I can add further details and add a due date. But what's most important is that you can see it has added a direct link down below. So whenever I need to go back to this email, I can do so in one click.

Let me go back to my inbox, and let's say I notice that I need to review this email. All I need to do is click on this special link and it will bring me back directly to this email. And I don't have to be within Gmail in order to do this.

Wherever I have access to Google Tasks, I can immediately open up that email in a single click.

Link tasks to Google Drive

Next, let's take a look at a special feature within Google Drive, which brings our task list together but also makes it that much easier for us to collaborate with others.

Here I am within a Google document and I have started to write out a few ideas here

but maybe I want to remind myself of what else I need to do with this document. I could start adding those tasks here within my task list but it might be more helpful

to add the list itself right here. So here within my document, I'm going to leave my cursor here at the bottom, and I'm going to come up here and add a checklist.

So here you might think that this is just a standard checklist, I'm going to say "Review the intro" for example, and maybe I'm going to add another task such as "Send to Karen for review".

But you'll note that there is a Google Tasks icon here to the left of each checkbox. If I select that here, I can assign it to someone else within my organization or I can select myself, and I can add a date at the same time if I want to, and select assign the task.

Now on the right hand side of the screen, within my standard tasks view, you can see that that task has been added to my task list. And down below, it has given me a direct link to that document as well.

Let's go ahead and assign the second task to myself as well, and I'm going to say assign. In just a second,it also will be added here to my task list. Now the great thing is, is that I can either check these off or access the document directly from my task list but either way, it will remain perfectly synced.

For example, if I've already reviewed the intro, I can check off this task here and you will notice that it has been completed here and removed from my task list.

Keep in mind you are not limited to just assigning tasks to yourself, and anyone else within your Google Workspace, you can assign them tasks directly from within Docs, Sheets, and Google Slides.

And if you want to separate out between your task list and what is only kept within the document, all you need to do is come up to Tools, and then select Tasks. This will give you a different viewshowing you only the completed or remaining tasks

Mobile widgets

for this specific document. Last but not least, let's end with a mobile tip for Tasks. Here within your mobile device, we have an option to add widgets for our tasks.

So if I click and hold on the Tasks icon, I can come up and select widgets. And Tasks gives us two very helpful options. Let's start with the one below called New Task.

Again, if we click and hold, we can put it anywhere on our home screen, and now we are just one click away from adding a new task. So when I have that new idea, I can select it and immediately start to enter in that new task.

But the second widget may be even more valuable to us and make sure that we don't let anything slip through the cracks. Here, if I select this three by three list, again, I can put it anywhere within my home screen

and we can change the size at any time. So if I want to drag these out to the right

so I can see a little more, I can do so. Now I can scroll and see all of my tasks, I can easily go through the different lists and I'm still just one click away from adding a new task from my home screen.

Checking things off and managing all of my tasks couldn't be easier with the Google Tasks widget.

Now, I would love to hear from you next, what questions do you have about Google Tasks or what are some of your favorite features? Be sure to let me know in the comments down below. And if you enjoyed this Simpletivity video, you're going to love this video next.

Thank you so much for watching, and remember, being productive doesn't need to be difficult,

in fact, it's very simple.

Why you need and SMS Marketing

Have you thought about adding text messaging marketing to your business? If not, here's something to think about. Emails have an open rate of 20%.

Text messages have an open rate of 98%, and on top of that, 90% of all text messages are read within three minutes of receiving them.

So in this video I'm going to show you how easy it is to get started with text messaging marketing and give you tips and tricks along the way. Hello everyone, Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress. And if you are wanting to engage

with your customers that much more directly and increase your sales, text messaging marketing might be the best solution for you. Whether you want to have a two-way conversation or if you want to communicate with thousands of people at once, text messaging may be the best solution for you.

Text messaging software is easier than you think

In this example, we are using a tool called SimpleTexting which, as the name suggests, keeps things nice and easy for those of us who may not be so technically inclined, but still want to take advantage of the most recent technology including SMS marketing.

So here within my SimpleTexting interface, you can see I can manage all of my conversations here on the left hand side. Here in the middle of the screen, you can see an example of a conversation that I'm in right now between a potential customer.

And then on the right hand side, I can easily view all of that contact's information and include additional details, including notes, birthday, and other vital details.

So here, from the comfort of my own desk, I can text an communicate directly back either with an individual customer or with customers on mass. "Yes, you can come in tomorrow and pick these up."

So I can send my text whenever I need to and keep a complete history of that conversation right here on my desktop. How to acquire your text messaging audience But before we go any further with the specific features, the very first question we need to answer is

"How do we start communicating with our contacts?' And this is very, very important when it comes to text messaging. You must receive consent, or in other words, you must ensure that the people that you're communicating with have opted to communicate with you via text messaging.

