In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to automate workflows on a Trello board using Crmble, powered by Make (formerly Integromat). Specifically, you’ll discover how to send a personalized email to a Crmble Contact whenever a deal card is moved to a specific list or stage in your pipeline. This highly requested automation can significantly boost your productivity across various use case scenarios.
But wait—there’s more! Make allows you to trigger actions based on many other Trello events. Beyond moving a card to a particular list, you can set triggers for when a card is labeled, a due date is marked as completed, or a checklist item is checked off. To send your email messages, Make can connect with various email services such as Gmail, Outlook, or even platforms like Mailchimp or Brevo. And you are not limited to sending emails, you can use many other action such as updating a Spreadsheet or database details of any of the many third party apps available in make. The possibilities are almost endless.
By the end of this detailed 30 minutes tutorial , you’ll have a deep understanding of how automations work in Make, and you’ll be inspired to create many other automations that help you achieve more with less effort and time.
Prefer to watch instead of read? Check out the video below!
Happy automating with Make!
Table of Contents
What you'll Learn
- How to create a Make account and set up a scenario
- How to connect Trello, Crmble, and a third party app of your choice to send an email (Gmail, Outlook, Mailchimp or Brevo) within Make
- How to automate sending personalized emails based on Trello actions like card movements, adding label or checking a due date or Checklist item
Prerequisites
- A Make account
- A Trello board with Crmble installed
- An account for any third party app you plan to use to send the email like Email SMTP credential for your custom domain Email, Google Workspace account (recommended for easier Gmail integration), Outlook Office 365, Mailchimp or Brevo.
If you're using a free Gmail account, additional steps are required to grant Make access due to Google’s security policies. This involves creating a Google Cloud project and configuring OAuth credentials.
Step 1: Create a Make Account
If you don’t have a Make account, sign up at make.com. You can log in using your Google account for quick access.
Step 2: Create a Scenario in Make
In Make, automations are referred to as “scenarios.” A scenario is a sequence of modules, with each module representing a specific step in your automation process related to a service or application.
Log in to Make and click the “+ Create a new scenario” button to start.
Step 3: Choose a Trello event: “Triggers when…”
These are the available Trello events in Make that can trigger actions:
- Card Moved to List:Triggers when a card is moved to a specific list.
- Card Created: Triggers when a new card is created in a board or list.
- Card Updated: Triggers when a card is updated, such as changes to the title, description, or other details.
- Card Labeled: Triggers when a label is added to a card.
- Card Due Date Set or Updated: Triggers when a due date is set or changed on a card.
- Checklist Item Completed: Triggers when an item on a checklist is marked as complete.
- Comment Added: Triggers when a comment is added to a card.
- Member Added to Card: Triggers when a member is added to a card.
- Card Archived: Triggers when a card is archived.
- Board Updated: Triggers when any changes are made to the board settings or structure.
Select the Trello Module: Click on the big “+” to configure the first module and search for Trello. Click on the “Show more” option to see all available events.
In our example we will use the “Card Moved to List”: Triggers when a card is moved to a specific list” as one of the more common use cases of a sales funnel scenario.
Step 4: Configure the Trello Module
4.1. Connect Your Trello Account:
Click on the connection field and sign in to Trello to give Make access to your boards.
4.2. Select the Board and List
Choose the Trello board and the specific list you want to monitor. This setup will check every 15 minutes for cards moved to this list.
Step 5: Test Your Trello Module
5.1. Activate the Module
Make will prompt you to activate the module. Choose “Now” to make it active immediately.
5.2. Create a Test Card
On your Crmble powered Trello board, create a test deal card and link it to a contact with an email address you can access to verify the automation.
5.3. Move the Card to trigger the action
Move this card to the list you specified earlier.
5.4. Run the Module
In Make, right-click the Trello module and select “Run this module only” to test if it correctly detects the moved card.
Step 6: Create the Crmble Module
Now that we’ve confirmed the trigger works, it’s time to add the Crmble action module to access the deal details in the Trello card.
