Trello gives us so many different options on how we can add information to our cards.
You can add labels.
You can add colors.
You can add due dates and checkboxes.
There are so many different pieces of information to an individual Trello card.
But maybe you want to add something a little more specific.
Maybe you would like to add a custom field depending on how you work or perhaps what industry you work in.
That might be very beneficial for you to start using custom fields.
Today I'm going to show you how to use, how to add custom fields and edit those fields so that they can appear on your cards.
You can use them as frequently or as often as you need to.
To do so, we are first going to have to enable the custom field powerup.
To do so, click on your menu and then come down here to power-ups.
Now note if you are using the free version of Trello, the basic version of Trello, you are only allowed one powerup per board.
For example, I already have my custom fields powerup enabled in this case.
But if you're wanting to use more than one, let's say you're using the calendar powerup and you want to use the custom fields powerup.
You will need to upgrade your Trello plan.
But for today's example, I'm just going to use the free version as an example.
After hitting enable here on the right-hand side, you are going to see a gear icon here.
By selecting the gear icon, you actually have to make one more selection, and that's the edit the powerup settings.
This is where we can start adding custom fields that will appear on our card.
The first option they give us is to add a field.
If we select the add a field option, we need to give our new custom field a name.
Let's say this first one is going to be the name of a person, so I'm actually going to label it as name.
From the dropdown type, I'm going to select text.
This field is just going to be used for entering someone's name.
The final option I have here is, would I like this custom field information to show on the front of the card?
You're probably already familiar with things like checkboxes and due dates, and if a card does have notes, you have some little icons, some little indicators on the front of the card if that information is present.
Now by default, when you're adding a new custom field, this is going to be unchecked.
But if this is information you would like to see, you can simply check that box, and then it will show on the front.
I think I'm going to check this one just as an example so we can see it when we go and apply it to a card.
I'm going to hit save.
The great thing is that you're not limited by the number of custom fields that you can add to a card.
We've just added the name field here.
Now I'm going to go ahead and add some additional fields as well.
I can add another text type if I like, but there's actually five choices for us to choose from.
We can include a number.
We can include a checkbox.
We can include a date or a dropdown list.
Remember, these will behave differently than the existing checkbox functionality or due date, for example.
Maybe you just want to capture a date.
It's not a due date.
You just want to capture a date.
That's the type of custom field that you would select.
The checkbox is going to be an either/or checkbox, so this is not going to be a list of items.
This would simply be a yes-or-no checkbox for you to select from.
A dropdown list can probably be very, very helpful if there is a list of selections that you regularly need to choose from, or you want members of your team to choose from.
The dropdown list can be very helpful in that case.
Let's pick checkbox in this case here, and maybe the name of this checkbox is going to be, we recorded a name in the first one.
Let's say, were they satisfied?
Was the customer satisfied?
Or something to that effect.
I'm going to say satisfied.
I'm going to leave this one unchecked this time around to show the field information on the front of the card.
I'm going to hit save.
Again, you can continue to add additional fields here.
You can also add fields within the card, and I'll show you how to do that in just a moment.
The last thing I want to show you is the button name.
By default, the name is custom fields.
That's what we're going to see within the card, but we can even change that as well.
I'm going to change it for this example.
I'm just going to say more info, or maybe more details would make more sense.
I'm just going to say more details.
That's going to be the name of the button.
Now let's go take a look at how that looks on a new or an existing card.
I'm going to come over here.
This is a test card here.
I'm going to open it up.
Here under the heading power-ups, you see there's our new button titled more details, or we can label it whatever we want.
When I click on that button, it's going to give us the options that we specified.
Here's the name.
I can put in the name of the person who may be helped me in this example if that's what we're trying to capture.
Was I satisfied or not?
I can check that box or leave it unchecked, depending on, I guess, the level of my service.
I can hit save.
Now you can see just above the description and just below the title, you can see those two fields now appear.
I have the name.
I have the satisfied.
It's no or yes.
If I click on them, I can toggle them and change them as well.
I can change the name just by selecting on them.
Let me click this one back to yes.
Then I'm going to minimize the card.
Lastly, I want to show you, remember with the name field we said that we wanted it to display on the front of the card.
There it is.
Now we can see the name of that person on the front of the card.
If I go to any other card, let's add a name to this one over here.
I'm going to say Jane.
I'm going to say I was satisfied this time.
Hit save.
There we see the name now appears on the front of that card.
Again, it could be a date.
It could be a dropdown menu.
It could be a number that you are trying to attach.
You can give it any label that you like, and you can even edit it within the card.
So instead of going back to the menu, let's click on this card, and I'm going to click on the more details.
So that's the label we gave it.
You can see that the settings option is also located here.
If I select this, I can either edit the ones I've already created, my existing fields, I can edit the button name if I'd like, or I can keep adding fields.
Maybe I want to add a date here.
Maybe I want to add a start date.
We use a lot of due dates in Trello.
What if I want to add a start date?
When did this really get underway?
Just for fun, I'm going to say yes, show it on the front of the card.
I'm going to hit save.
I'm going to click over here, and now when I hit more details, hey, look at that.
I've got a date and a time field that I can select.
I can hit save.
It's going to be recorded here, and it's going to show on the front of the card.
Explore some of the uses of adding custom fields to your Trello board.
Again, it may be particular to your industry.
Maybe there are some certain words that you and your team use on a regular basis, and it would be helpful to include that within a Trello card.
Let me know how you find using custom fields.
I'd love to hear your experience if you have used custom fields in the past and how that has benefited your workflow, how that's benefited your productivity.
If you have not already subscribed to the Simpletivity YouTube channel, I would encourage you to do so.
We would love to hear from you.
We would love to hear what you think about Trello and custom fields.
Remember, being productive does not need to be difficult.
In fact, it's very simple.
