Is Trello any good for localization project managers?
Welcome to another episode in this series, where every month we’ll check out a new project management platform and see how viable it is for localization. All online software will be either free or with a free trial, so you can try it on your own.
In this video, I’ll show you how to use Trello to schedule your localization projects. Together, we’ll plan two simple projects and create one dashboard.
Andrej Zitoย
Hi everyone, this is Andrej from Localization Academy. In this video, I’m going to present you four different options how you can use Trello to structure and monitor your localization projects, it all comes down to how we’re utilizing boards, cards, the checklists, and the labels. If you want to find out different ways how you can structure maybe even things outside of localization projects, then check out this video. Alright, let’s go sign up, it’s free, create your account, we’ll use the list from Google to create account full name, create account, let’s set up your workspace. Let’s say if you are a localization company, maybe you want to create a workspace for all your production or for all your projects. So we’re going to call this production. Okay? Try, try, try Trello premium free for 30 days, I’m going to activate this right now the reason why we’re doing this is this thing. So the premium allows you to view your data in new ways, like timeline. And if you’ve seen any of my previous videos, you know that I’m a big, big proponent and fan of nice Gantt charts, I think it’s the best way how you can monitor your projects, visually if you’re a visual person, Start Free Trial. So I’ve surrendered my credit card. So the whole idea with Trello is that you create boards, which are the visual, let’s say, Kanban boards, where you have your cards, and you move your cards through some lists, which can represent your statuses or whatever you want. So we’re going to simply start by creating our first board. So board title, I’m going to call this one “my projects.” And let’s just start with the blue. Although I think success to every Kanban board is picking the right background, the way we’re going to utilize the board, the cards, and the checklists, and even the labels in this case is that we’re going to have a board where we’re going to put all of our projects. And in this one, we’re going to use one card to represent one project. This is the most simple way how you can do this things. But I’ll show you what are the limitations of this approach, as soon as we create the cart. So by default, you’re going to have the, you know, the typical three statuses to do doing or in progress and done. But what we’re going to do is we’re going to change this to represent our workflows. So since we are tracking, let’s say, all of our projects, in this one board, I think this view could be good for, let’s say, higher level management, where you really just need to get a quick peek of where all the projects are. And if even if you’re handling multiple projects, especially if they’re going through, let’s say a few workflow steps, I think this could work unless you really need that grand total level of detail, which I’m showing in all of my previous tutorials where we really want to see if I don’t know what a German translation was, confirm or if the translator or reviewer if they are available for the task and so on. So these are very brand new things, which will be slightly difficult to track here. So what was I saying? Yes, that we want to track the main statuses instead of to do doing and done. So what we’re going to do is we’re going to say that we have a new project, then the project is in translation, then it’s undergoing review. And then we’re going to do done, what we’re going to do is we’re going to create our first card, which is, let’s say Project A,
Andrej Zito
what you can do on your Project A is you can set a date, which in this case would be the date for the whole project. So I’m going to check the start date, because we want to see the start date and the due date so that we can display the whole duration of the project. And let’s say that our project starts on 11th. And it’s exactly four weeks, so it’s going to end on May 6. Do we want a due date reminder, I don’t think we want it and we’re going to save it. So now we have our date edit for the cart. And you can see it here. It’s displaying right on the cart. So Project A is going from April 11 to May 6. The way you can utilize the current setup is that of course, once you land the Project A it can From the client, you have the request. And once you send it for translation, or you start working on translation, you move with here to the translation status. And then once you finish translation, you move it to the review. And then when it’s all finished and delivered, you