How to Manage Your Items in Sync Count

Once you’ve picked your tools and a flow direction in Unito, you can set rules to control the total number of work items that get synced in a flow.

What does this article cover?

• Using rules to manage items in sync
• How to reduce your items in sync count
• Controlling synced subtasks and checklists with field mappings
• A note on deleting work items
• Why is my items in sync count higher than I expected?

Using rules to manage items in sync

Rules allow you to determine which work items (tasks, cards, row etc.) sync between tools. Work items need to meet the requirements of your rules to sync. While you may need to sync all work items in a given container (project, board, sheet etc.) you can apply Rules to sync just a subset of work items.

Each tool will have its own set of Rules, but some standard ones include:

• Status: all Open and Archived work items in a container or just Open work items 
• Creation Date: the creation date of work items in your tools. You can also choose to sync all historical work items that meet your Rules.
• Labels: work items with a specific label 

• Assignees: work items from a specific assignee
• Lists: work items within a specific list
• Columns: work items in a specific spreadsheet column
• Status: work items that match a specific status 

See the image below for examples of Rules being set up:

How to reduce your items in sync count

Note: As long as work items match the Rules of your flow, they will remain synced and count toward your limit. If you want to reduce your Items in Sync count, we suggest the following:

1. Remove triggers for your Rules within the tools you are syncing. Referencing the image above, by removing the label “Data” from cards in Trello that no longer need to be synced (i.e. a resolved ticket or task that has been deprioritized) Unito will no longer sync these work items and they won’t count toward your limit.
2. Exclude work items with “is not” Rules. For example, by adding the rule “List is not Complete” to your Unito flow, once a work item is moved to the Trello list titled Complete, it will stop syncing and won’t count toward your limit—even if the work item still meets all the other Rules criteria. See below: 
   
   
3. Periodically archive or complete tasks that meet your Rules but no longer need to be synced. Provided you set Status to Open only, archived or completed items will not count toward your limit.

Keep in mind, once the original work item no longer meets your rule requirements, Unito will close its copies (for example, a Jira issue created from a Trello card). 

Controlling synced subtasks and checklists with field mappings

Rules dictate which work items will sync, while field mappings determine which pieces of information these work items will sync between tools. 

• Subtask and checklists: When mapping your fields, you have the option to include or exclude subtasks and checklists, which count toward your items in sync count.

Other field mappings, such as, comments, custom fields, and descriptions do not count toward your items in sync count. For more details, here’s a refresher on what is considered an item In sync. 

You can learn more about rules and field mappings in this video:

A note on deleting work items

Work items aren't automatically filtered out as soon as you delete them. That's because Unito only checks for deleted items once a week.

However, Unito checks for filtered-out items more frequently. That means the best way to leave some work items out of your items in sync count is to filter them out in one way or another. That could mean adding a label that an existing rule filters out, for example. You could also create a new list (or section) and build a new rule that excludes that list. Then, instead of deleting work items, you could just move them to that list. That way, they'll be excluded from your items in sync count sooner. 

Why is my items in sync count higher than I expected?

Work items aren't automatically filtered out as soon as you delete them. That's because Unito only checks for deleted items once a week. However, Unito checks for filtered-out items more frequently. That could mean setting new rules to filter out work items by specific objects (e.g., labels, assignee, or another field type). You could also create a new list (or section) and build a new rule that excludes that list. Then, instead of deleting work items, you could just move them to that list. That way, they'll be excluded from your items in sync count sooner. 

That being said, here are a few reasons why your count might currently be higher than expected:

You recently deleted items in your project

If you closed/completed/archived a work item in the tools you are syncing, your items in Sync count should update within 2-4 hours.

If you permanently deleted an item in the tool you are syncing, your Items in Sync count can take up to a week to update.

Your flow rules are syncing work items that are open and archived

This means archived cards count towards the limit, which may explain a high count. To remove archived cards, change the status to open:

You may have more items than you think

Here’s a refresher of what is considered an item in sync. 

Some common examples:

• • Trello cards and checklists
  • Asana tasks and subtasks
  • Google Sheets rows
  • Github issues

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