And for that, we're going to make use of a keyword. Now, you've probably texted a keyword before, or at the very least you've seen other businesses invite you to text a certain word to their number.

The reason for this is that this is the most common way to opt-in to a text messaging service. So let me show you how easy it is to set this up. In this case, I'm going to select a new keyword. And because my business is all about being simple, I'm going to choose that word "simple."

Anyone who text the word "simple" to this number above will be added to my list. Now I can either choose to add it to a new list or to an existing list, and in this case, I'm going to choose to add it to a new list called Subscribers.

So anyone who texts the word "simple" will be added to this list, and then I'll be able to send them campaigns or specific messages in the future. Now down below, here is going to be

the Auto confirmation message. So what do I want them to receive after they've texted this word to me? And an added benefit of using SimpleTexting is that yes,

they have AI built in. So if I don't want to write the message myself, I can always come up here to Generate message. And so I'm going to give the AI assistant the following prompt, "Thank them for joining the list and stay tuned for special offers."

I can next select Generate a message, and then down below in just a few seconds, it will generate several messages for me to choose from.

Now as I scroll through the selections here, I like this sound of exclusive, it makes people feel special, so I'm going to select that one and say Select message. And of course, I can always continue to edit it or add more details down below.

Remember, you can always add links to your messages. So if you want to direct them to a certain landing page on your website or to another resource, you can do that here as well. But I'm going to keep it rather simple in this particular message. Now, I'm not going to add any further details.

I'm going to select Save this keyword in this case, and here you can see it has been added to my list. Anyone who texts this word to this number will be added to my subscriber list. So let's go and test it out. I'm going to go back to my inbox here,

and on my phone, I'm going to text the word "simple" to this number. Here you can see what I texted, and instantly I received this message back, "Thanks for joining,

stay tuned for exclusive offers and more." And now when I come over here to my contacts, I can take a look at my Subscribers list, and look at that, we have one new subscriber, which would be me and my test account.

So that's how easy it is to both set up a keyword and invite people to join your list.

And don't forget, you can add as many keywords as you want and have them trigger new things, either trigger specific responses So maybe in this case, I have a keyword of "apply" or "jobs", and these are people who are seeking to apply for a position within my organization, something very different than maybe just a general marketing list Getting consent to send text messages Now, adding a keyword is not the only way to have people opt-in to your text messaging list. Another common method is to include it on a form.

So if you're already collecting phone numbers, you can include an opt-in checkbox so that they give you permission to text with them. But here, within SimpleTexting, you can also create your own web signup forms.

So for example, I've created a form called New Customer Form where I can include as many details as I want including first and last name, their email address, maybe I want to capture their birthday.

If I want to send them a special birthday message via text messaging, I can do it all here. I can then send them directly to my form where they can fill out the required information

and then select Subscribe now.And here you can see we have that policy built in

that by selecting this, they agree to receive promotional messages. Remember, in order to keep your number and more importantly your brand in good faith, make sure that you have some way for them to explicitly agree to receive SMS messages from you Creating SMS marketing campaigns But enough about consent, let's move on to one of the most powerful features when it comes to using text messaging marketing and that is creating your own campaigns.

This gives you the opportunity to communicate with thousands of your clients exactly when you want to and have them act on those requests in a matter of minutes. So here I have a number of campaigns set up already, including this 25% Off Sale. So I can see when it was sent,

I can see what the message was, but I can also keep track of that history in terms of how many people received it, I can also keep track of the link that was used and how many people actually clicked that link. But let's go ahead and create a new campaign from scratch.

All I need to do is select this New button here and let's give it a campaign name. I'm going to say "Buy 1 G One", that's going to be the name of the campaign. This is just for my own reference here.

Once again, we can use AI to assist us, but in this case, I'm going to put in my own messaging. So in this example, I've said the following, "This weekend only, Buy 1 course and Get a 2nd course for FREE!

Make your picks now." And then I've included a link to the landing page. Now here on the right hand side of the screen, it's going to give me a helpful preview of what that message will look like. And the first thing that you will notice is that this big, long link

is going to look rather ugly and maybe a little intimidating, and actually maybe take away from the rest of the message. Well, SimpleTexting has a feature called Shorten URL. So all I need to do is select the URL, and I'm going to select that Shorten URL.

And here's an example of what it will now look like to the recipient. Nice and short, the focus is on the message, and they are still just one click away from making their selection.

Now, immediately down below, you will see that there's a section called Unsubscribe message, and this is also a best practice, reminding those whom you are communicating with that they have an opportunity to unsubscribe or stop receiving messages from you.

In this case, the word is "stop", so as long as they text the word "stop" in reply, they will be removed from this list and no longer receive messages. I'm going to come down here and just hit Enter on my keyboard just so there's some separation between that message and the link that I want them to click.

