What are Trello Power-ups and why should I use them?

To say that Trello has proven transformational to efficiency and productivity to every kind of business imaginable is quite the understatement.

Yet a big part of this versatility can be found in Trello Power-Up functions – technically lightweight but functionally powerful ways of making Trello work even more in your favor.

The best Trello Power-Ups have become the go to functionalities sought out by thousands, perhaps millions of users worldwide. And it's no wonder because many power-ups like the ones by Hipporello help users get their idea off the ground relatively quickly, with strong support from the Trello community.

And the best part? Trello and the Trello power-ups users don’t necessarily have to come from a technical background. Installing a Trello power-up makes it readily available on your Trello board and improves your workflow one way or another.

As we explore in today’s article, even someone with no technical knowledge can still have the right tools and abilities to make some of the best out of Trello and even build their workflows there. Before we dive into the specifics, let’s first see what a Trello power-up is.

What is a Trello Power-Up?

Although similar to an integration, a Trello Power-Up works similarly to how a power-up works in a video game – enhances, improves and strengthens what you can do!

Trello is a visual Kanban tool that empowers your team to manage any type of project, workflow or task tracking and each Kanban board is fully customizable with the help of power-ups that you can install based on your needs.

Trello Power-Ups are consistently added for multiple purposes. Some help users to find ways for your Trello Power-Ups to import data from third party sources, collate information for at-a-glance analysis, or simply smooth over pain points in your everyday workflow.

Each Trello Power-Up is designed with real plug and play modality. Activated in a few clicks of the menu, Trello Power-Ups can enhance even the most complex of Trello boards in revolutionary ways.

What can I do with Trello Power-Ups?

The best Trello Power-Ups are those that enhance your operations – importing data from spreadsheets on your behalf, tracking customer engagement and security, managing approvals or simply streamlining what you can do with your Trello boards.

Trello Power-Up marketplace is rich with tools that solve workflow and collaboration problems and enrich the experience for HR teams, automations, project management, analytics & reporting and more.

Some power-ups can be shared among entire working teams, while others can be activated for specific specializations in your organization – an approvals tool might be integrated in the workflow of any team where tasks, content, requests or anything in a Trello card needs to be approved at some point in the workflow.

Some others are targeted for specific teams. Developers, for example, might be interested in adding power-ups specific to their workflows from the Developer tools category.

This is one of the points that makes Trello a strong tool: the ability to customize a Trello board with power-ups based on the nature of the workflow and the team.

How can I add Power-ups to my board?

Power-ups can be found and added in two ways: from Trello Power-ups marketplace or right from your board.

Adding power-ups from the Trello Power-ups page:

Various power-ups and integrations are listed under categories such as analytics & reporting, IT & project management, marketing & social media, and more. It is also possible to search for functionality to find the suitable power-up for your needs.

Adding power-ups right from your Trello board:

If you would like to add power-ups directly from your board, all you need to do is to click the Power-ups button on your board and select Add power-ups. Similar to the Trello Power-ups page, it’s possible to search for and read more about power-ups and add them to your board easily.

And luckily, there are no limitations to the number of power-ups you can enable – the only limitations to how many Trello Power-Ups you can activate are really the capabilities of your computer!

Each Trello Power-Up is often designed to reduce friction, speed up your workflow and accurately collate the data your organization needs to get things done. As such, you can weave as many of them into your workflow as you wish.

Are Trello Power-Ups free of charge?

While many Trello Power-Up integrations are available free of charge, there are also some that come with a cost. For the most part, Trello Power-Up developers will price the best Trello Power-Ups fairly – either per-use or via a subscription model.

Each Trello Power-Up will display in its details whether or not a cost is incurred to use it. This information is nice and transparent, so you ought not fear any hidden charges when you add a new Trello Power-Up to your collection.

How do I turn off or delete Power-Ups in Trello?

The best Trello Power-Ups are designed to be permanent additions to your daily workflow, and slot neatly into the active use of your board. However, while every Trello Power-Up is easy to set up and activate, they are fortunately very easy to deactivate too, if you need to.

Doing so involves clicking on the settings gear in the menu of the Trello Power-Up you’re looking to deactivate. From there, simply click on ‘Disable’ – the Trello Power-Up in question will deactivate, and no longer function on the board.

You can follow this same process to again enable your Trello Power-Up if you change your mind later. However, disabling and enabling Power-Ups as required lets you compare similar Power-Ups that have similar capabilities without their functionalities clashing. From there, you can easily choose the best Trello Power-Ups for you until you create the workflow you need for your work.

Can I create my own Trello Power-Up or unique workflow?

Absolutely! In fact, the entire community benefits for every Trello Power-Up, but it might be confusing to add multiple power-ups. It’s sometimes hard to manage subscriptions for all. Or even with many helpful power-ups, you might still need your own solution. Or you might want to get an end-to-end business process solution for your team. In that case, you can either check a ready-to-go Trello power-up that offers an end-to-end business process solution or create yours with one or more of the following components: Automations, forms, email integration, web pages, group-based access control and more.

With a few hours of tinkering, you should be able to create yours and do a test drive.

Yet what is especially exciting is that someone who doesn’t have the same technical know-how as the average Trello Power-Ups developers can still create their ideal Trello workflow. All you need is an idea and some motivation – the rest can be achieved by working with a solution such as Hipporello Builder.