Kanban card

To choose what fields will appear on your Kanban cards, edit your Card Template from board Settings:

From among the selection of default and custom fields, choose those that you want to use, and save your changes.

When editing the Default template, you are selecting the base template for all your cards. You can also assign other, more limited templates to specific card types (colors).

Note that each of the in-card fields supports a limited number of characters.

Updating a card’s specific data fields will show additional information in the closed task view. Depending on what information you’ve added to the card, and what data fields were enabled for the card template, you may see some or all of these notes:

• task ID
  
• priority
  
• comments - hover the mouse pointer over it, to see comments count
  
• tags — hover the mouse pointer over it, to see applied tags
  
• external link — hover the mouse pointer over it, to preview the link, or click to access it
  
• due date — hover the mouse pointer over it, to see the full due date
  
• due date countdown — the number of days left until completion date, shown for 9 or fewer days left
  
• difficulty points — customizable, and possible to hide in Card Template settings
  
• to-do list completion status
  
• dependencies completion status
  
• task assignment — hover the mouse pointer over it, to see the assignee’s name
  
  
  

If you feel that your workflow will benefit from additional on-card icons, please try the Card Icons power-up!

Furthermore, you can also project any card data - custom fields included - onto card fronts with the Task Summary power-up. How much or how little data your cards show is in your control.

The most convenient way of moving a card is with drag-and-drop.

You can also use a card’s dropdown menu: right-click on a card and select Move.

If you have a number of tasks that need to be moved from one column to another, highlight them with multiple selection: CTRL & click, and right-click to move them all at once.

And to move all cards from one column to the next, simply right-click an empty space within a column and select Move all.

You’re welcome to use board filters or the global search, accessible from any Kanban board. Filtering looks through the open board only, while searching looks through all the boards that you have access to.

Just type in @ + user initials (i.e. @XY) in either of the two to see the results. Searching and filtering by @XY finds task and checklist items assigned to the searched user.

Learn more about Kanban Tool filters here.

By default, cards show the number of days remaining till the task’s due date, and the date itself is visible when you hover the mouse pointer over the calendar icon on a card.

Additionally, you can project the full due date onto card fronts with the Task Summary power-up.

If you don’t see a due date field on your cards, then go to Settings - Card Template and enable the field.
Please note, board Settings are only accessible to users who were given at least a project manager privilege or were made a board owner.

Blocking a task means visualizing that something disables the team from working on it. The idea behind the card block feature is to freeze a card until the problem with it is resolved.

Blocked tasks are much harder to move - they cannot be moved with the standard drag-and-drop action. To use the feature, be sure to enable the Card Blocking power-up.

Yes, you can create a custom priority selector with one of the 15 available custom fields.

To customize your card fields, go to Settings - Card Template. Enable a custom field and change its label to, e.g., Priority level, then select the Dropdown with options type and set your preferred priority values, separating them with a semicolon, e.g.,
Ultra; Mega; High; Normal; Low

Although a custom priority field set up like this will not generate the standard priority arrows on the fronts of your cards, you can use the Card Icons power-up to assign other on-card icons to show for your custom priority levels. For example, for the “Priority level” custom field used above, you could set up Card Icons like this:

Note, that for the custom icons setup to work, it’s important not to name your custom priority field just “Priority”.

And here’s how the custom priority icons would look on the cards:

• Make a task card an attachment to another.
  The attached tasks will be opened on top of the linking ones, for quick & easy navigation. Go to Attachments and use the Link to a task option.

• Use the Task Dependencies power-up.
  The power-up was designed to help manage complex jobs. Large tasks can be broken down into pieces and arranged in readable structures, showing clear dependencies between them.

• Use tags to show a connection between several cards.
  If you apply the same tag to several cards, you will then be able to filter by that tag to immediately locate the items that contain it.

• Use the global search in comments and checklists.
  If what you’re after is a mention of a specific task on the same or other project board, feel free to type # in a task’s comment window, or inside a checklist item. It will open the global search dialogue allowing you to look up tasks from any board you have access to.

• Use cards’ URLs for direct linking.
  Every task card has a unique web address - you can copy it from the browser and paste as a web link to another card’s description, external link field or a custom field, to show the connection. An individual task’s URL is shown in the browser’s address bar when you open the card:

A task can only be assigned to one user at a time.

You can, however, use checklists to create subtasks and assign them to various people.
Email notifications are also sent on checklist item assignments, just as they are for a task assignment. Individuals can also search all boards simultaneously for their assigned work - both tasks and checklist items - so there is no risk of anyone not finding items assigned to them.