Next, I need to select which group I want to send this campaign to. So I'm going to select this and come down and choose Subscribers. Now, I can choose multiple groups if I want to, but in this example, we're going to stick with just subscribers.

Lastly, I can choose if I want to send this campaign immediately, if I want to schedule it for the future, or if I want to set up a recurring schedule for this particular campaign. In this example, I'm going to stay with Immediately and hit Next.

I am then brought to the summary screen where I can review one last time what this message will look like, and when, I'm happy I can hit Send now, and then brought back to the campaign screen. And if I go back to my inbox, I can see with this test user account

that yes, this campaign has been sent, including this very nice and short and very clickable link rather than the very long and intimidating link that I first pasted in.

Free resources & pricing options Now, if you're still not sure if text messaging is right for your business, SimpleTexting has provided a vast library of guides for each and every industry. So no matter what type of business you are running, you can get started and see best practice examples. For example, maybe I run an accounting firm

and I want to see what others are doing and how they are using text messaging

within their particular business, this is a great resource and will get you off and running in a matter of minutes. In addition, if you are worried about pricing and how much this will cost you, SimpleTexting makes it easy. All you need to do is figure out how many messages you will be sending per month so you'll know exactly how much

you'll be spending in the future. I particularly like their Build a Plan screen where you can type in exactly how many contacts you plan to message, whether you're going to be messaging consistently or maybe just seasonally, and how often per month

you'll be messaging that client as well. This will give you a very accurate number,

so you can eliminate any future surprises. So to learn more and to get started for free, go to SimpleTexting.com or select the link in the description down below.

And if you have any questions, be sure to let me know in the comments. Thank you so much for watching. And remember, being productive does not need to be difficult.

In fact, it's very simple.

Why you need to consider SMS marketing Have you thought about adding text messaging marketing to your business? If not, here's something to think about.

Emails have an open rate of 20%. Text messages have an open rate of 98%,

and on top of that, 90% of all text messages are read within three minutes of receiving them. So in this video I'm going to show you how easy it is to get started with text messaging marketing and give you tips and tricks along the way.

Hello everyone, Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress. And if you are wanting to engage with your customers that much more directly and increase your sales, text messaging marketing might be the best solution for you.

Whether you want to have a two-way conversation or if you want to communicate with thousands of people at once, text messaging may be the best solution for you.

Text messaging software is easier than you think

In this example, we are using a tool called SimpleTexting which, as the name suggests, keeps things nice and easy for those of us who may not be so technically inclined, but still want to take advantage of the most recent technology including SMS marketing.

So here within my SimpleTexting interface, you can see I can manage all of my conversations here on the left hand side. Here in the middle of the screen,

you can see an example of a conversation that I'm in right now between a potential customer.

And then on the right hand side, I can easily view all of that contact's information and include additional details, including notes, birthday, and other vital details.

So here, from the comfort of my own desk, I can text and communicate directly back either with an individual customer or with customers on mass. "Yes, you can come in tomorrow and pick these up." So I can send my text whenever I need to

and keep a complete history of that conversation right here on my desktop.

How to acquire your text messaging audience

But before we go any further with the specific features, the very first question we need to answer is "How do we start communicating with our contacts?' And this is very, very important when it comes to text messaging. You must receive consent, or in other words, you must ensure that the people that you're communicating with

have opted to communicate with you via text messaging. And for that, we're going to make use of a keyword. Now, you've probably texted a keyword before, or at the very least you've seen other businesses invite you to text a certain word to their number.

The reason for this is that this is the most common way to opt-in to a text messaging service. So let me show you how easy it is to set this up. In this case, I'm going to select a new keyword.

And because my business is all about being simple, I'm going to choose that word "simple." Anyone who text the word "simple" to this number above will be added to my list.

Now I can either choose to add it to a new list or to an existing list, and in this case, I'm going to choose to add it to a new list called Subscribers. So anyone who texts the word "simple"will be added to this list,

and then I'll be able to send them campaigns or specific messages in the future.

Now down below, here is going to be the Auto confirmation message. So what do I want them to receive after they've texted this word to me? And an added benefit of using SimpleTexting is that yes, they have AI built in.

So if I don't want to write the message myself, I can always come up here to Generate message. And so I'm going to give the AI assistant the following prompt, "Thank them for joining the list and stay tuned for special offers." I can next select Generate a message, and then down below in just a few seconds, it will generate several messages for me to choose from.

Now as I scroll through the selections here, I like this sound of exclusive, it makes people feel special, so I'm going to select that one and say Select message. And of course, I can always continue to edit it or add more details down below.

Remember, you can always add links to your messages. So if you want to direct them to a certain landing page on your website or to another resource, you can do that here as well.