put it to done. Okay, so this is a very simple approach of Kanban boards I like. I like Kanban boards. I use it for a lot of the things. But I think when it comes to the projects, especially if you need to follow certain dates, which of course, it’s what the project management is about, then I think the camera work is not the best way to monitor your projects. But of course, it can give you some good ideas. So let’s go back to the new thing. So even if we’re doing translation, we don’t know, what is the status of the languages, we don’t even know what are the languages right now. So what we’re going to do is we’re going to utilize the checklists. So what you can do in Trello, is you can create a checklist. And we’re going to say that this is a checklist for translation. And I think, within the checklist, we’re going to add checkboxes, or items for each language. So German, French, Japanese, Korean, or standard set of four languages. We don’t need to assign people yet. The good thing that I found just now is that you can actually add a due date, or each item or checklist, so I’m going to do it. And since we’re starting, maybe I should put it here. So I can edit this, I can say this is 30k words. And now we’re going to add due dates to our items, our checklist items or checkboxes. So due date, since it’s 30k, and we’re starting on one day, our due date will be three weeks from then so 29th. So here we have checklists for translation. Next, what we can do is we can create another checklist on the same card, which is Project A, and I’m going to call a review. And this one is for hours. And we can copy the items from the existing
Andrej Zito
checklist for translation. So I’m going to do that so I don’t have to type it. And now I just need to modify the due dates. So the due dates for this one will be one week later, so may 6. Alright. And that is our very simple setup for Project A, where we have translation review. And one card represents one project. So now instead of just seeing that, okay, Project A is in translation, what we can do is we can take off the individual languages as we get the translations back. Okay. And then when we have all the translations completed, so you can see that the translation checklist is fully completed. That’s when let’s say we move the cart, and we start working on the review. The problem here is that the path to getting let’s say, I don’t know German, French, Japanese Korean translate, it takes certain steps along the way, right? as I show in the other tutorials, what we first do is we send a handoff, right, then we want to get a confirmation about the handoff, and then we get it delivered. And in some cases, let’s say you want to book the reviewers ahead of the time, you send them a heads up, and then you want that heads up to be confirmed. So these are the things that I don’t know how in this current structure, you will be tracking. One thing that you can always do is you can use comments, just to give yourself some notes like you would do on a on a pen and paper. Or maybe you could structure your check list items even further. Let’s say under translation, you would have I don’t know German, heads-up, send, German hand-off, confirmed and so on. So then you will have a lot a lot of checkboxes, but it’s always fun to kick off things, I think. So that’s one way how you can utilize this. Another thing that we’re going to that I’m going to show you is the labels, which is another way how you can structure things. So in this case, since we have our project represented by the cart, and we have the workflow steps represented by the lists, so the stages that we move through, and we have our let’s say subtasks for each language, the way how we can utilize the labels is to simply give some sort of like a high level signal of where the whole project is. So we can say that the green one will be called on track, the red one would be delayed. And the orange one would be at acknowledge, say on hot. Okay, so this one will be on track. And the labels at least make it a little bit more colorful. So you can see that our project a is currently undergoing review, we can see the whole timeline for the project. And we can see the green label, which means it’s on track. And then if you open it here, you can start drilling into a little bit more detail. So you can see the status for the review for each language of your project. And then if we have another, Project B, which is, let’s say, undergoing translation, you can label it as the late so it’s late. One final thing that I want to show you is the timeline, the new thing that we activated with the premium feature of Trello. So I’m just going to quickly say that this dummy project that we just added, let’s say it started last Monday, and it’s due, I don’t know, let’s say Friday, right. So that’s why it’s too late.
