> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.vortexiq.ai/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Abandoned Findings (>14d no movement), Trello (API) > Findings sat in the backlog with no status change for two weeks, these are the ones losing money silently. How to read it, why it matters, and how to act ... **Metrics type:** [Key Metrics](/nerve-centre/overview#metrics-types-explained) • **Category:** [Project Management](/nerve-centre/connectors#connectors-by-type) > Findings sat in the backlog with no status change for two weeks, these are the ones losing money silently. ## At a glance > The number of open VortexIQ Trello cards whose `dateLastActivity` is older than 14 days. These are the cards still on the board that nobody has touched in a fortnight. Trello's flexibility (anyone can add anything) makes it especially prone to this pattern; the highest-leverage merchant question is *which boards have stopped moving?* | | | | ------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **What it counts** | Trello cards with `vortexiq_finding_id` AND `closed = false` AND on a non-Done list AND `dateLastActivity` older than 14 days. | | **API endpoint** | `GET /1/boards/{id}/cards?filter=open&fields=name,closed,idList,dateLastActivity,idMembers,desc&customFieldItems=true`. We compute the staleness window client-side. | | **What counts as "movement"** | Any of: list move, member add/remove, label add/remove, comment, attachment, due-date change, description edit, custom-field update, checklist edit, archive. Trello's `dateLastActivity` is updated on all of these. | | **Closed cards excluded** | Yes. Archived cards are out of scope by definition. | | **Done-list exclusion** | Cards on configured "Done" lists do not contribute regardless of `dateLastActivity`. | | **Archived boards** | Excluded. | | **Board / workspace scope** | All `vortex_iq_outbound` boards across all connected workspaces. | | **Time window** | `RT`. The 14-day staleness clock is rolling and evaluated on every webhook event plus a 5-minute scheduled safety-net refresh. | | **Alert trigger** | `> 5 (warn)`, `> 15 (critical)`. | | **Sentiment** | Threshold-based, `{warn: 5, critical: 15}`. | | **Time zone** | UTC. The 14-day cutoff aligns to UTC; a card last touched at 23:55 UTC on day 0 becomes abandoned at 23:55 UTC on day 14. | | **Multi-workspace aggregation** | Yes by default; per-workspace stack panel available. | | **Roles** | owner, operations | ## Calculation Calculated automatically from your Trello (API) data. See the At a glance summary above for what the metric tracks and the worked example below for a typical reading. ## Worked example A small UK gift-shop DTC brand on Shopify, 6-person team. Trello as primary planner. Snapshot taken on 02 May 26 at 11:30 BST. | Trello board | Open cards | Abandoned (>14d) | Notes | | ----------------------- | ---------- | ---------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Site Operations | 16 | 4 | Two cards on the "Backlog" list have not moved since Easter (16 days). | | Catalogue & Photography | 11 | 6 | Catalogue lead off sick for two weeks; entire "Inbox" list stagnant. | | Customer Experience | 4 | 0 | Healthy; CX team works through cards weekly. | | **Total open** | **31** | **10** | Above warn (>5), below critical (>15). | ```text theme={null} Abandoned count 10 Warn threshold 5 (>5 warn) Critical threshold 15 (>15 critical) Status warn 30D average abandoned 4 Delta vs 30D avg +150% ``` **What the merchant should read into this:** 1. **In warn band, climbing fast.** A 150% lift on the 30-day average is the signature of a single triggering event, almost always a key person becoming unavailable. 2. **The catalogue board has 6 of the 10 abandoned cards.** Open [Tickets by Assignee](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/trello-api/tickets-by-assignee), the catalogue lead's `idMembers` will appear on most of them. The fix is reassignment, not closure. 3. **Two Easter-campaign cards on Site Ops.** These are the typical "we'll get to it after launch" cards that quietly hit 16 days. Most can be closed as Won't Do (the campaign is done; the cards' work is no longer relevant) or rescheduled to next week. 4. **CX is clean.** Don't borrow from CX to address the catalogue backlog; the CX team's discipline is part of why their numbers stay healthy. The catalogue board needs its own intervention. 5. **Run a weekly board grooming.