But I'm going to keep it rather simple in this particular message. Now, I'm not going to add any further details. I'm going to select Save this keyword in this case, and here you can see it has been added to my list. Anyone who texts this word to this number

will be added to my subscriber list. So let's go and test it out. I'm going to go back to my inbox here, and on my phone, I'm going to text the word "simple" to this number.

Here you can see what I texted, and instantly I received this message back, "Thanks for joining, stay tuned for exclusive offers and more." And now when I come over here to my contacts, I can take a look at my Subscribers list, and look at that, we have one new subscriber, which would be me and my test account.

So that's how easy it is to both set up a keyword and invite people to join your list. And don't forget, you can add as many keywords as you want and have them trigger new things, either trigger specific responses or have them added to a particular list. So maybe in this case,

I have a keyword of "apply" or "jobs", and these are people who are seeking to apply for a position within my organization, something very different than maybe just a general marketing list.

Getting consent to send text messages

Now, adding a keyword is not the only way to have people opt-in to your text messaging list. Another common method is to include it on a form. So if you're already collecting phone numbers, you can include an opt-in checkbox so that they give you permission to text with them.

But here, within SimpleTexting, you can also create your own web signup forms. So for example, I've created a form called New Customer Form where I can include as many details as I want including first and last name, their email address, maybe I want to capture their birthday.

If I want to send them a special birthday message via text messaging, I can do it all here. I can then send them directly to my form where they can fill out the required information

and then select Subscribe now. And here you can see we have that policy built in

that by selecting this, they agree to receive promotional messages. Remember, in order to keep your number and more importantly your brand in good faith,

make sure that you have some way for them to explicitly agree to receive SMS messages from you.

Creating SMS marketing campaigns

But enough about consent, let's move on to one of the most powerful features

when it comes to using text messaging marketing and that is creating your own campaigns. This gives you the opportunity to communicate with thousands of your clients exactly when you want to and have them act on those requests in a matter of minutes.

So here I have a number of campaigns set up already, including this 25% Off Sale. So I can see when it was sent, I can see what the message was, but I can also keep track of that history in terms of how many people received it, I can also keep track of the link that was used and how many people actually clicked that link.

But let's go ahead and create a new campaign from scratch. All I need to do is select this New button here and let's give it a campaign name. I'm going to say "Buy 1 G One",

that's going to be the name of the campaign. This is just for my own reference here.

Once again, we can use AI to assist us, but in this case, I'm going to put in my own messaging. So in this example, I've said the following, "This weekend only, Buy 1 course and Get a 2nd course for FREE! Make your picks now." And then I've included a link to the landing page.

Now here on the right hand side of the screen, it's going to give me a helpful preview of what that message will look like.

And the first thing that you will notice is that this big, long link is going to look rather ugly and maybe a little intimidating, and actually maybe take away from the rest of the message. Well, SimpleTexting has a feature called Shorten URL. So all I need to do is select the URL,

and I'm going to select that Shorten URL. And here's an example of what it will now look like to the recipient. Nice and short, the focus is on the message, and they are still just one click away from making their selection.

Now, immediately down below,you will see that there's a section called Unsubscribe message, and this is also a best practice, reminding those whom you are communicating with that they have an opportunity to unsubscribe or stop receiving messages from you.

In this case, the word is "stop", so as long as they text the word "stop" in reply, they will be removed from this list and no longer receive messages. I'm going to come down here and just hit Enter on my keyboard just so there's some separation between that message

and the link that I want them to click. Next, I need to select which group I want to send this campaign to. So I'm going to select this and come down and choose Subscribers. Now, I can choose multiple groups if I want to, but in this example,

we're going to stick with just subscribers. Lastly, I can choose if I want to send this campaign immediately, if I want to schedule it for the future, or if I want to set up a recurring schedule for this particular campaign. In this example, I'm going to stay

with Immediately and hit Next. I am then brought to the summary screen where I can review one last time what this message will look like, and when, I'm happy I can hit Send now, and then brought back to the campaign screen. And if I go back to my inbox, I can see with this test user account that yes, this campaign has been sent,

including this very nice and short and very clickable link rather than the very long and intimidating link hat I first pasted in.

Free resources & pricing options

Now, if you're still not sure if text messaging is right for your business, SimpleTexting has provided a vast library of guides for each and every industry. So no matter what type of business you are running, you can get started and see best practice examples.

For example, maybe I run an accounting firm and I want to see what others are doing and how they are using text messaging within their particular business, this is a great resource and will get you off and running in a matter of minutes.

In addition, if you are worried about pricing and how much this will cost you,

SimpleTexting makes it easy. All you need to do is figure out how many messages

you will be sending per month so you'll know exactly how much you'll be spending in the future. I particularly like their Build a Plan screen where you can type in exactly

how many contacts you plan to message, whether you're going to be messaging consistently or maybe just seasonally, and how often per month you'll be messaging that client as well.