To find all your assignments, just type @XY (an @ with user initials) into the search:

You can also turn to Task Dependencies, to show a hierarchy of related tasks, with each of them possible to assign to a different team member.

Subtasks can be added to your cards as checklist items.
From an open task view, you can add your checklist items at the top, using + Add checklist

Each of the items can be assigned to someone, and the assignee will receive email notifications on that assignment, just as they do for a task card assignment.

To assign a checklist item to a team member, to edit, delete or move it up or down the list, hover your mouse pointer over the item, and the respective options will show up.

You can add more granularity to the checklists, by creating hierarchical sub-levels of checklists. When a checklist item gets its own list added, it changes into a list heading, with a distinct look. The list heading will mark as complete automatically, after all of its sub-list elements are done.

To reference related tasks inside a checklist item, please type # to open the global search window:

You may also be interested in trying Task Dependencies - a simple way to connect separate tasks into a tree-like hierarchy.

Yes, you can assign particular card field layouts - card templates - to specific card colors.

When you switch over to a particular card type below the default template, you can remove or reorder some fields for that card type. That way, different card types will use different fields or will show a different order of fields. It’s a good way to make various job types demand different types of information.

Please note, that the default template is your baseline here.
For any card type to have a specific field on it, it first needs to be enabled in the default template. From the fields selected for the default template, you can then remove some for the specific card types.

On the below images, you can see two different card templates in use on the same board at the same time.

You can view card-specific stats through the Lead and Cycle Time diagram. It will provide you with a start time, an end time, and a cycle time statistic for each task.

Another good piece of card-specific information is the Time log, accessible from the task itself. It shows how much time different users have spent working on it.

Information on working time entries for specific tasks can also be read from the Summary View of the Time Report, after grouping entries by task and by user together.
Note: the Time Log and Time Report are only available on the Enterprise plan.

Links should be automatically recognized by the description field editor. To open a link, click on it and choose the first available icon:

Adding links to cards is also possible with use of the Web Attachments power-up or an External Link field.
Links are also supported in checklists and comments.

It’s possible that you have entered an unsupported character in your Task Difficulty field.
Task Difficulty can only display numbers on the fronts of cards - letters and special characters aren’t supported.
You can add descriptions to your Task Difficulty levels in the drop-down menu, but only their numerical values will be shown on card fronts.

No, the present due date format, YYYY-MM-DD, cannot be changed, sorry.

We suggest using the external link field, or custom fields with external link type, to store your web links in an easily accessible spot. Not sure how to enable these fields? Please view this page.

You can also add links directly to the card description field - they will be automatically recognized and highlighted by the editor. To open a link like that, click on it and choose the first available icon - Open Link.

An alternative to adding links to the description field, or to the External Link field, is using the Web Attachments power-up. It supports hiding links under one-click accessed buttons, saving your card space, and limiting visual clutter.

Looking for a way to add a link to the board, as opposed to an individual card? Please try the Pinboard power-up.

A good way of enlarging the due date is to increase the card font size. This way all the information is more visible.

To enable larger fonts on your cards, please go to Settings - Power-Ups - Developer Tools and open the blue link to scripts on Github.
From there, please choose the Large Font Script, copy its link, and paste it back in the Developer Tools dialogue box. Just click the plus icon, paste the link and Save Changes.
This will increase your closed card fonts.

You can also show full due dates directly on card fronts. This is possible via the Task Summary power-up. Feel free to go to Settings - Power-Ups - Task Summary to enable due dates, or any other card field, to show directly on a closed card.

To use a due date field on your Kanban cards, first make sure the field is enabled in Settings - Card Template, accessible from your board view.

Once selected as part of your Card Template, a due date field will be visible on task cards:

You can also see the due date without opening the task - it will appear when you hover the mouse pointer over the calendar icon. Also, when the due date has 9 or fewer days to go, the remaining number of days will display right next to the calendar icon.

Once the date is up, there will be a distinct red “0” or “- # days” staring at you from the card.

Due dates are also marked in the Calendar Widget (when enabled from Settings - Power-Ups).

Related: You may also be interested in using the separate start date field.

The Estimated time field is designed to store your task duration guess.
Additionally, the Enterprise plan clients can use it to get a visual clue comparing the time recorded while working on a task, to their estimate on how long that task should have taken.

