Switch Guide: Moving from Trello to Teamwork

Trello is great for simple task tracking but teams consistently outgrow it — the moment you need time tracking, client visibility, budgets, or Gantt charts, Trello's limitations become obvious. Teamwork is built for the next stage: client-facing project work with real accountability. It's owned by Atlassian (US), so Trello is ultimately subject to US data laws. Teamwork offers Canadian data hosting options and is the natural evolution for Canadian agencies and professional services firms that started on Trello and are ready for a real project management platform.

What You'll Gain

• Time tracking: Log hours directly against tasks — feeds into invoicing and project profitability reports.
• Gantt charts: See your full project timeline, dependencies, and critical path.
• Client portals: Give clients read-only access to their project progress without seeing your whole workspace.
• Budget management: Track project budgets and get alerts when you're approaching limits.
• Multiple project views: Kanban (like Trello), list, Gantt, and calendar views for every project.
• Workload management: See team capacity across all projects at once.

What You Might Miss

• Trello's simplicity: Trello is genuinely easy to use. Teamwork has more features, which means more to learn.
• Power-Ups ecosystem: Trello's Power-Up marketplace has some unique integrations. Most critical ones have Teamwork equivalents.
• Free forever: Trello's free plan is generous. Teamwork's free plan is more limited.
• Card-first UX: If your team loves the simplicity of cards on a board, the transition to Teamwork's richer interface requires an adjustment period.

Migration Checklist

1. Export your Trello boards — In each board, go to Board Menu → More → Print and Export → Export as JSON.
2. Plan your project structure — Map your Trello boards to Teamwork projects. Multiple related boards might become one project with multiple task lists.
3. Set up Teamwork account — Create your account and invite your team members.
4. Import Trello boards — Use Teamwork's Trello import (built-in) to convert boards to projects. The importer maps lists to task lists and cards to tasks.
5. Add client companies — Create client companies in Teamwork and assign projects to them.
6. Set up time tracking — Configure your time budget for each project and train your team on logging hours.
7. Run one project in Teamwork while finishing Trello boards — Don't try to switch everything at once. Start with one new project in Teamwork.
8. Archive Trello boards — Once projects are live in Teamwork, archive the Trello equivalents to avoid confusion.

Data Export Tips from Trello

Trello's JSON export is comprehensive — it includes cards, checklists, attachments (as URLs), labels, members, and activity history. The JSON is human-readable and Teamwork's importer understands it natively. For attachments, Trello exports links rather than the files themselves; attachments are only kept in Trello as long as your account is active, so download important attachments locally before cancelling. Trello also offers a CSV export option for simpler data needs.

Timeline Estimate

Most teams transition in 1–2 weeks. The Trello import into Teamwork is fast — the real time investment is restructuring your project organization and training on time tracking. Teams with Trello Power-Ups they depend on should audit those integrations before migrating to ensure replacements exist.

See all Canadian alternatives to Trello →