Andrej Zito
Okay, so by default, if you don’t have premium version activated, I think you will only be able to see boards. That’s that’s the standard thing, what Trello represents for me, but now that we have activated the premium, what we can do here is we can change it to a timeline view. So once you’re in the timeline view, by default, the zoom level is kind of like week, if you zoom out to a month, I think it’s slightly better. And here you can see the timeline for each cart. Right? This is very important, as we go further into the other options, because you can only see the timeline for the cart, because that’s where you set the start date and due date. So that’s the level of information that you’re also going to get on the timeline. So in our case, we can only see that Project B was starting on Monday, fourth, and supposed to finish on Friday 8, and Project A is starting on on the 11th. And it’s supposed to be finished by May 6, you have several options how you want to, let’s say group, these cards, you can just follow the list which follows the workflow steps order that we defined, you can also use labels. So for example, here we see the projects that are that are on track, and the ones that are delayed. And that’s pretty much it. So I cannot even define unless I’m missing something, I cannot even define what is displayed on the on the cards here, I can always click it and go inside of it. But it would be nice. For example, if I stick to the List View, to at least showed the labels on these cards, I think this is pretty much a new feature. And maybe it still needs some development, some extra things. But this is the time that we’re going to get even for our future options. And speaking of that, I think we’re done with option number one. So let’s get right into option two, or option two, we’re going to create another board though, before I do that, let me rename this one, my projects number one, we’re going to create another board, which will be called my projects. Number two. And the reason why I call it my projects number two is because in this case, we’re also going to utilize the whole board to track all of our projects. But we’re going to change with each card represents Okay, that is always the most important thing. What is the what does the card represent? So previously, one card represented one project. And in this case, one card is going to represent the main task of our project workflow. So we have translation review, and then we have delivery. Okay, so this will be the cards represented for our projects. So because we have the cart represent the workflow step, it doesn’t make sense for us to do I don’t know, translation and review, right? Because then we would have the translation cards on the translation. And then what would we do with that? So in this case, what we’re going to do is we’re just going going to have to do that in progress. And finally, we’re going to have done. So very simple lists that we have here. And like I mentioned, each card will represent the domain task, the workflow step of a project. So what that means is that we’re going to simply say we have a translation, you have a review, and we have a delivery. Okay, this should be very familiar to you from the previous tutorials. Now, the problem is that we don’t know what kind of project this is. So you can always put it I don’t know into the title. But what we’re going to do now is we’re going to utilize the labels to label these cards, as this is Project A. Okay, so our green one will be Project A, now I don’t need to save the information. And maybe, let’s say the yellow one will be Project B.
Andrej Zito
Don’t need this. Now the benefit of this approach is that now we can actually set the timeline for each task in our project workflow. So for translation, what it means is that our translation is starting on Monday 11th. And it ends on Friday 29th. Okay, the same way, we can set up view. So our view, first of all, we want to associate it with Project A. And then we said the timeline, and we say that it starts on May 2, and ends on May 6. And our delivery, again, will be associated with Project A. And we’re going to set this one to simply May 6. There, simple as that. Now, since we have the cart represent the let’s say, the main task, the main workflow step of a project, we can now utilize the checklists in a more granular way. So the problem that we had in option number one is that we didn’t know how to track the different sub statuses, right? So that’s how we can utilize the checklist in this case, so we can have had some sense. And where are we going to put German, French, Japanese, Korean, and that I’m going to create another checklist which will be heads-up, confirmed, and I’m just going to copy the items from this one. Right, then create another checklist, which will be hand-off, sent, copy our items, because they’re the same. And then we have another checklist, which will be hand-off, confirmed, copy. And that’s that. And once it gets delivered, well, technically, we want to also track delivery, right? delivered. Just copy it here because we want to be granular and only once everything is delivered, then we considered the whole thing done. So the way it works, how you go through the project in this case is that this is basically like all the main things, the main tasks that you need to do for your projects. And you start from the top. So first of all, we start with translation. Right? Right. So once you start working on a translation, let’s say you move this to In Progress, right, because we’re moving, we’re working on translation. And the way that we handle this is let’s say, We have sent the handoff or translation on Project A. And then when the handover is confirmed, we’re going to do this. And as we start getting deliveries, we tick it off. And once we have everything delivered, we’re going to move the translation for Project A to done. And at the same time, let’s say once the translation is completed, we can start working on review. But let’s say you can this is where it’s a little bit better because let’s say excuse me, let’s say that your I don’t know translation is done for the Asian languages, that the European languages are not completed yet. But at the same time, you can already have review going on or the Asian languages right And for the European languages, you could have at least done the headsets. So in this case, you would just copy over checklists from the translation into this one because we’re doing the same, let’s say the sub status. So heads up, son heads up, confirm handoffs and handoff, confirm and delivered at pretty sure there must be a way how you can, let’s say, copy multiple checklists, I think maybe using the bottler, which gives you some sort of automation. But that is, let’s say, out of the scope of this tutorial. Okay, I’m just going to quickly demonstrate so that I’m not just speaking like an idiot. So let’s say we want to do heads-up sent.