Once you’ve activated the Estimated Time field in Settings - Card Template, your cards have a spot for an estimation on how long the task should take to complete.
The Estimated time field is set to work in hours. For instance, you can type:

• 6 - for 6 hours
• ,5 - for half an hour
• :25 - for 25 minutes

When you start working on a previously estimated task, there will be a pale green progress bar displayed at the bottom of the card, letting you know the running time is still within the estimate:

If you end up working on the task for longer than estimated, a red progress bar will be displayed to show how far over the estimate you’ve gone:

After work on the task is done, this little progress bar will be a piece of remaining information on the task card, showing whether you’ve completed the work within or outside of the estimated time.

Yes - please enable Checklist Templates to make this possible on your board.

Related:
You may also want to consider using Recurring Tasks power-up, which offers a great way to work on identical tasks in regular intervals.

To make your team communication as efficient as possible, we recommend using built-in task comments. They save you from explaining which card you’re referring to and will significantly cut down the time needed to exchange information. Task comments also make part of the record of your process for future reference.

To add a comment to your card, please click the red chat icon in the bottom right corner of the open task view.

In there, you can enter text, paste a file, and address who should be notified about it. To send the comment to a team member, click the area below the comment text editor and select a user from the list. Alternatively, you can type @Name, @Surname, @NS, or @group directly inside the comment. The person you point to here to will receive an email with this comment containing a link to the card.

The comment’s recipient can reply either from the board, or via email - directly from their inbox.

Calling out team members with an @ will also work when replying to a comment from an email inbox. Just include the recipient’s name, surname, initials, or a group name preceded by an @ - the comment will be emailed to the indicated Kanban Tool team member or members.

When you put attachments into comments, they will also be sent with the notification email. You can also include attachments to an email replying to a Kanban Tool comment notification.
Furthermore, you can attach tasks to comments to reference other related work. Just click the paperclip icon.

It’s also possible to reference other tasks inside the comment message - just type # to find a specific card to mention. Once the comment is made, the reference will be shown as a direct link to the task in question:

The comments side panel also displays the card history. Task changes and comments are shown in chronological order.

You may also want to try out the Comment Reactions power-up, allowing the team to react to messages with expressive emojis, rather than having to type responses:

The simplest way to make the card fronts text larger is to use the board zoom, which is a part of the Board Background setting.

It’s also possible to give closed card fonts an even larger size. Go to the board Settings - Power-Ups - Developer Tools and add the Large Font Script to one of the empty slots of your Developer Tools. You can find out more about Developer Tools here.

To enable the full-screen mode for the card description, please focus your mouse cursor on the description field, as if you wanted to start typing in it. You will see a stretch arrow in the top corner of the description field, which activates the full-screen view. To get back to the regular view, just hit the ESC button. You can also use keyboard shortcuts within the task description field, please see them here.

To save an image of your card, open the task and choose Save as image from the context menu.
The image will be saved to your browser’s default download folder.
From there on, you can print the image using your operating system settings or any graphics program.

For extra speed, instead of using the built-in text formatting icons, you’re welcome to use the following shortcuts within the description field of a card:

• CTRL + b bold
• CTRL + s strike-through
• CTRL + i italics
• CTRL + k hyperlink
• CTRL + u underline
• CTRL + p image insert
• CTRL + a select all
• CTRL + x cut out
• CTRL + v paste
• CTRL + z undo last action.

For completed work, we recommend archiving tasks, as this builds the grounds for your account Analytics, and leaves you with a record of what work you’ve done. The delete option should be reserved for tasks created by mistake or about doing which you’ve changed your mind.

If you have mistakenly deleted or archived a task and realize this right away, you can undo the action with the CTRL + Z key combination.

And if you didn’t realize the deletion was a mistake at the time, you will still be able to recover the task for as long as it is in our database.
Only user who has deleted the task or users with an account admin or owner role can restore deleted tasks. They also need to ensure they have active access to the boards from which tasks have been deleted.

To restore tasks, a person who deleted the task, account owner, or account administrator needs to open the search window from any board and type in:
deleted_at:? - to see all deleted tasks available for recovery or, for example:
deleted_at:<2018-06-14 - to see all tasks deleted up until a given date.
deleted_at:>8.hours - to see all tasks deleted within a set amount of time.

All that needs to be done now is to use the Restore button.
Please note, you may need to reload the page for a recovered task to display all comments and attachments.

To change a task’s color, right-click on it and use the Change type option from the dropdown menu.

If you’d like to add more, or other card colors to the available selection, you can. 22 colors are supported. To add a new card color, please go to Settings - Card types and click the + Add custom card type button. Then enter the card type’s name, select a color and click Add new button.

