Trello is a visual collaboration tool that uses boards, lists, and cards to organize projects and tasks using the Kanban methodology. Owned by Atlassian since 2017, Trello serves over 50 million users worldwide for project management, team coordination, and personal productivity. The platform's flexibility lies in its automation engine, Atlassian Intelligence AI, and multiple view types (Board, Timeline, Calendar, Table, Dashboard, Map), making it adaptable from simple to-do lists to complex multi-team workflows. A key insight: Trello's true power emerges not from boards alone, but from strategic automation and view switching — teams that master automation rules and leverage the right view for each task type consistently complete projects faster and with less manual overhead.
What This Cheat Sheet Covers
This topic spans 22 focused tables and 208 indexed concepts, 113 flashcards. Below is a complete table-by-table outline of this topic, spanning foundational concepts through advanced details.
A jump-to index of every table row in this cheat sheet.
An interactive map of every table and concept in this topic.
Table 1: Core Building Blocks
Everything in Trello nests inside a simple hierarchy — workspaces hold boards, boards hold lists, lists hold cards — and once that structure clicks, the rest of the app makes intuitive sense. The elements below are the vocabulary you'll use constantly: labels and due dates for organizing cards at a glance, checklists and members for breaking down and assigning the work inside them.
| Element | Example | Description | |
|---|---|---|---|
Marketing Campaign Board | • Top-level container representing a project or workflow • holds multiple lists and can have custom backgrounds, Power-Ups, and member permissions. | ||
To Do → In Progress → Done | • Vertical column representing a workflow stage or category • cards move through lists as work progresses • lists can be reordered, copied, archived, collapsed, or color-coded. | ||
Write blog post about Q4 launch | Individual task or work item containing all task details — description, checklists, attachments, members, labels, due dates, and comments. | ||
Acme Marketing Team | • Organizational container grouping related boards • controls member access, billing, and shared settings across multiple projects. | ||
Priority: High Status: Blocked | • Color-coded tag for visual categorization — 30 colors plus a colorless option • multiple labels per card; toggle names with ;; add via hover and type 0–9• colorblind-friendly mode available. | ||
☐ Research keywords☐ Write draft☑ Get approval | • Subtask list within a card showing progress percentage on card front • Standard+ supports due dates and member assignments on individual checklist items. | ||
Assigned to: | • User assigned to a card, board, or workspace • receives notifications for changes • shown as avatar on card front. | ||
Due: Dec 15, 2026, 5:00 PM | • Deadline for card completion with configurable reminder timing • badge changes color: light grey (>24h), yellow (within 24h), red (just overdue), light pink (overdue >24h), green (marked complete). | ||
📎 design-mockup.pdf (2.3 MB) | • File, link, or cloud storage reference added to card; supports drag-and-drop • 10MB limit per file on Free, 250MB on paid plans. | ||
Great work! Ship by Friday. | • Timestamped discussion thread on a card; supports @mentions, markdown formatting, and emoji reactions • creates activity log for card history. |