This will give you a very accurate number, so you can eliminate any future surprises. So to learn more and to get started for free, go to SimpleTexting.com or select the link in the description down below. And if you have any questions, be sure to let me know in the comments.

Thank you so much for watching. And remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.

One of the most challenging things with using a mind mapping tool is just getting started. Okay, I'm going to grab this shape here, and I'm going to call this my new idea. And then I'm going to go over here, and I'm going to say that this is step one of that new idea.

This is going to take a long time. Well, what if instead you could create a full mind map, like the one you see here, in a matter of seconds? Let me show you how. (light ting) Hello, everyone.

Scott Friesen, here at Simpletivity, helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress. And, as we take a quick glance at this mind map,

you would probably assume that this took me a full hour, if not longer, to brainstorm.

And maybe I had to collaborate with others and rethink how I was going to group everything together, but I didn't do any of that. In fact, I created this mind map in just a few seconds. So let me show you how.

Create a mind map in seconds

Here, within Miro, I can come up to the Settings icon and select the Command palette. And here I have a variety of AI-assisted prompts that I can get started with.

Now I can do an awful lot, but for right now let's look at generating our mind map.

And so, in this example, I want to generate a mind map for a new pet grooming business and what areas I should be focused on. All I need to do is hit Enter on my keyboard, and in just a few seconds, I have a complete mind map, which is going to give me a variety of different areas, including ones that perhaps I didn't think about,

where I can continue to brainstorm or to edit and group things together.

So, in this example, I've got everything from location to what services am I going to offer,  supplies, finances, legal, staffing, marketing, and target market. A number of things that maybe I wasn't going to consider.

Now, just like with any other mind map, I can group things the way I want. If I want some things on this side together, if I want to perhaps make a connection between ear cleaning and shampoo and conditioning,

I can do all of the editing features that I'm used to here within Miro.

Expand your ideas with AI

But our assistance from AI doesn't stop here. Let's come up here to target market. And I want to think a little more deeply about the different types of pet owners.

So I'm going to select this, and you'll notice that we still have this AI icon available to us. If I select this, I can expand and continue down this path. I can either expand with questions, expand with ideas or expand with topics.

Because I'm still in brainstorming mode, I'd like to think of some questions I should be considering as I'm exploring different pet owners. So I'm going to select that option here.

And, again, in just a few seconds, it's going to spit out a number of different questions that maybe I will want to include on an intake form. Maybe it's some questions that I want to ask myself when it comes to marketing and who I am going to be targeting.

These are fantastic questions, and they're very specific to pet owners and things that are related to a pet grooming business. Now, of course, I can come up here and maybe remove some of the ones that I don't think are as relevant, but just look at how quickly I've gone from a very simple idea, a simple set of instructions, into a variety of things that is going to help me set up my business for success.

Beyond mind maps with AI

But, of course, because Miro is such a flexible tool, we are not limited to just mind maps and drawing things with shapes and connecting them with lines and dots.

In fact, one of my favorite features of Miro is using their sticky note feature. So let's see how AI can help us in this context. So, in this way, I want to maybe generate some questions for an upcoming workshop.

So, in this example, I'm asking, "Give me 25 icebreaker questions for a business budgeting workshop." Let's see what it comes up with. And, again, in just a few seconds, it's given me exactly what I'm after.

And, unlike ChatGPT or some more text-based AI tools, it's so much easier for me to group these things together. What I love about sticky notes is that, in just a matter of seconds,

I can group maybe some like-minded questions together. I can, of course, color code them as well if I want to maybe make things that are related to financial lessons in pink. And I can still make those connections as we would come to expect when it comes to any type of mind mapping tool.

Summarize ideas fast

But it gets better than that because, remember, we have AI tools at our disposal.

So, in this example, I'm going to select all of those sticky notes, and I'm going to come up here to our AI tool. I can choose to summarize all of these Post-It Notes, which may be very useful if you are collecting user data  or maybe this is feedback from your clients. I can cluster them by keywords or I can cluster them by sentiment;

meaning are they more positive or negative or neutral. In this case, I'm going to choose cluster by keywords because I want to see what some of the themes are

amongst these questions, and maybe I want to make sure that I spread them out

or have a nice mix of these icebreaker questions available. So, by selecting this option, you can see it's grouped it by more expenses, budget and process.

Here is a little more lesson, philosophical. This one is related more to tools or apps.

So maybe, for my upcoming training, I'm going to select one from each of these categories, or maybe for a certain part of my meeting, I'll just focus on all six of these

if we're talking about goals.

Cluster ideas by theme

Now, in this next example, I'm sticking with my sticky notes. And here I've collected

a variety of feedback from actual users who have been customers of a pool company. So I've got a mix of feedback here, which is probably going to take me some time to sift through or go through one at a time.

