FlowDeck · plan, October 2026
From a to-do app to a team board: what goes, what comes
FlowDeck began as a personal to-do list and grew into a multi-team board. A few features still assume one person working alone, and a few things every team tool has are missing. This plan comes from a review of the app and a side-by-side look at Trello: its board, views, automation and template gallery.
- Remove
- 3to-do leftovers and dead code
- Change
- 2priority, and the gallery grid
- Add
- 75 now, 2 after real use
- Steps
- 6one CAP branch each
Why a plan
The app is good: teams, roles, permissions, automations, sprints, integrations and the security work are what a team tool needs. The bigger risk now is breadth, not leftovers. Every feature is code to keep working on free plans, and the last few changes were bug fixes from end-to-end runs. So the plan removes what confuses teams, adds only what teams expect on day one, then stops for real use.
Remove3
Each keeps its data where there is any: nothing a team wrote is lost.
R1 · Plain-name assignees small
- Why: a card can be given to a typed name of someone who never signs in, a workaround from the solo to-do days. Guests, viewers and invite links now cover it.
- Goes: the “add a name” option on cards and the
task_namestable. - Data: each card's names are written into its history before the table is dropped.
R2 · Emergency access small
- Why: built but switched off, so it refuses everyone: dead code. Support access, which a team's owners grant, covers the real need.
- Goes: its route, setting and the code that checks it.
R3 · Platform field large
- Why: every person keeps their own list of platform values, so teammates see different choices on the same card. Custom fields do this properly, once per board for everyone.
- Goes: platform on cards, its filter, “group by platform” on the board, the platform list in settings, and platform in saved views, import, export and AI search.
- Data: each board's platform values become a custom field on that board, with every card's value kept.
Change2
C1 · Priority becomes one shared set
- Why: like platform, each person has their own priority list.
- Becomes: Low, Medium, High, Urgent for everyone. Existing cards are mapped to the nearest of the four.
C2 · The gallery grid becomes a Table view
- Why: the grid repeats the board. Trello's Table view, one row per card with sortable columns, is the version teams use.
- Becomes: a table with columns for list, labels, people, priority, due date and custom fields. Calendar and timeline stay as they are.
- Moves with it: saved views, export, sorting and AI search's date range, which today live only in the gallery.
Add7
Each builds on code that is already there.
| # | What | From | Builds on |
|---|---|---|---|
| A1 | Custom fields in filters and exports: needed before platform can go | this review | custom fields |
| A2 | Board templates: “Save as template”, “New board from template” (lists, labels, fields, automations and template cards; no people, comments or dates), and five built in: Kanban, Sprint, Bug tracker, Content plan, Onboarding | Trello templates | board copy |
| A3 | Boards home page: recently viewed boards, the team's boards, and New board with a template picker. Replaces the empty “No boards yet” screen a new team sees | Trello templates | board list |
| A4 | Card and board buttons: one click runs several actions (“Monday set-up: archive This Week, move Last Week into it”) | Trello automation | automation actions |
| A5 | Scheduled automations: “every Monday at 9, do this” | Trello automation | the jobs timer |
| A6 | Team activity feed: what changed across the team today, limited to what the viewer can see later | this review | card history |
| A7 | “My work” page: my cards across every team, by due date later | this review | card search |
Not buildingfor now
- From Trello: Inbox and Planner (personal to-do features, the kind being removed), Map view, a community template gallery, join requests (invite links cover them).
- Otherwise: Microsoft sign-in, more AI helpers, a public API, and plans and billing until someone wants to pay.
Order
One CAP branch per step, each with its migration and down migration where the database changes.
- R1, then R2: small and safe, a good first pass.
- R3 + C1 + A1 together: they touch the same filters and options code.
- A2 + A3: board templates and the boards home page.
- C2: the Table view.
- A4, then A5: buttons, then scheduled rules.
- Stop and use it. See below.
After that
Move a real Trello board in with the importer and run day-to-day work from FlowDeck. Then bring in three to five real teams for two to four weeks and watch what they use, what they never touch and where they get stuck; the audit log and usage counts already record much of it.
Decide on A6 and A7 from that, and remove whatever nobody opens.