Shh, is there a better way to sync your Trello cards with your calendar? Yes, there is, and I'm going to show you how.
Hello everyone, Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity, helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress.
Common Complaints
You know, one of the most common complaints I hear about the calendar sync within Trello is that it takes so long for changes to appear on your online calendar.
Trello Changes
The reason for that is when you make a change after you've set up your calendar sync using the calendar power-up, changes made within your Trello board can sometimes take as many as several hours before they are reflected on your calendar. That can be difficult as you're making changes and wanting to ensure that sync is still intact.
No Edit Button
But there's another issue that many of us complain about: even though I can see that Trello card appear in my calendar, I can't make any changes within my calendar. There's no edit button; all I can do is get that direct link to go back to the card, but I can't actually adjust this due date.
Overview
Today, I want to introduce you to the Trello Connector by Cronofy, which gives you a true two-way sync. I'm also going to show you how to set it up without using up any power-ups within Trello.
Online Calendar
Let's get started with my online calendar. Here you can see I've got a bit of duplication going on between events.
You can see I have some in green, and then I have some all-blue events as all-day events up top. What I've got going on here is I've got one sync using the traditional or standard calendar power-up within Trello (those are the green ones), and here up above, I have the Cronofy Trello Connector sync going on as all-day events.
Due Dates
Another issue with the traditional sync is that every due date within Trello must have a corresponding time as well. Trello doesn't allow you to select an all-day event.
Here you see I've got this due date for July 19th, and it's due at 12:00 noon. I can change this time, but every due date must have a time, which can be awkward when you see those cards in your calendar.
AllDay Events
Often, those cards represent a due date for a task, so it doesn't really have a specific time like 8:00 in the morning or 5:00 in the afternoon. Therefore, some of us may prefer to have them appear as all-day events, and that's exactly what you can do with the Cronofy Connector.
You don't have to have them show up as all-day events, but in this example, I've chosen to show them as all-day events rather than just specific times. That's one of the nice features of having this sync with the Trello Connector by Cronofy.
But let's get back to the bigger issue: the delay and the ability to edit directly from within your Google Calendar. For example, let's say that I am in my Trello board here and I want to make a change to this one here; it's due on July 21st, but you know what, I need to bump up this request.
Making a Change
So I'm gonna select July 19th, pushing it ahead two days. I'm going to hit save, close this card, and immediately go to my Google Calendar.
Refresh
I'm going to hit refresh on this page, and let's see what happens. After hitting refresh, you will notice that Trello card has moved from the 21st to the 19th, just like I told it to in Trello.
But notice the traditional sync is still here on July 21st at 12:00 noon, and it might not move for some time, even though I have that power-up and I have that URL sync set up. It might take a few hours before this shows up over here.
So it's almost an immediate sync when you change a due date within Trello; it's gonna update your online calendar immediately. That is fantastic.
But let's look at it from the other direction here from within Google Calendar. If I want to change something about this team meeting agenda in the traditional sync, of course, there's no edit button.
I can go directly to the card if I like, but there's no way that I can change this due date. However, with the Cronofy sync, I can open up this event, and you'll see I have an edit button.
Save
If I click on this and say, "You know what, I want to push this out to Saturday the 21st," and I'm going to hit save, now we see it changed over here. Here's the team meeting; it's moved to the 21st.
But I'm sure some of you are probably thinking, "Wait a minute, Scott, have you broken your Trello board? What's going to happen on the Trello side?"
Trello Board
Well, I'm going to go over to my Trello board and refresh this page for just a second. Now here is that same card—initially, it was a due date of July 19th, and we pushed it to July 21st.
Now here's something that I've noticed as I've been working with the Cronofy Connector: if we open up this card to see a few more details about the due date, you'll see it actually didn't change it quite to July 21st, but it did change it to July 20th at 5:00 p.m. I believe this may be hard-coded into this service as an end-of-day or end-of-workday setting.
If I am using the all-day events view (remember, I'm using the all-day events view here in Google Calendar), what it is going to do is set that due date for the end of the previous workday. So I've noticed that when making changes not within Trello but within your calendar service, and you're using the all-day event, it is going to default to the previous date at 5:00 p.m., which may not be such a bad thing.
This allows you to complete that task or whatever this card may represent in advance of that due date. But the important thing here is that I can mix and match—I can change things within Google Calendar, or I can change things where I feel more comfortable within my Trello board, and it is going to be updated immediately.
You can see I still have that team meeting (the one that I just changed) still sitting here on the 19th. It's been a couple of minutes since I changed this one—the "reach out to Leslie"—remember, I changed this to the 19th.
That looks perfectly fine, right? It's due on the 19th in Trello and on my Google Calendar, but it's still sitting here using the traditional method.
Power Up
Now, the one last thing I want to point out with using the Trello Connector by Cronofy is that you don't actually have to use up a power-up. There is a Cronofy power-up that you can select from the power-up menu within Trello.
However, if you go directly to trello.cronofy.com, you can set it up yourself without wasting another power-up. That's right, you can make use of another power-up within Trello and then use the connector on top of it.
Let me just show you one last thing in terms of the setup and the different options you have within the Cronofy Connector. This is just the simple setup to create that connection—you can select which boards you want to sync to your calendar.
You can also decide if you only want boards assigned to you or perhaps you want to see all cards that have a due date as it pertains to these boards. Then, on the calendar side, once you select the calendar you want to sync to, you can choose if it's either busy or free—how you want it to appear on your calendar.
Here, as I showed you earlier, you can choose if you want those cards to show as a full-day event or if you'd like them to show at a specific duration. Remember, the Trello default duration is always one hour, from 12:00 to 1:00, because my due dates within Trello are all at 12:00 noon.
So it's going to show up as an hour, but if you'd like it to show up as only 15 minutes or maybe three hours, you can make that distinction here. I almost forgot—this little bonus is that you can enable reminders.
Let's go back into one more comparison. If I open up this traditional calendar sync, you will see that there are no reminders attached to this due date.
However, if I open up the Cronofy sync, guess what? I've told it that I want a notification the day before at 11:00 p.m., so you can enable that as well.
Outro
I hope you have fun trying out the Trello Connector by Cronofy. I'd love to hear what else bugs you or frustrates you with Trello or any of the Trello power-ups.
Perhaps I have a solution, or I can take a look at another workaround in a future video. So be sure to leave your comments down below.
Thank you so much for watching. If you liked this video, be sure to give it a thumbs up, leave me a comment, and don't forget to subscribe.
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