But, why don't we use AI to make it that much easier? Here, I'm going to use that option again. And this time I'm going to say Cluster by sentiment. Now it has broken out all of those comments

into three categories: positive, neutral, and negative. So let's say I just want to focus

on these negative comments here. What I'm going to do is select five of these comments, and I'm going to say, "Summarize it for me," rather than going through each and every comment.

What is the theme here?Well, "Good customer service but a high price. Excellent recommendations but delivery and installation issues or damage." So think about how much more time consuming it would be if I had a hundred or maybe a thousand pieces of feedback.

Now I can summarize it and share it with my team or act on what I see here. So, if you want to generate ideas and strategies that much faster and with the assistance of AI, be sure to check out Miro.

Miro AI is currently in beta, but available for all users. To find out more and to get started, click the link in the description down below. Thank you so much for watching.

And, remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.

I've said it before and I will say it again: please do not use Trello as a CRM unless you are using a particular tool. Trello is so fantastic for managing a variety of projects,

including deals, including a pipeline, and managing all of your sales and contracts.

But out of the box, it is not designed to manage customer relationship data, especially if you want to track that customer amongst multiple cards or multiple boards.

For that, you want to use Crmble; and in this video, I'm going to show you a feature which makes Crmble even better so you don't have to go elsewhere to manage your emails. Hello, everyone. Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity, helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress. And here I am within a sample board,

which I do have the Crmble Power Up enabled. Just as a brief review, not only does Crmble give us a variety of different details within the cards themselves, but it gives us a variety of very powerful reporting features; we can see all of our contacts in a single screen in a single place. This is definitely where you want to be managing

your customer relationships. But let's go back to the board itself, because what is brand new is bringing in an integration with Gmail so that you can not only communicate directly with your customers, but you can see those replies and never have to leave your Trello account.

So, here I've got a sample deal, this Scott Testerson deal. I'm going to click on this. And as you may already know, we've got so much valuable information available to us. We can add that customer card right here.

We can also add other important information such as the size of the deal, where did this potential customer find us, the creation date, what kind of lead is it? I'm going to say this lead is hot, so I can filter that or I can view that in my reporting, and maybe I can also record what is their projected budget versus what I feel the deal is worth,

or what I'm hoping we can sell this contract for. But the new feature, or enhanced feature, is the ability to see our conversation's complete threads right here from within the card.

So, here you can see, when I select the Mail link, down below, I can see a full history of my communication with this client. I can see what has been going on. I can, of course, load more threads if I want to as well. I can either review a previous message, or I can start to compose that message as well.

Let's start by clicking on something that we've already sent. And here at the top of the screen,

we have a nice condensed view of our previous conversations, the back and forth that we've had. So, I can see exactly what was said, so for our next meeting or for my very next email, I can say the appropriate thing.

But the other bonus is that, on the right-hand side of the screen, I still have all of that information available to me.

So, if I need to reference the deal size, if I need to reference when we have started

our communication with each other, or if I need to record if this deal has been won or lost, I can do so here within the same screen as well. I don't need to toggle back and forth or have multiple tabs open at the top of the screen; I can do so right here.

But you'll also see that I can start to compose my message from this screen as well.

So, just below the thread view up top, you can see that we can actually add multiple email addresses. So, this can be great if you are managing your Trello and CRM boards with multiple team members and you want to respond from a particular address, or maybe you don't want to use your personal address, maybe you're chiming in with a different address that you have.

So, you can add multiple accounts here. Here is whom I am sending the email address to. Of course, I'm not limited to that, but because I'm within this customer account, that only makes sense.

And then, we have our subject line, and then, of course, our message down below. And you can see we have a variety of editing options that make it easy to access, so we can start to compose our message.

But all the way at the top of the screen, you can also see that we can create our own Gmail templates, and I don't mean templates that you've created within Gmail; we can create those templates right here from within Crmble.

So, for example, maybe I want to check in; and I've already spent time creating

this template down below. Here you can see I have the appropriate links, I've got the appropriate message, and I even have the appropriate signature down below.

So, I can quickly and easily add this template, come down here, and hit Send.

And I've never had to leave my Trello board; I've never had to leave this card at all.

I could continue to manage this relationship and then see those messages and see those responses down below.

Now, since the Mail link is not open by default when first opening up a card, the deal details will be visible, which makes the most sense, because this is where we have the most important information. But if we scroll down to the Activity window, you can see that it will also record those messages, those emails within the comments.

So, here are the last three emails which I have sent,

including the last one just a minute ago, so you can always reference them here, as well, in addition to the Mail link here. Now, speaking of those email templates,

where do we go to create new ones or edit existing ones? Well, we're going to jump back into our Crmble Power Up, which, again, will not send you to another tab

but keep things here right within Trello. And we're going to come down here to Toppings. Here, you'll see a full list of the additional toppings in which we can integrate with other tools, and I'm going to click on Gmail.

