Have you checked out Trello?

Running a business means managing a lot of data and one place I don’t like to store my data is in my head! I’m a very visual person and I have been searching years for the right kind of project management and CRM program that allows me to see what I want to see. I’ve recently discovered Trello!

In Trello, I am able to easily create cards for my clients, create projects with sub tasks, create exclusive boards for my team members’ tasks and easily search throughout these.

I can load files to cards through my computer, my iphone or even link to a dropbox file so that whoever looks at the attached dropbox file needs to have permission and is looking at the latest version. I can add checklists to cards too.

I can easily move tasks from one project to another, from one list (which can be used as a status, ie. “in progress list” and “done list”) to another or from one team member or another.
I can easily create boards that are only seen by particular people. I can create organisations that are seen by certain people, and I can see all of the above in one easy to use, free program. Heaven much?

PLUS, team members can subscribe to boards, lists or cards or you can ‘attach’ them to a card.

This means they will get notifications whenever anything is added to a card, board or list.

So that’s all very nice, you say, but what if I need more?

For me, Trello allows me to see what needs to be done and by who. So I use Trello to see who is doing what in my business and also on the Boards I am on. I can’t use it to invoice people and I can’t create graphs, but that’s actually all managed in my Xero account and my website system anyway, so the other CRMs out there were just duplicating something I already had.

When you first look at Trello (which is accessible on mobile devices too) it’s a blank canvas so it may be hard to envisage how it would work for you.

But consider some of the extra cool things you can do, and how that might assist you.

For example, each Board has its own special email address that you can use to send notices to that Board. You have to select a specific list, but if for example, like me, you get enquiries coming through your website, you can CC that board in whenever the enquiry is sent to you so that the enquiry lands in an “enquiry” or “to do” list on your board. Anyone who helps you on that board would see the incoming entry and be able to action it.

This also means that if you have a board for a client, THEY can email through tasks for you.

You can also enter a whole lot of cards in one go. If you have a list of to-dos, or a client list in excel, you can copy and paste that list from excel into a Trello list. Trello will ask you if you want to paste as one entry, or as an entry per excel line. Time saver!!

There are so many things you can do in Trello which help you collaborate with others and get that data out of your head. And because it’s free, you can try it out today! www.trello.com