** Trello's biggest abandonment risk is the absence of a forcing function for prioritisation. A 15-minute Monday standup that walks each board's "Backlog" list and either commits or archives each abandoned card prevents the queue compounding. ## Sibling cards merchants should reference together | Card | Why pair it with Abandoned Findings | What the combination tells you | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | [VortexIQ Findings Open](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/trello-api/vortexiq-findings-open) | Abandoned is a subset of open. The ratio is the steadier read. | Abandoned ÷ Open above 30% means a third of the board has gone dormant. | | [Finding Resolution Rate (90d)](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/trello-api/finding-resolution-rate) | Resolution rate falls before abandoned count rises. | Resolution falling for two weeks then abandoned spiking is the textbook capacity-collapse sequence. | | [Avg Time-to-Fix (days)](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/trello-api/avg-time-to-fix) | Distinguishes "slow but moving" from "abandoned". | Time-to-fix rising AND abandoned rising = the team is starting then stalling. | | [Tickets by Assignee](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/trello-api/tickets-by-assignee) | Trello's `idMembers` on abandoned cards reveals concentration. | If 70% of abandoned sits with one member, the fix is reassignment. | | [Overloaded Assignees (>10 open)](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/trello-api/overloaded-assignees) | Single-point-of-failure detection. | Overloaded member + abandoned items on their cards = immediate queue review. | | [Backlog by Status](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/trello-api/backlog-by-status) | Trello "status" is implied by list; this card surfaces list-distribution. | Heavy concentration on a "Backlog" or "Inbox" list = planning gap. | | [Sprint Progress](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/trello-api/sprint-progress) | Cards never committed to a weekly cycle abandon first. | Low sprint progress + high abandoned = the team isn't planning, just collecting. | ## Reconciling against the vendor's own dashboard **Where to look in Trello's own UI:** > **[trello.com/b/\{boardId}](https://trello.com)** for each `vortex_iq_outbound` board. Trello does not surface a native "stale cards" view, but the **Aging** Power-Up (free) visually shades cards by age of last activity. The **Card Aging** mode applied to your boards gives the closest approximation. Alternatively the **Hello Epics** or **BigPicture** Power-Ups offer board-level age reporting. **Why our number may legitimately differ from the Aging Power-Up:** | Reason | Direction | Why | | --------------------------------- | ---------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **Movement definition** | Either | The Aging Power-Up shades cards by `dateLastActivity`; we read the same field. The match should be tight. Differences usually trace to done-list mapping. | | **Done-list configuration drift** | Either | Cards on a list mapped as "Done" in our setup are excluded; the Aging Power-Up shades all open cards regardless of list. | | **Time zone** | Boundary day off | UTC vs viewer's browser timezone. | | **Cross-workspace aggregation** | Ours wider | We sum across workspaces; the Power-Up is per-board. | | **Custom-field detection** | Ours lower | A card whose `vortexiq_finding_id` was lost (description edit, custom field cleared) drops out of our count even if visually it is still abandoned. | **Cross-connector reconciliation. Trello abandoned vs incident-management peers:** | Card | Expected relationship | What causes the divergence | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | [`datadog.dd_incidents_active`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/datadog/active-incidents) | Independent. Datadog tracks live engineering incidents; Trello abandoned tracks team execution discipline. | A growing Datadog incident count alongside a growing Trello abandoned count is the compound signal that engineering is firefighting and ops is falling behind. | | [`newrelic.nr_open_incidents`](/nerve-centre/newrelic/nr_open_incidents) | Same shape. | Same reasoning. |
Documentation cross-reference (for agencies running multiple PM tools) The same metric exists with the same definition across other PM tools we connect to. This is **not** a reconciliation, your team uses one PM tool. These references exist purely so an agency running clients on multiple PM tools can cross-link the same metric across docs. * [`asana.asa_vortexiq_findings_abandoned`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/asana/abandoned-findings) * [`clickup.cli_vortexiq_findings_abandoned`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/clickup/abandoned-findings) * [`monday.mon_vortexiq_findings_abandoned`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/monday/abandoned-findings) * [`linear.lin_vortexiq_findings_abandoned`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/linear/abandoned-findings) * [`basecamp.bas_vortexiq_findings_abandoned`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/basecamp/abandoned-findings)
