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nickynicolson/IFTTT-Zotero-to-Trello-recipe.md

Last active November 17, 2020 22:43
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IFTTT-Zotero-to-Trello-recipe.md

Automating reading list management

What I'm using:

zotero Zotero: In browser integration mean that its a single click to save citation information (and a full-text PDF if available)

...but I'm using trello Trello to stay on top of tasks, and my "to-read" list needs to have a presence in my "to-do" list, as Trello gives a better single view of my work than zotero.

What I'd like:

Cards for new "to-read" articles in Trello, automatically - without cut + paste.

Is it worth automating?

Based on advice from xkcd: yes. xkcd: Is it worth the time?

Zotero offers an Atom feed which lists items added to the library (or subcollections) in structured format.

IFTTT ("IF This Then That") is an integration service that allows you to set up "recipes" - web app integrations triggered by "actions" (such as a new element added to a feed).

Trello offers an API to allow external programs to read/write data into Trello - and IFTTT is set up to write new cards into Trello using the API.

How to do it:

  1. Sign up for IFTTT and add a new recipe. The trigger will be an RSS feed, denoted by the RSS icon rss
  2. Locate the feed link in your Zotero homepage - it's at the bottom of the left-most column, under the tag cloud, and is captioned "subscribe to this feed. "add image. Click it - zotero will ask you to create a new "private key" - enter "IFTTT Zotero-Trello intergration" and click "save key". (The meaningful name will allow you to manage access rights.) You will now be forwarded to the feed itself - save the URL from the location bar of the browser and paste this into the feed URL box on IFTTT.
  3. You've created the trigger part of the IFTTT recipe, now to create the action - click and select the "Trello" channel, and the action "create a card". You'll first have to link IFTTT to Trello - you'll be presented with a popup to let you log into Trello, and to authorise IFTTT to use the Trello API on your behalf. You'll now be presented with a form to specify which board you want the card to appear in and to customise the format of the Trello card created, using data from the Zotero Atom feed.
  4. The recipe will trigger after 15 minutes - try it out: save a new article to Zotero and see that a new card is created in Trello, using the article title as the card title. These can then be managed along with other tasks.
@jesparent
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Are there any current versions of this? It looks like Zotero no loner has this RSS feed set up, unless I'm missing it.

@martinlarsalbert
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martinlarsalbert commented Nov 17, 2020 •
edited

@jesparent, I think you go to "Web library" https://www.zotero.org/{user name}/library, there is a button "..." in the middle where you find the RSS feed. I don't understand how to connect this to IFTTT however and the "add a new recipe" link above seems to be broken. I would love if someone (@nickynicolson or other) could fix this explainintion, because this seems like such a nice feature to have when organizing your research references.

@jesparent
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@martinlarsalbert - thanks! I actually also manage a few setups using Zapier, Github, and Pocket/other feeders for pulling automating some lists.

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