How to import projects from Trello into Ora for even better desktop project management

Jack Wallen shows you how easy it is to import your Trello projects into the Ora desktop app on macOS.

Project management is a crucial aspect of any business. Without the ability to effectively and efficiently manage a project, you and your teams will struggle.

When you set out to find a good project management solution, you’ll find yourself up against way too many options. The good news is that most project management solutions tend to be very user-friendly, robust and cost-effective. One of my favorite project management services is Trello.

Of course, Trello does have a handy desktop app, but you might be thinking that you depend on more than just Trello for project management. You might use a combination of Asana, Jira, Trello and GitHub for all of your project management needs.

SEE: Hiring kit: Project manager (TechRepublic Premium)

If that’s the case, you might be interested in a service and desktop app called Ora. The service is yet another project management tool that offers an outstanding web-based interface but also a nicely designed desktop app.

One of the nice things about Ora is that it allows you to import from all of the services I mentioned before. If you use Asana, Jira, Trello and GitHub, Ora could be a single point of entry for those services. How do you make this connection? Let me show you.

What you’ll need to import Trello projects into Ora

The only things you’ll need for this are accounts for both Ora and Trello, as well as the desktop app. You can install Ora on Linux, macOS and Windows. I’ll demonstrate on Pop!_OS Linux. You don’t have to worry about having a paid account for either service, as this will work on the free tier, so make sure to at least sign up for the free editions for both.

How to install the Ora desktop app

The first thing you’ll need to do is install the Ora desktop app. On macOS and Windows, it’s as simple as downloading the installer file and running it. On Linux, you install Ora via Snap, which means it’s limited to only those distributions which support Snap packages.

On Linux, you open a terminal window and install Ora with the command:

sudo snap install ora

Once the package is installed, open it and log in with your Ora account (Figure A).

Figure A

Once you’ve logged in, click Create New Project (Figure B).

Figure B

In the resulting popup (Figure C), click Import From.

Figure C

Click Trello from the resulting list (Figure D).

Figure D

I did run into a problem with both the Linux and macOS apps at this point. When clicking the Trello icon, I received the error:

Invalid return_url. The return URL should match the application’s allowed origins. Contact the developer.

If you see the same error, you’ll then have to turn to the web-based version. The process for connecting Trello to Ora is the same. Either way you go, a pop-up window should open where you can connect your Trello account to your Ora account.

Once the connection is made, you’ll then be prompted to select which Project to link (Figure E).

Figure E

Select the project to link and then click Confirm. In the next window, you must match a Trello user to an Ora user. Make sure to select the Ora drop-down (Figure F) and click the user you want to match to the Trello account.

Figure F

After mapping users, click Match Members & Import. Let Ora do its thing and you’ll very quickly see your Ora account populate with items from the Trello project. Even if you had issues importing from the desktop app, that Trello project will show up after you’ve successfully imported it from the web-based version.

And that’s all there is to importing Trello projects to the Ora app. Hopefully, the developers of Ora will fix this issue in the desktop app, so you don’t have to do it like me and head back to the web-based version for the import. However, no matter which way you go, you can get it done and enjoy working with various projects from a single interface.

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