How to: Build a basic CRM for your personal life with Trello and Zapier

UPDATE 28/09/26: I’ve updated steps 3 to 5 for how Zapier works now. The Trello triggers do more of the work, so you don’t need any filters or have to subscribe to every card. Each Zap is now a trigger and one action. The screenshots are still from 2016. Zapier’s screens look different, but the fields you need are still there.

Are you rubbish at remembering to catch up with people? (I sure am)

Whether it be mates you haven’t seen in a while, cool people you met at events or clients, it is SO hard to keep up with everyone. For a long time, I’ve wanted a system that would pop up every so often and say “Oi, you haven’t seen Steve in ages. Don’t be a prick. Go see him.”

I’m definitely not the only one. My search for a “Social CRM” has yielded only threads of people asking for one. Most people end up using a full blown CRM, which seems overkill.

Like pretty much everyone in the online biz space, I freaking love Trello. After spending a bit of time messing around with Trello and Zapier, I’ve managed to build a pretty simple CRM that does exactly what I wanted in the beginning.

You only need to create two Zaps and one Trello board.

The basic premise is to set a due date on when you should catch up with each person. If you contact that person, add a comment on their card and the due date will be reset to a period determined by the label you applied in Trello. If the due date is reached, we’ll create a to-do in another app.

Step 1 – Create your Trello contact board

I broke mine down into lists (columns) that categorise where I know that person from. Local business, certain events, friends, whatever. This is optional. You could also just write it in the card name. If you use labels for this, there may be some issues with the Zap. I haven’t tested this.

Step 2 – Create Trello Labels

The labels are used to determine how often you want to see someone. For example, if you have say 30, this would mean you want a reminder if you haven’t spoken to someone in 30 days.

Open the menu on the right and edit labels.

In this example I’ve made a 14, 30 and 60 day label. Make sure you only enter a number as this will get used in a formula later.

Step 3 – Create a reset Zap

This Zap will be used to set a due date on each person. Whenever you catch up with someone, you will open your Trello board and put a comment on their name. This zap will look at the label you applied to them and move the due date out appropriately.

In Zapier, create a new Zap. Choose Trello and fire on New Activity.

Connect to your Trello account, then select the board you created in Step 1. Leave it as Any List and Any Card. Zapier now asks which activity to watch as part of this trigger. Set the activity type to card comments.

Continue through the rest of the trigger step, then add an action.

Choose Trello and “Update Card” as the action.

Under Card, switch the field to Custom and map the card ID from step 1.

This is the most complex part of the setup. For the Card Due Date:

1. Click the button on the right and find “Step 1 – Date”
2. Enter a “+”
3. Click the button again and find “Step 1 – Card Labels Name”
4. Enter the letter d.

It should look like this. This takes the date of your comment and adds the number of days on the card’s label.

And finally, choose Card position as bottom. This will move the card to the bottom of the list, so the people you haven’t spoken to recently will bubble to the top.

Continue through and turn on the zap. I named mine “Social CRM – Update Due Date”.

Step 4 – Create a Task Zap

So far, we have a system that will reset the due date for each person whenever you add a comment on their card.

Now, all we need to do is let you know if that due date is reached. You can use whatever task management app you like here as long as Zapier supports it. So you could use Asana, Teamwork, Basecamp etc.

I use Trello, so I’ll be creating a new card in my “Priority Tasks” Trello board.

Since we’ve been through the various steps on Zapier, I’ll give you the steps without as much guidance. I’m sure you’ll be fine 🙂

1. Create a new Zap
2. Trigger on Trello – Card Due
3. Choose your contact board, and how long before the due date you want the reminder
4. Create an action to contact the person. For me this meant to create a Trello Card on my Priority Tasks board in the “A” list with the name “Contact {Data Card Name}” – where the card name comes from the Card Due trigger.

Step 5 – Creating People

Add your people into your new Trello CRM board.

Whenever you add someone, make sure you do these two things:

1. Add a label to them (from step 2)
2. Set their first due date

Annnnd we’re done. You now have a reminder system to catch up with the important people in your life.

If you wanted to get creative, you could create some Zaps that when a card is created, automatically add yourself to it and set a due date.

What do you think? Have some ideas to improve it? Let me know below.