Trello is a project collaboration tool that organizes your projects into boards and cards. By glancing at a Trello board you can ascertain what's being worked on and who's working on it. By using cards to organize your projects and day-to-day work you can have a clear overview of your projects.
Trello can be used individually or to collaborate with other team members. It can be used not only to manage projects, but can also be used for all manner of tasks, such as a lesson planner, a community bulletin board, or an idea repository.
BoardsTrello uses boards, lists, and cards instead of a traditional project management structure of projects, tasks, and milestones. Boards can be created to operate in a similar manner to a project. In effect, a board is what a project is all about. On a Board you can create lists, which are populated with cards. When more than one person has access to the board, then the administrator can then assign cards to various individuals or groups. A team member that has been added to a card will then follow all the activity relating to it.
CardsCards are the basic elements, which when put together make up the project. Any cards that are created should be arranged sequentially in a vertical manner. Cards, in turn, make up a list. Cards can be used in all manner of ways, and because Trello has great drag-and-drop functionality you can attach images, docs or PDFs to a card right from your desktop. Trello also supports uploading data from Google Drive, Box, Dropbox, or a URL. A great feature of Trello is that it also takes any visual data you may have uploaded to a card and creates a cover image for it! This is great for those who like to glance at workloads throughout the day to see what is being worked on.
ListsLists are a collection of cards based upon a common goal. Lists help you to organize any cards that are similar in nature. These, when put together, make up a next-level hierarchy in a top-bottom approach to managing your project.
PricingTrello uses a Freemium, subscription pricing model. The Standard package is free and lets you manage as many boards as you want and attach cards up to 10MB in size. The Standard package also allows you to invite as many collaborators as you want as well. The next package is Business Class, at a cost of $3.75 per user per month, and finally the top tier package is Trello Gold, which costs $5 per month or $45 per year.
Bottom LineTrello is an inexpensive, easy-to-use, lightweight project management app that is heavy on visuals. Its mobile app supports various platforms and it also has support for 3rd party integrations. The downside is that it is quite light on features. There are no tangible reporting tools, no support for Gantt charts or billing for that matter. However, what Trello lacks in features, it makes up for in simplicity and easy of use. With Trello you can easily track projects using its kanban-style management, and although it is flexible, it is less powerful than other project management apps that are available.