So, this would be the place you go to link your account.And of course, you can add multiple accounts if you wish to. You can also choose if you want to enable or disable Gmail tracking and viewing those Gmail threads.

And down below, you can see the three existing email templates, including this Checking in template which we used a moment ago. But if I want to add a new one, I simply need to select this plus button. and my email editor will be brought to the forefront. So, here I can give it a name; that's just a reference

for myself or other users. And then, down below, the subject line; and then the message itself. And then, once I've saved this template, it will be available to me not only down here, but more importantly, when we jump into our cards. And remember: this functionality is going to be available on each and every one of your cards.

So, if I have yet to reach out to this contact, I can either come here to the Mail link, but don't forget, you can also click this Gmail link directly on the contact themselves. So, their email address has already been input. I'm already halfway there, and I can come in here and start sending that email. Last but not least, one additional bonus feature

is that you can allow Crmble to bring in your default signature from Gmail.This is not something which I've created here within Crmble, it has brought it over directly from my Gmail account. T

here is no need to add or create a new signature here within Trello unless you would like to. Now, if you'd like to see all of the features within Crmble and see if it's the best fit for you and your Trello account, I'd invite you to watch this video next, where I give you a full tutorial and setup guide.

Thank you so much for watching, and remember: being productive does not need to be difficult.

In fact, it's very simple.

What is the Side Panel?

I want you to look up, way up here, in the top right hand corner of your screen.

And you're going to notice something that looks, well, a little bit like a square. It's called the Google Side panel. And this has quickly become one of my favorite features of Google Chrome.

So in this video, I'm going to show you everything you need to know about the side panel, along with tips and tricks, so you can get the most out of this feature. This video is sponsored by SaneBox.

The AI email manager that lets you focus more on the messages that count. SaneBox works seamlessly with your Gmail, Outlook or iCloud account, so you can manage your emails more effortlessly.

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Let SaneBox do the heavy lifting for you and organize your inbox in a matter of minutes. To sign up for your free trial and get a $25 credit, go to sanebox.com/simpletivity.

Now the Google Chrome side panel is not exactly new but it has been getting some additional attention, along with some new features, year by year. Essentially, by toggling the side panel on or off, you will get this side panel on the side of your screen but have options to a number of different things, including a reading list, your complete bookmarks bar and I'm going to show you why this is actually a lot more valuable than the bookmarks bar at the top of your browser.

Journeys, which you may be seeing more frequently these days

but also some additional features so you can customize your Chrome experience.

Now just before we go into each area of the sidebar,

Settings

let's get comfortable with the basic settings. First off, you can increase the size of the sidebar to essentially, as large as you want. So this makes reading and navigating that sidebar that much easier.

So for example here, if I go into something like my bookmarks bar and I expand a folder or collapse a folder, I've got everything at my fingertips. So it's nice and large, so you can keep it as small or as big as you like.

However, if we come into our Google Chrome settings and then if we come over here and click on appearance, you can also choose which side the side panel will be displayed on. So maybe I prefer it here on the left hand side and have my browser window here on the right hand side. Again, we can still expand it here if we need to.

But you can decide what your preference is, as to where it is located. And just as a bonus tip, if you ever find it difficult to read the font within Google Chrome, under appearance, this is where you would make that change as well.

Alright, so getting back to the actual options that we have here within the side panel. You'll see that there are three.

Reading List

A Reading list, Bookmarks and Journeys. Let's get started with our reading list.

So what this is used for, is when you come across a website, let's go to one of my favorite websites that I like to browse once in a while, lifehacker.com. And let's see here if there's something, "10 Security Settings that Protect Your iPhone from Thieves."

Now, I don't necessarily have time to read this right now but I would like to review it later. Since I'm already on this screen, all I need to do, is select, Add Current Tab.

And you'll see that it's brought in a link right over here. Let's just stay within this site, for an easy example. I'm going to grab something else here. How to financially prepare for your parents or in-laws to move in.

And again, I'm going to select, Add Current Tab. Now if you don't want to use this function here, you can also go to the tab itself and if we right click, you can see here is, Add tab to reading list.

So a few different ways in which you can add it here. But remember, I don't have time to read this right now, so I'm going to close this and get on with the rest of my day. But whenever I want to, I can come back here, open up that reading list and now I'm just one click away from those things that I would like to review.

And better yet, when I'm done with them, I can come over here and cross them off, so I can keep track, if I want to, of a history of the pages or the articles which I've read. I can still go back to them in a single click.

But I can easily separate between the things I have already read and things that I have yet to review. So why is this Reading list valuable?

Well, for many years people have recommended that I use Pocket or Flipboard

or a variety of other tools to capture articles and to capture things and categorize them and use them for later. And while it is true that both of these apps, especially Pocket, have a lot more features available to you, it is another app. It's something else I have to go to. It's another tab or another extension that I have to install.