6.1. Add a Crmble Module
Click the plus sign next to the Trello module to add a new module to the scenario. Then click on “Show more” and pick the “Search deal in Trello” action.
6.2. Connect Crmble
To connect Crmble, you’ll need an API token. Go to your Trello board, open Crmble, and navigate to Toppings > Make to copy your Crmble user API token.
No Make menu item? We are gradually rolling out updates to the Crmble menu options. If you do not see the new Make menu yet, please use the Token generator in the Toppings/Zapier section while we update your user account.
6.3. Select the Crmble Team and Board
Choose the Crmble Team and board where the automation will take place.
Note: If when selecting boards you see numbers instead of board names, please contact Crmble support using the support chat bubble. You’ll find it in this web page (bottom right) or when opening the Crmble menu in Trello (bottom right).
6.4. Use the Card ID
In the final field, select the Card ID variable from the Trello module. This step tells Crmble which Trello card you are referring to, allowing you to retrieve the Crmble details linked to that card, such as the contact’s email address, for the forthcoming steps.
Step 7: Create the Module for Sending Emails
Now it’s time to add the action to send our email. You can choose from a wide range of services integrated with Make. In our example, we will use a Google Workspace account, but you could also use “SMTP” (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) server credentials from your email service provider or an Office 365 account.
To find the available email services, search for “Email” in the next module in Make and select the one that best matches your requirements.
7.1. Add a Gmail Module
Click the plus sign next to the Crmble module and search for the Gmail integrations. Then select the Gmail “Send an Email” action.
7.2. Connect Gmail
Click on the “Create a connection” button to access the “Sign in with Google” option. Use your Google Workspace account to connect Gmail.
If you're using a free Gmail account, additional steps are required to grant Make access due to Google’s security policies. This involves creating a Google Cloud project and configuring OAuth credentials. Use the "this guide" link provided by Make in the Gmail module details. As an alternative, you may want to use the "SMTP" (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) module instead and connect your Gmail account via SMTP server details. For more details on how to use your Gmail account to send emails via Make or any other Email client using SMPT, please read more.
7.3. Set up the Email recipient
Click on the “+ Add a recipient” blue box and select Crmble’s Contact “email” using the Crmble module’s variables.
7.4. Subject
Customize the subject line using variables, such as “Hi [FirstName].”
7.5. Message Body
Write your email message in any text editor and copy/paste it into the body field. You can include HTML for more advanced formatting.
You can use services such as Stripo to design your Emails in a richer style. Mailchimp and Brevo also offer the option to copy the HTML code of the templates and campaign message designs which you can paste in the content field in Make.
Brevo example
This is how you can copy the HTML preview code of a message in Brevo.
A) Head to your Templates section in Brevo and click on Preview/View the HTML code
B) Then select the whole HTML code and right click to copy.
C) Go back to Make and paste the HTML code in the Content field
D) Replace any variables you may be using with Brevo with Crmble variables to personalize the message.
Step 8: Test and Activate Your Automation
If you’ve made it this far, congratulations! 🥳 You’re almost finished with your automation setup. Now it’s time to test it to ensure everything works as expected before turning the automation on.
8.1 Testing the full scenario
- Go back to Trello, move the test card to the designated list in step 4.2
- In Make, click “Run Once” to test the entire scenario.
- Check your inbox to see if the email was sent correctly.
8.2 Activate the Automation
Once everything is working as expected, switch the scenario to ON to keep the automation running.
Conclusion
You’ve successfully set up an automation using Make that sends personalized emails whenever a Crmble deal card is moved to a specific list on Trello. This automation will help you stay consistent and on top of your communication process, ensuring that every move in your sales pipeline triggers timely and personalized outreach.
By now you should also have a much deeper knowledge about the Trigger -> Action logic of automations. We can’t wait to see what clever automations you’ll come up with.
We love feedback, so please leave a comment in our support chat if you get stuck or for any suggestion you may have for additional Crmble actions you’d like to see in the future.
