How to Build a Master Board in Trello

Published in Apps on 24/05/2019, last updated 03/11/2023.

More of a watcher than a reader? Check out our Trello master board webinar for a visual walkthrough of how to build one of these useful boards. Or you can follow our step-by-step walkthrough to sync Trello cards between multiple boards.

Following cards on one Trello board is a piece of cake. Following cards on three, five, or maybe even 10 Trello boards? Well, that’s a level of multi-tasking most of us can only aspire to.

When you need to know what work is due or see how a project is progressing, jumping from board to board to board can be a real productivity killer. To see Trello cards on multiple boards in one place, consider building a Trello master board. With Unito, you can sync cards from any number of boards to a single master board, providing you with a valuable overview that doesn’t interrupt your regular workflow.

“This is exactly the kind of thing we want to spend money on in order to grow our business and be scalable. With Unito’s help I put together a Trello Hub Board and it’s saving me hours and hours.”
AC Furey, Executive Director, Thirty-Six Education

Here’s how they boosted their sales pipeline with Unito

Trello master board use cases

Provide oversight to executives

If your organization has multiple teams working on different Trello boards, executives might have a tough time keeping up with everything on the go. Using a master board, you could, for example, filter every team’s “In Progress” board into one single board. Your executives gain the oversight they need without having to jump around, and you don’t need to email them updates or (*gasp*) add another meeting to go over it.

A Trello master board could also be used to escalate issues requiring executive approval or sign-off. Unito can be set up so that any card with a specific label, status, or custom field is synced to a centralized board. If you run into a task that needs approval, you could update the status to reflect that need and the card will appear in the master board. No emails or phone calls. Just a simple addition to the tool you’re already working in.

Delegate tasks more easily

For managers, Trello is an absolute lifesaver when it comes to staying on top of complex projects. But assigning each and every task to the appropriate team or team member and following progress on their individual boards can be time consuming.

One way to mitigate this is to create a master board for big projects or initiatives that includes all of the individual cards that will need to be completed before launch. Then, create labels for each team involved in the project. Finally, set up rules in Unito so that when you use one of these labels on a card on your master board, it syncs automatically to the corresponding team board. Using this system, you’re able to assign cards to the right teams from one place AND actually monitor all of these cards without ever leaving your master board. The more complex the project, the more time this master board will save you.

Manage multiple clients

Agencies, consultants, and freelancers can also find a ton of value in Trello master boards. Trello is a great way to share work progress with your customers. But If you’re working with multiple clients simultaneously, you end up spending way too much time jumping between each of their Trello boards to update them, or even just to see what you need to prioritize today.

With Unito, you could sync all of the cards from each client’s board to one master board so you always know what due dates are coming up. When you update each of these cards from the master board, the information will also automatically be updated on the client board, so they’re never left out of the loop.

Want to see what that looks like in action? Here’s a webinar about building a master board for managing multiple clients.

“I was really impressed by what the Unito team helped us achieve. Using Board Sync with our Trello Hub Board has really made us more efficient as a team because we’re working at such a large scale now.”
Sandra Owen, Finance & Operations, Acara Property Management

Here’s how Unito enabled a team of 10 to oversee work in 200+ Trello boards

How to build a Trello master board

1. Establish your intended workflow and create the master board

The first thing you need to do is plan out how you’re going to use your Trello master board. Are you driving all cards from one board to another one? Do you only want to centralize cards with a specific Trello label, status, or custom field? Will you be delegating cards from your master board to other boards? Consider how cards will be travelling and what labels or custom fields you might need so everything is ready before you build your master board workflow. Then, create the empty master board.

Unito’s Trello integration is what allows you to sync cards from board to board. You can sign up for a free two-week trial to test out how it works for you.

3. Create your Trello to Trello workflow

Read our full guide on how to build a Trello to Trello workflow with Unito.

Once you’ve signed up, make your way to the Unito App, and create a new workflow. From there, choose a Trello board as your first block of work. Pick the board that will feed information to your master board. Then create a second block for your Trello master board. You can either pick an existing Trello board or create a new one directly within Unito.

The next two steps are really vital for making the most of a Trello master board: setting rules and field mappings. Rules dictate how the cards will flow to and from your master board (i.e. only cards with this label or status end up on the master board). Because information can travel in both directions between boards, you need to ensure that each additional board you connect to your master board has unique rules. This prevents cards from being shared to boards where you don’t want them.

Field mappings, on the other hand, allow you to map the path of specific lists between boards (i.e. the “To-Do” list on the team board should land in the “Not done” list on your master board). For more on how to use rules and lists, visit the Unito guide.

4. Master your master board!

Once you’ve got your workflow set up, you should see the appropriate cards populated in your Trello master board. Now it’s time to make the most of all that time you’re saving!