Create Trello Board from Template (using Rest API)

We have a Board Template that contains a pre-set group of lists, checklist, labels, and Power-Ups. And we want to automatically create a new Board based on this template using the REST-API. I have not been able to fine an endpoint for creating a board from a template nor do I see any option in the Create Board endpoint that allows specifying a template from which to create the board.

Option 1 Is it possible to create a board from a template from the API?

Option 2 If not, is there a way to copy a board (using the API)?

Option 3 If not, does anyone have an idea on how we can create a board with a pre-set group of lists, checklists, labels, and Power-Ups?

Thank you for the help

Update
I have discovered the idBoardSource field in the Create Board endpoint which allows us to create a new board from another. Here are a few tips that I discovered while trying to get the API to work.

Use full board id Initially, I used the short board id (the one you can see in the url) for the idBoardSource, and received a 400 (Bad Request) result with an error message “Invalid objectId”. I had to find the full (long) board id and once I used the full id, the API worked.

Include the keepFromSource field The docs suggest that the default is to not copy the cards from the source board to the new board. However, I had to include keepFromSource=none to avoid copying the cards.

Power-ups are not copied Our custom Power-ups were not copied. Per the docs, if your source board uses one of the basics (e.g. voting), then you can use the powerUps field to determine which of these basics is/are enabled on the new board.

Source does not need to be a template Finally, it does not matter if the source board is set as a template. You can use either a regular or template board.

Hope this helps.
RB

1 Like

@RobBanning Thanks for sharing this with the developer community!

Don’t know if you tried this or not, but generally when I’m trying to figure out how the Trello web client does something that I want to do via the API, I rely heavily on watching my browser’s network tab in the developer console. For instance, if you use the Copy Board UX/UI in the Trello web client, you can see all of the API requests that the client makes to the server:

Great idea!!!

I just tried it on another issue and the Network request showed me exactly what I need and even showed some undocumented options. :slight_smile:

Thanks for sharing.