Meanwhile, this reading list is built right into my browser. So I can access it here.

And I can also access it on my mobile devices as well. So if you're looking for something that is simple and straightforward so you can pin or save articles

and pages for later, do so right here with the Reading list.

Bookmarks

Now next up is, Bookmarks. And you're probably thinking, well, how is this that much more helpful than the Bookmarks bar here on the top of your screen? For many years I thought this was the easiest and the best way to get to places that I wanted to go,

especially with the addition of folders. So I can group a collection of webpages together and go exactly to where I need to. However, you'll notice that you are somewhat limited with the amount of space up here.

And depending on the size of the screen that you're using, your eyes need to shift quite drastically from the left and right hand side. But more than just the real estate, either the lack thereof or too much to scan, there's a bunch of additional features that we can use here with the Bookmarks side panel.

Let me give you a quick example. There are many times where I wish to hide the bookmarks bar up here, for convenience. And I've often found myself coming up here to my settings, coming up here to Bookmarks and unchecking, Show bookmarks bar.

Yes, there is a shortcut key but because it involves three strokes, I have typically forgotten it, so I have to come this way to turn it off.

I'd love to toggle it on or off in a quicker manner. Well, we can do just that with the side panel here. So here you can see, I can enjoy more real estate of the website that I'm on or wherever I am reading.

And I can also include a fuller description of each and every one of those bookmarked pages. In the past, what I have often done with the bookmarks bar, is abbreviated a number of these titles, just so I could fit more on the screen up above.

But I don't need to do that here. In fact, I've got an awful lot of real estate. And if I want to expand that, I can do that here as well. This can also make things easier when you are managing and rearranging your bookmarks,

especially when you're moving things in between folders. So for example, I think I should put Walling under reference but first I need to open up reference, just to double check, okay that is where I want it to be. But here with the side panel,

I can expand or collapse anything I want. So I didn't have to make that extra click.

I can say, yes, I do want to move Walling down there. Perfect. I can group that together. So it's just an easier way to access and manage those bookmarks but also hide them at a click of a button, whenever I want to.

Journeys

Now the third option you will see within the Google side panel, is something called, Journeys. And recently I have been seeing this come up more and more frequently,

including when I am searching for something, especially something that I've perhaps searched for in the past. What Journeys is doing, is creating a bit of a history but it's more than just a history, it's grouping like-minded things together and it's also giving us some suggestions.

So here you can see, this is a much easier way to read my history and see where I have been and what I have been doing. But you'll also notice that down below, it's giving me some search suggestions.

These are not things that I typed in as a part of this history. But these are things that it believes I might find helpful. So under Pocket, maybe I want to search for Pocket App, Pocket Firefox or a Pocket game, whatever the case may be.

But it's grouping things together, as you can see, by the pages or the searches that I have done recently. So I can quickly and easily go back in time. If I want to come up here and use the search bar, I can do that as well. I'm going to type in todoist, for example.

And now everything will come back very, very quickly and easily. So if I want to jump back into something that I had forgotten about or if I want to review something from the past, this Journeys can make it that much easier. What I especially appreciate, is that even if you've gone

down a bit of a rabbit hole, maybe you've been searching on a page such as this, you can see that everything I did within Life Hacker, it's easy to read. I can see the full title and I'm just one click away from those pages that I visited in the past. So this Journeys continues to be developed and built out. Stay tuned for more features in the future.

Bonus Tip

Now one additional feature of the Google Side panel, is that when you open up any new tab, you may be familiar with this Google screen, which will show you either your most recent websites or a selection of shortcuts, which you have already added.

In the bottom right hand corner is this customized Chrome option. But if you happen to be on this page, you'll also see it here within the side panel. Now it doesn't matter which one you select, in fact, I'll just show you, if I collapse the side panel and I select customized Chrome, it's automatically going to expand that side panel and give me some options here.

So if I want to change the theme and if I want to be a little more creative here, I can do so. If I want to go back to a more traditional white background

or maybe I like something like this, that is really going to stand out, I can change my theme or customize it to my own color here. I also have a few other choices as well.

If I don't want to show those shortcuts, I can turn them off, perhaps if I think they are a little too distracting. And I can also toggle between my shortcuts, which you see here or most visited websites.

So depending on what you would like to appear here when you are opening up a new tab within Google Chrome. So whether you want an easier way to pin things to read later. If you want a better way to manage and also access

all of your bookmarks. Or quickly see where you have been and jump back into the action, the Google Side panel is worth checking out and is especially a better solution

for the Bookmarks bar up on top. Now I would love to hear from you next. What questions do you have about the Google Side panel or anything related to the Google Chrome browser? Be sure to let me know in the comments down below.

Thank you so much for watching. And remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.