Andrej Zito
And heads-up confirmed. Alright? So what we did probably is, in this case, let’s say Japanese, Korean are delivered. But I think we would have already sent had some everything. And technically everything would be confirmed. And then when we do and have sent, we would probably only send it forward to Asian languages because the translation for those has been completed. Right. So just to demonstrate how it works with multiple projects, is that you will have another translation. And in this case, maybe what I can do is I can do a copy the translation, so that I copy all of the checklists. So I think this is actually what I was talking about before. Maybe there’s a way how you can automate it. And maybe you can just create some, I don’t know, some template card that you just create a copy of, and then you just created for each project that you needed. So we’re going to copy a card, which will be again called translation, the label, we don’t need to copy, we need to copy the checklists. And we’re going to put it into to do position to create, okay, the dates have been copied as well. But let’s say that this is Project B, okay? And all the checklists, actually, that’s pretty good thing. The way that they copied the checklist is everything is unchecked. So I’m going to actually copied this one again, I’m going to use it word view. And this time, I can leave the labels as they are. So this will be our review. And then finally, let’s to the delivery for our Project B. And I’m slightly going to adjust the dates. So let’s say for this one, the translations are it this week, and goes I don’t know, two weeks. All right, and review starts on April 18. And let’s get it for one week. So April 22. So we deliver on April 22. Correct. So when you have multiple projects going on, if you really want to just zoom into one project, and you don’t want to add in a look at the color coding, you can utilize the filters. So here, you can just filter Project A or Project B. Now finally, let’s have a look at the timeline how it looks like now. So let me zoom out to the month. And this is where you can see things. So the problem here is that it doesn’t show our labels, which is what I was telling you about before. So one way how you could technically handle this is that you would actually put your project name at the start.
Andrej Zito
So that way, you can see the projects here, or let’s try to labels. So here we have our labels. And this I think is slightly better. So you can see our Project A, which has the translation going from this to this review from here to here. And then we deliver. And then we have Project B translation review and delivery. So I think it’s starting to look slightly better. The thing that we don’t see right now is we don’t see let’s say the translation timeline for German, French, Japanese and Korean. Which brings us to option number three. So I’m going to create another one. And this case, I’m going to create a board only for one project. So we’re going to say Project A. And the reason why we’re creating a board for one project is because we’re going to have a lot of arts here, just for one project. So it can be overwhelming if you’re managing multiple projects. And the reason why we’re going to have multiple projects is because we’re going still lower and lower. Okay, the first option was one card equals project. Second option was, one card represents the main task or the workflow step of a project. Now, in the third case, we’re going even more granular, and we’re going to have our cart represent a sub task for a language. So what it means is that we’re going to have, let’s say, translation, German translation, French translation, Japanese translation, court. And same way we’re going to have review, German, there’ll be your French review, Japanese review, Korean, and then we have delivery. Alright, so now we don’t need to sit the cards in any way to associate him with a certain project, because they’re already part of the board, which is about Project A. So now that I loaded up the tasks, let’s fix the status, the lists, so the list will be very similar to what we did for option number two. So this will be to do in progress. And done. Alright, so let’s look at the information that we want to be tracking for each of these things. So here we have the dates. And this is where you, this is what allows you to go very granular. So we can set the dates for each sub task. And of course, it will be way better if I just first set up the first card, and then I just copied the things that I need. So I might do that. So we have the date set. So the way how we can utilize the checklists is that we’re going to create just one checklist right now, because we know this is for translation. So what we’re going to do is we’re going to say that’s sent, it’s confirmed, and have sent and have confirmed and delivered. Okay, so because our card is for the, let’s say, the the lowest level in our hierarchy, which is the German translation, there’s nothing below this. So we are only tracking. So we only, we only need one checklist, which is for the sub, which is for the subs datasets. So that is the means like if we are securing the translation. Now, how are we going to utilize the labels, you can see that my tasks contain, let’s say the sub tasks for each language, and for each workflow step. And then we also have a delivery, which is kind of like a bigger task. So since we’re mixing these two, what we can do is we can use our labels to say that, let’s say I don’t know the blue ones, will be the main tasks.
