From Trello to monday.com in 5 days

INTRODUCTION

This project is for a digital marketing agency. They cater to clients who need content and link building services.

In fulfilling client projects, there are several link builders and writers who work with them. The projects vary from one-time bulk projects to monthly recurring ones.

Read through for you to find out how their processes got transitioned to monday.com in five days.

background

Trello is a “Kanban” style project management tool. A fun fact about its name is that it is derived from the word “trellis” which is used to support plants. It is designed to have individual tasks drafted so each phase can be visualized and then it is assigned to the designated team member. The tool is suited for a solo businessman or a small team.

On the other hand, monday.com is more of an all-inclusive project management tool. It has features that can tackle sales management, event management, and others. It also offers a Kanban view in addition to its numerous views like Gannt, Calendar, and others. Not to mention it has a configurable dashboard capability that can show high-level views.

This agency that I helped transition to monday.com is using Trello. Their client orders are separated by several cards as those go through phases. They know what each card contains but they would like to have an overview of each order.

Aside from that, they need a primary board where they can see all their orders and the deadlines. Currently, there is only one deadline on Trello so they cannot designate a deadline per order phase.

The primary board will also help them in the proper allocation of workload among their staffs to ensure that they get assigned within their capacity.

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CHALLENGES

The following were the things that need to be sorted for them to have an efficient order management platform:

Primary board for orders – The agency needed a board where they can see all orders whether “New” or “In Progress.” This is essential so they can easily make adjustments to their fulfilment timetable if needed.
Deadline view for each phases – It is helpful to have be able to set a deadline per phase so the agency can track which phase is slowing them so they can make
Client List – To better attend to the needs of the clients, a list that can be easily viewed helps a lot in telling who needs an outreach or for any other purpose.
Asset Management for clients – Having one board as a repository of the assets of clients not only make it easier to track those but also saves the agency time as the team members do not need to open other apps to access those.
Checklist for to-do items or sub-tasks – One project for a client requires several things to be completed for it to be fulfilled. These sub-tasks are better incorporated on the main project for efficient tracking.
Capability to assign multiple task owners – There are several team members working on different sub-tasks. For accountability and transparency, they will be assigned to each sub-task.

strategy

After carefully reviewing the requirements of the agency and their current processes, two implementation plans were presented on how to use monday.com to create a better system for them.

implementation

Review previous processes and capture improvements

The management provided the details on how their current system is working. They also gave their concerns about what they have in place.

With the information given, several improvement plans were thought of and then it got narrowed to the two concepts below.

Study the workflow and create 2 concept proposals

Option A

Option A involves several boards:

Clients board
Assets board
Orders board
Content Management board
Link Management board
Team Capacity board
Management dashboard

Option A Workflow

When an order is received through the Order Registration form, it will go to the Orders board where it will then be sorted whether it is a Link or a Content order then the order goes to the dedicated board depending on the type.

The Orders board has a two-way connection with the Assets board.

Then, the Assets board has a two-way connection with the Clients board

The “Content Services” board and the “Link Orders” boards are connected to the Team Capacity board where the workload of the staff is tracked. There’s also a Management dashboard for high-level view of some information.

Content Services and Link Orders boards

On the “Order Input Tracking” board, an order is classified as “Links” or “Content.”

Automation is used to create an item (order) on the “Link Orders” board as shown on the image below.

The same automation is in place to create an item (order) on the “Content Services” board.

When an item is created, another automation is set to assign the owner of the order.

Also, upon the creation of the order is the automatic creation of subitems (sub-tasks) which will then be assigned to specific team members who will do the fulfilment.

The creation of subitems uses the following custom automation:

“When an item is created, then create subitem, and create subitem…”

Note: You can add multiple subitems on the custom animation.

Since each phase is reflected in one board with a designated owner, status, and deadline then each board is configured to have an overall project status (per project basis) which eventually changes depending on the status of the fulfillment of each sub-tasks.

For instance, in the image below, the Order Status changes when the “Writing Status, Outline Status, or SEO Status” changes.

Also, due dates are set to be interdependent. The “Writing Due Date” changes when “Outlines Due Date” is adjusted.

Option B

Option B boards:

Accounts with Orders
Content Management
Link Management

Option B Workflow

Each client has a dedicated board which receives their orders. Those will then go to the Link Management or Content Management board depending on the type.

This workflow also has a Management Dashboard.

Review proposals and decide the best approach

After some consideration, the agency decided to with Option A.

They utilize the monday.com form to receive the orders. After which, those then flow to the different boards as shown on the image.

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Implement the selected approach incorporating connected processes and dashboards

Replicate groups or phases from Trello to the monday.com board

As there are phases involved in the order fulfilment, those were added to the monday board as groups. When the task is completed in a phase, the order then goes to the next phase automatically as automation is set for this to happen.

Add Trello fields as columns on the monday board

On the image below, “Client Workbook” is now added to the monday board as a text column. It will contain the link to the client workbook.

Incorporate deadline columns for each task

Since there are multiple staff involved in fulfilling an order whether a link order or a content order, each task has a “person” column to determine who is assigned paired with a “status” column to track their progress and then the “due date” column.

Reporting

With Option A implemented as the solution, the Content Services and the Link Orders board are linked to the Team Capacity board.

The connection made the creation of two dashboards possible, the Writers Capacity Management dashboard and the SEO Capacity Management dashboard.

The “Writers Capacity Management” dashboard provides the manager or team leader with a high-level view of the workload versus the team’s capacity on a month-to-month basis. Also, some views are set to track “In Progress” assignments per writer.

The “SEO Capacity Management” dashboard displays a high-level view of information for the SEO team. It gives a quick glance at how many orders are assigned to a specialist per week. It can be adjusted to show the monthly volume.

In this use case, it also shows the deadline for the content orders that need links to help in deciding which order must be prioritized.

transformation

With the implementation of this system, the management can now quickly view the progress of orders without having to open several cards. It saves them a lot of time.

It also enables them to decide right there and then if there are adjustments that need to be done or if there are people that need follow-up.

If you have further questions with monday.com board functions and configurations, you may schedule a commitment-free consultation with me.