Create advanced charts using Trello custom fields

Jan 24, 2025

Custom fields allow extending Trello's standard fields with your own fields. A typical use case is to add a number field for work estimate for the task (e.g. in hours or story points) but it doesn't have to stop there as you can add multiple fields to capture different types of information.

There are five different custom field types in Trello: Number, Date, Dropdown, Checkbox, and Text. Read on to learn how to create bar charts, number charts, line charts, scatter plot charts, table charts, and more, using data in your Trello custom fields.

Contents:

Integrating Trello with Screenful

Creating charts using Trello Number fields

Creating charts using Trello Dropdown fields

Creating charts using Trello Date fields

Creating charts using Trello Text fields

Creating charts using Trello Checkbox fields

Integrating Trello with Screenful

The Analytics & Reports by Screenful is available as Trello Power-Up. Once installed, you can access your Screenful charts and reports within the Trello UI.

You need to authorize Screenful to access the Trello API to get started. Once done, you will be shown a list of boards. Select one or more boards from the list to be imported to Screenful.

Once you have selected the boards for importing, the next step is to review your workflow.

When importing a board to Screenful, Screenful will automatically map the columns on your board to Not started, In progress, and Done.

In this example, the New column contains leads waiting in line for someone to start pursuing them. It is mapped to Not started. Once someone starts working on a lead, it goes through the states from Discovery to Proposal. Those lists are mapped to In progress. Finally, the lead ends up in either Won or Lost.

The workflow settings help Screenful understand what different states in your workflow mean and automatically generate reports based on the status of a card.

You can confirm the suggested mapping by clicking Looks good to me. The data import process starts, and you can access the automatically generated charts and reports within a few minutes.

Creating charts using Trello Number fields

Your Trello Number fields can be used as a unit of a chart. For example, if you have assigned estimates for tasks (e.g. hours or story points) using a custom numeric field, you can select it as a unit for a chart.

Screenful will automatically make all numeric fields available in the Unit menu in the chart editor.

What if you have multiple number fields and want to have all of them in one chart? Let’s assume you want to compare the values of three different number fields over time. You can do that by adding them to a multi-bar chart. First, pick one of the custom fields as the unit for the chart. After that, use the Add custom field button to add the other two fields:

Here’s the final chart with three different metrics grouped by week:

If you have a Dropdown field that you'd like to use as a unit, you can change the default field mapping.

Creating charts using Trello Dropdown fields

By default, your Trello Dropdown fields are available for grouping and filtering. When you are creating a chart that has a grouping option, you'll find all your select menus in the Group by menu:

When you want to filter the chart content, you'll find your select menus in the Filter window:

Here's a Stacked bar chart stacked by a single select field Component:

By default, your Dropdown fields are available for grouping and filtering. If you want to group & filter by Text fields, you can adjust the default field mapping.

Creating charts using Trello Date fields

All your Trello Date fields are automatically imported and made available for charts. Let's assume you have a custom date field, Date completed, on your board. By selecting Date completed as the metric for the chart, you can create a chart that shows how many items have the date in the past.

That will work the same way as if you had selected Completed (within date range), except that it will only look at the value in the date field. If the date is in the past, it is considered completed, regardless of the workflow state of that item.

Here's the resulting chart:

You can also create Task lists and filter them by custom date columns. Here's an example configuration for a Task list:

When you pick a date column from the menu, the resulting task list contains items that have the date within the specified date range:

You can track any number field by any date field. You can pick a number field from the Unit menu:

In this example, I have selected Deal value as the unit and by Completion date as the metric for the chart. Here's the resulting chart:

The chart shows the deal value generated during the selected period based on the Completion date column.

Creating charts using Trello Text fields

Your Trello Text fields are automatically imported and available for charts. By default, they are mapped in Screenful to Text type, which means they can be used as a column in a Task list.

If you want to use your text fields for grouping and filtering, you can change the default mapping at Data Mapping->Custom Fields:

In this example, the Text field Hours Estimation is mapped to Text. Clicking the row opens it for editing:

Selecting Group & Filter from the menu enables using the field for grouping and filtering.

Creating charts using Trello Checkbox fields

Your Trello Checkbox fields are automatically imported and available for charts. By default, they are mapped in Screenful to Text type, which means they can be used as a column in a Task list.