Andrej Zito
And the yellow ones will be the sub tasks. So in this case, this is a sub task. And our delivery will be the main task. There’s, of course, the option to utilize the labels to represent the projects, which is what we did in the second option. And that is how you can utilize one board for all of your projects. Okay, if we use the labels, for our projects, we can technically load up all the sub tasks and even the main tasks here in the one board, and maybe that is what would work for you. Because especially if you use the filters you can get by but if you have a lot of languages, and a lot of workflow steps. So the combination of the languages and the workflow steps would give you a lot of cards. So that’s why I think maybe it’s simpler to use one board per project. But of course, if you use filters, it can work. Of course, let me just say one thing here is that everything that we do here is really, really manual. So I don’t think that Trello is the best way, I think all of the other platforms that we tried before, are much simpler and much more suited to what we what we want, and it’s easier to maintain. So this is just like to give you a couple of options, maybe to think about how to use Trello for other things. Okay, so now that we have our cards defined, what I would have should have normally done is to create the other cards as a copy so that I don’t have to type it again. So translation, DE, what we’re going to do is we’re just going to copy it to French, copy it to Japanese, and copy it to Korean. Okay, and I don’t want to make the same mistake or view. So I don’t know why I forgot about German. So let’s do German. Let’s label this as a sub task. And let’s set the date. So start date is May 2nd, and we finished May 6, safe. And checklists are pretty much the same that we have for everything. So the sub status. So now that I have defined German, I’m going to get rid of these guys. And I’m just going to pick it into French. In to Japanese, and into Korean. There we go. Now, I’m not sure I don’t think that Trello ever had any way to order things. Not sure if I’m missing something. But I’m just going to order in manually. So transition first German, French, Japanese, Korean. I think this is German, French, Japanese and Korean and then we have done, which is behind my camera. So the way this would work is let’s say you started working on translation. So you ideally, of course, I guess, started working on translation for all the languages. And here getting very granular is, let’s say our German has been confirmed, French hasn’t been confirmed as well. Japanese has been I don’t know, just send and Korean has been also just sent. Okay, and then once we have some language delivered, we tick it off, and then you move it to done. So translation for German for Project A is done. And this is what actually allows you to see our, I mean, set dates different for different languages. So let’s say our French would be I don’t know two days later. So you can set it here. And the reason why this works is because it gives us the timeline that we always wanted. So if I go here, session month,
Andrej Zito
and here you can see the schedule. The only weird thing is that because we have this ordered by the lists, so the things that need to do are still on the top, you cannot expect the same, you know, waterfall, nice Gantt chart like we have in other places. think there is probably some way how you could do this, but I don’t know how to do it right now. And we’re also missing the delivery date, because I only set the due date. So I have three and what is it by three, it should be May 6. There we go. May 6, if we go back to the timeline, there is our delivery. So now that I switch to the monthly view, using the label, I think this is way better because it groups things together. The only thing is that our main task is slightly away. Although I think if you use let’s say the green one for the main tasks, and the yellow for the sub tasks, I think you would have a nice kind of like a wrapper here for the main tasks. And then you see the sub tasks below. So I think this looks pretty nice if this is the level of the information that you want, okay, all of these different options are based on the level of information and the data that you want to see and that is important for you to manage your projects. Now for our fourth final option which is kind of like a boss. Just to give you an idea Yeah, how you can do it differently is that, what we can do is create another board, which will be about our projects. And in this case, what we’re going to do, instead of tracking the tasks, or the projects, or the sub tasks, what we’re going to do here is that we’re going to have each cart represent the language on a project. So therefore, we need to set up our lists our main, let’s say, Kanban statuses based on the workflow steps that we have for the project. So let’s say we have to do we have translation, we have review, and we have delivered. Okay, so like I mentioned, the idea is that we have one card per language. So I’m going to add this Korean. And now here’s the tricky part is, how are we going to use the dates, so you cannot say the date here, for German will technically you can set the date for the full duration, which will be pretty much the duration of the project, right. So in this case, it will be I don’t know from elevens to six. But the confusing thing is that because your card, your each language is going through different workflow steps, right? As