[Category]Tasks & Planning
Kanban board
Work on a board instead of a list: lanes, cards and how the lanes are set up.
The board is the same work you already have, laid out as cards in lanes instead of rows in a list. Each lane is one stage of work, and a card is in that stage as long as it sits in that lane. You move work along by dragging a card from one lane to the next.
The lanes are set up once for the whole workspace — everyone sees the same lanes, on the task board and on every project board — so this chapter covers both the board itself and how its lanes are configured.
Open the board with the Kanban View tab above the task list, or the same tab inside a project.
The board
Every card sits in the lane that matches its stage. A card shows its title, its priority pill, its collections, the people on it and small chips for comments and attachments. The lane header tells you how many cards are in the lane, and underneath it the lane adds up the estimated and the spent hours of everything in it.
How to use it
- Double-click a card to open the full task in the side panel, with dates, people and everything else.
- To add work without leaving the board, click the line at the foot of a lane, type a title and press Enter. The card is created in that lane.
- Type into the search field above the lanes to narrow the board to matching cards. The lanes stay where they are.
Good to know: a card you add at the foot of a lane on the task board also goes onto My Day, and it picks up the projects and collections you currently have selected on the left. On a project board it belongs to that project instead.
Related features
Lanes, Moving cards, Status, The project board, The deal board
Lanes
A lane is one stage of work. The board comes with four — Ready, Working on, Review and Done — and you can give each of them your own name and colour and drag it left or right.
That setup belongs to the whole workspace, not to one board and not to one person: rename a lane and everyone sees the new name, on the task board and on every project board.
How to use it
- Click the three-dot handle at the right of a lane header. The lane settings open next to it.
- Type your own wording into the Lane name field. Leave it empty and the lane keeps the name it ships with.
- Pick a colour, or type a colour code like
#FAD8F3into the field underneath. Tick Fill entire lane if you want the whole column tinted rather than only its header strip. - Click Save. The lane header changes at once.
- To move a lane, grab it by its coloured header and drop it on the lane you want it to sit at. The board redraws in the new order.
- A lane that was added to your workspace can also be removed: pick the lane that should take over its cards under Move tasks to, then click Delete. Every card moves to that lane and takes on its stage — no task is deleted.
Good to know: renaming a lane renames that stage everywhere the app shows it — in the status filter, in the status column of the task list, in group headings and in exports. The four lanes the board ships with can be renamed and recoloured but never removed, and new lanes cannot be added from the board.
Related features
The board, Collapsing lanes, Status, Finding the right tasks, Pipeline stages
Collapsing lanes
Lanes you rarely look at can be folded down to a narrow strip, so the lanes you do work in get the width. A collapsed lane still names itself and still shows how many cards are in it.
How to use it
- Click the three-dot handle in the lane header and choose Collapse lane.
- The lane shrinks to a narrow strip and the room it gave up is shared out over the open lanes.
- Click the strip to open the lane again. The other lanes give the room back.
Good to know: which lanes you keep folded is your own view of the board. It is remembered on your computer and nobody else's board changes — and a lane keeps its folded state even after it is renamed or recoloured.
Related features
Moving cards
Dragging is how work moves on the board. While you drag, a gap opens up between two cards so you can see exactly where the card will land.
How to use it
- Drag a card out of its lane and drop it on another lane, at the point where the gap opens up. The card takes on the new lane's stage and the change is saved.
- To place a card inside its own lane, drag it up or down and drop it in the gap between two other cards. That position is saved for everyone in the workspace.
- If a card cannot be saved — for instance because you are not allowed to change that task — it jumps back to the lane it came from and a message appears at the bottom.
Good to know: a hand-placed position only sticks while the board is on Default order. Any other board order sorts the lane again and overrules where you put the card.
Related features
Working with several cards, Board order, Status, Due dates
Working with several cards
Several cards can be picked out and dragged as one, which saves moving a batch of work card by card.
How to use it
- Hold Cmd (Ctrl on Windows) and click each card you want. The picked cards are highlighted.
- Or click one card and Shift-click another in the same lane to take everything in between.
- Drag any one of the selected cards onto another lane. They all move together, in the order you picked them, and the selection is cleared afterwards.
Good to know: picking cards one by one works across lanes, but a Shift range only works inside a single lane.
Related features
Board order
The board order decides how the cards are read inside every lane.
How to use it
- Click the order label at the right of the search row. It reads Default order until you change it.
- Pick Due date (soonest first), Priority (high to low), Quietest first, Longest in lane or Name (A–Z). Every lane is re-sorted the same way and the label shows your choice.
- Pick Default order again to go back to the order people dragged the cards into.
Good to know: the board order is your own view — it is remembered on your computer, so the board opens the way you left it and nobody else's board changes.