## Known limitations / merchant FAQs **A teammate said they're working on a card you say is abandoned. Why?** Trello records "movement" only when the card itself changes (list, members, labels, comments, attachments, due date, description, custom field, checklist, archive). A teammate thinking about a card or working on the underlying problem outside Trello does not register. Either ask them to drop a quick comment on the card or move it to an "In Progress" list, both reset `dateLastActivity` immediately. **What counts as movement on a Trello card?** Any of: list move, member add/remove, label add/remove, comment, attachment, due-date change, description edit, custom-field update, checklist edit, archive. Trello does not record "viewed" or "opened", so passive engagement is invisible. **The 14-day window feels long for our team. Can we tune it?** Yes, in **Settings → Connectors → Trello → Abandonment threshold (days)**. Small Trello-only teams sometimes tune to 7 days; agencies running long-lived client boards sometimes tune to 21 or 30. We default to 14 because it sits roughly two weekly Trello cycles plus a buffer, which empirically separates "in active backlog" from "forgotten". **We have multiple Trello workspaces. Count looks alarming.** Open the per-workspace stack panel from the connector drawer. Multi-workspace merchants typically find one workspace (often the long-lived "operations" board nobody owns) drives most of the abandoned count, while active project boards stay clean. **Task velocity dropped, abandoned count rising. What changed?** Standard playbook: (1) Open [Tickets by Assignee](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/trello-api/tickets-by-assignee), a key person becoming unavailable is the single most common cause, and Trello's `idMembers` makes it visually obvious within seconds. (2) Open [Backlog by Status](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/trello-api/backlog-by-status), if abandonment concentrates on one list (typically a "Backlog", "Inbox", or "Someday/Maybe"), the team has a planning gap, not an execution gap. (3) Cross-check against [Datadog incidents](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/datadog/active-incidents), a sustained incident burst pulls the team off audit work. The combination of these three identifies the cause within minutes. **Today's abandoned count went up overnight, even though no one was working. Why?** The 14-day clock keeps ticking. If five cards were last touched 14 days ago today, all five become abandoned at the same UTC moment 14 days later. This is normal and corrects itself within 24 hours of the team picking the queue back up. **Should I close abandoned cards or fix them?** Both, on triage. Run a weekly 15-minute "abandoned review" with one ops lead. For each: if no real merchant impact, archive the card or move it to a "Won't Do" list. If real merchant impact, reassign and move to "This Week". Most merchants archive 30-50% of abandoned cards on this triage; the remainder being correctly prioritised is the win, not the count itself. **Is Trello a good fit for tracking this?** Trello is the lightest of the six PM tools in this set, which is both its strength (zero friction for non-technical staff) and its weakness for this metric (no native sprint, status, or reporting primitives). If your abandoned count is consistently over warn, the underlying problem is usually that Trello doesn't impose enough structure for your team's size. The cheapest fix is the **Aging** Power-Up plus a weekly board-grooming standup; the bigger fix is graduating to Asana, Linear, or Monday for richer reporting. **Why doesn't Trello have a native "stale cards" view?** Trello's design philosophy is intentional simplicity: lists, cards, members, labels, that's the whole vocabulary. Atlassian's longer-running PM tools (Jira) have this concept; Trello does not because it would force an opinion about what "stale" means. The Aging Power-Up gives you the visual cue without an opinion. We add the opinion (14 days, configurable) because merchants need a number to alert on. *** ### Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre *Abandoned Findings (>14d no movement)* is one of hundreds of KPI pulses Vortex IQ tracks across Trello (API) and 70+ other ecommerce connectors. Nerve Centre runs the detection layer; Vortex Mind investigates the cause when something moves; Ask Viq lets you interrogate any number in plain English. [Start for free](https://app.vortexiq.ai/login) or [book a demo](https://www.vortexiq.ai/contact-us) to see this metric running on your own data.