it is in the TMS. It means that ideally, the due date, and the start date would change, based on the current workflow step that that language is in, I think maybe there’s a way how you can do it through automation. But that’s, let’s say too much for me. So what we’re going to be doing, I’m going to show you now. So that so I’m going to show you. So in a while, I’m going to show you how I’m going to let’s say create a workaround around this. The way how we’re going to do this is since this is our project, we’re going to again, once again, create labels for the project. So let’s say this is Project A. And no, I don’t want to do that. And this will be also Project A, this will be also Project A and Korean also Project A. Okay, now, how are we going to utilize the checklist is we can technically create one checklist, where are you going to put all the step statuses that we want to track? Confirmed, delivered. And the way it works is that let’s say you have a German in the translation. So I don’t know you send the handoff, it gets confirmed it gets delivered. When it’s delivered, you move it to review. And that’s when you sort of reset the checklist. So that’s one way how you can do this. Or, of course, you can always create checklists for each
Andrej Zito
stage, which I think would be way cleaner way to do it. So here we will have one view, and we double fix. So let’s go back is let’s say we’re doing the translation. So we did these things. They confirm and then they delivered. And in the meantime, we already send the headsup for German, and it was confirmed. So then we can start working on it, we send off the handoff, and it was confirmed and so on. So this is another way how you can do this. And of course, if you have another project, which has I don’t know, let’s say French again, what you would do is that you would set it to work checked. Be okay. The thing is that right now, like I told you right now, we don’t have any information about the dates, because only thing we can set is that okay, let’s say our German is going from 11 until six right for weeks. And that is what is going to show up on our timeline. But this is not that useful because in most cases, at least based on my experience, you want to have all of the languages run pretty much in parallel and handle the whole project at the same time. So I’m going to actually get rid of the date and the way we can sort of hack this is if we want to have the information about when we are running the translation. When we are running review and when we are trying delivery is we can add kind of like a supplementary cart. And we can say that this is at a no translation or our Project A, and we’re going to use this cart to set the date from 11th until 29th. And then we’re going to create another card here, which will be for you What did on the top. And again, this will be for Project A, and our checklist note, and our dates will be starting on the May 2, going all the way to May 6. There. So now that I added this supplementary cards, what you can do on the timeline is that you can actually see them. So if I zoom out of the month, you can see the translation and review. If I change this to the labels, you can see our project a has translation running from here to here, and a review from here to here. So it requires a little bit of extra effort. But in this case, you set the dates for let’s say all the languages. So at least this is kind of like really like a workaround. This is really kind of work around for you to be able to see the tasks for your projects on the timeline, if that is what you like to have done. If that is what this is kind of this is kind of like a workaround, if you really want to have that timeline for your projects displayed. The problem is that it’s kind of like the maintenance thing on this thing. So let’s say if we are doing translation for German friend, Japanese, Korean, German is already in review, let’s say as we go. The other languages will also move forward into the review stage. So now our translation is done. So here is the question, what do you do with this cart,
Andrej Zito
you can leave it there until your whole project is done. And then once it’s done, you can just archive all the cards that are related to Project A, which is good thing because you can still filter it. So that would work. Based on my few experimentation with Trello during the live stream, these are the couple of options that I thought of. The problem with Trello, no matter how much I used to love Trello I think it’s really still great, especially for the basic things with the cards is the hierarchy of the information. So you really need to do some workarounds. Because it’s about the way how you utilize the workspace, the boards and the cards, and maybe the checklists and the labels to structure your thing. It’s not as straightforward as creating tasks and subtasks and sub sub tasks in other platforms, right, it was one of the main criterias that I was looking for if we can easily create sub tasks in the other platforms. So here you cannot create something like sub carts or something like that. You can only create checklists within the carts, which of course, depending on the level of information that you need to track for your project. It can work or it cannot work. And I think again, like I’m pointing out in the beginning is that unfortunately, if you really want to use the timeline, and have it displayed visually, you need to get the premium thing of Trello. So yeah, that’s it. Take care.
