How To Quickly Export Trello Cards to Google Sheets With 2-Way Updates

How To Quickly Export Trello Cards to Google Sheets With 2-Way Updates

These step-by-step instructions will show you how to connect Trello with Google Sheets through Unito in order to sync cards to spreadsheet rows. It can save valuable time by eliminating manual input for business reporting, project management, customer tracking and more. Similar steps and principles apply to other Unito spreadsheet integrations.

One thing to remember is that Unito needs to understand how to categorize your spreadsheet data in order to sync it with any other tool. This is what we mean whenever you read about field mapping. In this case, fields in Google Sheets come from your table header; text in the first row of each spreadsheet. Put another way, your rows will become Trello cards and your columns will become fields.

Why export Trello cards to Google Sheets with Unito?

There are a number of valuable use cases for this workflow: you can use it to review project progress from your spreadsheet, build a report for stakeholders, or simply share Trello updates with other teams using a simplified, yet flexible Google Sheet. Automating this process saves you the time it takes to manually copy and paste card details into your sheet. By connecting Trello and Google Sheets with Unito, you eliminate the need to jump back and forth between tabs to double-check your data since everything will be automatically kept up-to-date in real-time.

Syncing Trello cards to Google Sheets with Unito also enables you to automatically:

  • Populate a spreadsheet with Trello card details, including: title, member, label, due date, status, description footer, checklists, and custom fields.
  • Create new cards in Trello based on Google Sheets rows with specified fields.

Watch this Trello to Google Sheets integration in action:

Contents

Feel free to skip ahead if you’ve already started building your Trello – Google Sheets flow.

Before we export Trello cards to Google Sheets rows:

  • Copy this free Google Sheets template designed with Trello in mind.
  • Install the Unito add-on for Google Sheets.
  • Prepare a table header in your spreadsheet with the fields you wish to sync from Trello. That means making sure the first row includes the fields of each card: member, description, comments, etc.

Add Unito to your Trello Board (optional)

This step is for users who wish to add Unito as a Power-Up to an existing Trello board. You can skip this process if you’ve already installed Unito or you’ve logged in directly to our app. Otherwise, click here if you need help adding Unito as a Trello Power-Up. Just don’t forget to come back to this guide!

Add a table header to your spreadsheet

Unito syncs fields from Trello to rows in Google Sheets based on the table header, or first row of your sheet. So be sure to identify each column with a title that matches with your Trello card data. A simple way to do this is to name each column after the fields you’re syncing from Trello (e.g., title, member, description, etc.).

If you haven’t figured out what kind of data you want to sync to your spreadsheet, we created this Google Sheets template you can use to get started. We also have a similar template for Microsoft Excel users.

Sales report
Each cell in the first row represents a field for Unito. 

How to install the Unito add-on to your Google Workspace

Go to docs.google.com. From the top of your Google Sheet, click Extensions, then Add-ons, followed by Get add-ons. Search for “Unito” and select Unito for Google Sheets.

Install the add-on by following the on-screen instructions. You can find more detailed steps on this process here.

When you’re ready, select the Unito add-on, then Get started with Unito, followed by Insert the two columns in this sheet. Whether you do this automatically or manually, the first and last rows in your spreadsheet must be titled: “UnitoID” and “Last Modified”. Only the data between those two columns will sync with Unito.

Step 1. Connect Trello and Google Sheets to Unito

Navigate to the Unito App and select +Create Flow. On the next screen, select Start Here to connect Trello and Google Sheets. Choose the accounts you want connected to Unito. In this walkthrough, we’ll select Trello on the left-hand side, and then Google Sheets on the right. You’ll need to specify which account for each tool you wish to connect through Unito, as well as the specific board and sheet you wish to sync.

See below for an example:

Step 1. Connect Trello and Google Sheets with Unito

When you’re ready, click Confirm.

Step 2. Set a Flow Direction between Trello and Google Sheets

Your data can sync either from only one app to the other or bidirectionally.

Set a Flow Direction between Trello and Google Sheets

NOTE: Here’s a breakdown of each option:

  • One-way from Trello to Google Sheets: cards created in your Trello Board will appear as new rows in the connected sheet, but not vice versa. This is the best option if you want to build a report on work performed in Trello, from the comfort and flexibility of a Google Sheet.
  • One-way from Google Sheets to Trello: Rows created in your connected sheet will appear as new cards in your Trello board, but not vice versa. This could be useful if you wanted to assign work from Google Sheets.
  • Two-way sync: Any new sheet rows or cards created in their respective tools will appear in the other (rows as cards, and cards as rows). This can be helpful for communication purposes and to fulfill both of the above use cases, with the right rules in place.

Click Confirm when you’ve chosen a flow direction. 

Step 3. Set up rules to filter data between Trello and Google Sheets

Now we can set up rules to determine which trigger events will send data between our tools. This step is only for row and task creation; if you choose a one-way flow here, you can still create a two-way sync for individual fields later on.

Select Add a new trigger to establish your rules for each directional flow.

NOTE: These triggers are intended to help you keep only the most relevant information in sync to avoid oversharing unnecessary details. There can be a lot of variability here that will depend on your particular needs and tool setup. By customizing your Trello labels, you can be even more precise about what kind of data is shared with Google Sheets.

For this demo, we’ve told the system to create a matching row in Google Sheets for every card in our Trello board with a green label which we’ve named “in progress” that was created after our chosen date. See below for an example:

Set up rules to filter data between Trello and Google Sheets

We’ll also set rules to create a new, matching card in Trello for every row in our selected sheet that was created on or after the selected date. See below for an example:

Find out more about setting rules.

Step 4. Choose field mappings between cards and rows

When you first open this screen, you’ll be presented with two options. If you select Auto-map, Unito will prepopulate a list of suggested field mappings which you can then adjust. If you know exactly how you want your fields mapped, Start from scratch. We recommend mapping fields for this particular workflow from scratch.

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Your fields will be automatically mapped for two-way updates, but you can adjust them as needed. With a one-way sync between fields, only the destination field will update automatically when you make changes in the source field.

Unito requires headings in the first row of your sheet in order to sync properly with any other tool. From there, you can tell the system which column headers to sync with fields in Trello. The first field you’ll have to map is the Trello card title. In our demo, we’ve given one of our columns the same name to keep things simple. Click Select a field for each tool, and find the appropriate field to map. See below for an example:

After you’ve chosen a field in one tool, Unito will suggest compatible matches in the second tool when you click on the other drop-down menu. See below for an example:

Choose field mappings between Trello cards and Google Sheets rows

Click Confirm when you’re satisfied with your field mappings to proceed.

Find out more about setting field mappings.

Step 5. Save, close, and launch your connected Trello-Google Sheets workflow!

And that’s it! Follow the remaining instructions to complete your flow and it should start syncing momentarily. Congratulations!

If you’ve followed the steps above, your flow will now create a row in Google Sheets whenever a new card is added in Trello based on the rules we set in Step 3.

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out and let us know.

Learn more about this flow:

Read our overviews of Trello and Google Sheets to better understand the limits and capabilities of each.

Read about our internal Trello – Google Sheets use case.

What’s next?