Yes. While it’s not possible to automatically show events’ full dates in the comments and history side panel, please note, that if you hover the mouse pointer over the x time ago text, the full date and time will be displayed.

To use tags, first make sure you have them enabled on your Card Template, in board settings.

When you open a card, there will be a Tags field on it. Just type in a tag, hit Enter and exit the card - changes are saved automatically.

A tag that was added to at least one card on the board will become listed in other cards’ Tags dropdown. So, you only need to type the tag contents when it’s not yet present on other cards.

Tags offer a great way to quickly identify tasks by board filtering. You can either type the tag content itself, or preface it with tags: for more accurate results. Complete information about the supported filters & search syntax is available here.

To remove a tag from a card, simply click the small x on it.

Yes - to make this possible, go to board Settings - Card Template and enable the External ID field.

You can select a few additional options:

• for the ID to be visible on fronts of cards or not,
• to have the ID editable or not,
• for it to be generated automatically for each new task or not,
• and for the numbers to be sequential (to start from “1”) or not, in which case the ID will be a random multiple digit number, the same in fact as a task’s internal ID - as seen in an open task’s URL.

Another way to show the ID - or any other information from within the card - in closed card view, is to use the Task Summary power-up. You’ve got full control over what data your cards are showing.

Elements of the Markdown language are supported in Kanban Tool comments and in the Board Readme power-up.

Please use the following to make these text areas easier to read:

• To give text a bold font:
  *bold text*
• To give text an italicized font:
  _italicized text_
  The two above can also be used in checklist items.
• To add a link under an anchor text:
  [title](https://www.example.com)
• To add an image:
  
• To format a list of items:
  * First item
  * Second item

You can set a format specifier for custom card fields that require a set format of data, like a time-stamp or a zipcode. Doing so will speed up typing and unify the way your team members enter data into that field.

You can define the format in any way you like and use the following placeholder characters:

• 0 as a placeholder for any digit
• a as a placeholder for any letter
• * as a placeholder for any character

So if you have a custom field for tracking the order number, and the order number always starts with ORD, followed by three digits, and ends with Z, you can use the following format specifier for that: ORD000Z

Optional values should be enclosed in square brackets. For example, [0]aa defines a format for fields that start with an optional digit followed by two letters.

Predefined values that should be automatically added to the input should be enclosed in curly brackets. For example, with a format specifier like {+1} 000, once you begin typing in a number, a +1 text will be automatically prepended to the field.

If there is a placeholder character you want to display in the custom field, prepend it with ` in your format definition.

Common examples of format specifiers include:

• a phone number: +{1}(000)000-0000
• time value: 00:00
• zip code: 00000
• deal value: $00000.00
• time-stamp: 00:00:00:00
• order number [AAA]000-000

Below is an example of a custom phone number and deal value data format. When a team member proceeds to add this information for this specific task, they will be able to do so using the format suggested automatically by the placeholder text, preventing them from having to type any repetitive characters on each of the cards.

Typing # in the comment window opens the global search, allowing you to find tasks across all the boards you use. You can search by task names, due dates, last update times, and much more - please take a look at the complete search syntax guide.

A task reference like this will be highlighted as a link, simplifying the team’s access to the related task details.

In the narrow bar just below the task title, each task names the column and swimlane that it’s currently in. When viewing tasks from a project board other than the one you’re on, the board name will also be included:

But if you’ve come across a Kanban card on a tasks list, e.g., in My Work or in search results and want to get a visual on exactly where that task sits, you can. To locate a task’s exact position on its current board, use the target icon, accessible from the open task view. Clicking it will take you directly to the task, while applying focus on the card’s on-board position:

Kanban Tool cards have always supported due dates to show when tasks are to be finished, and many existing features are aiding that field’s operation on the boards, e.g., the due date countdown, the Calendar Widget, Due Date Reminder email, or Task Reminders power-up.

The idea behind the separate start date field is to indicate when work on the specific task should begin, not end. Using both a start and due date on cards should make for more efficient planning and allow you to achieve higher workflow clarity, letting you tell what matters the most and when.

Furthermore, when you set both a start date and a due date on a card, a helpful timeline view unfolds in the large interactive calendar, showcasing the entire planned duration of your task:

You can also take advantage of the start date-related board filters to speed up important task identification!

Enable the start date field in your board Settings - Card Template for even easier tasks’ timeline planning.

Get ready for customization galore! Kanban Tool cards aren’t just about the basics - they come with a bunch of default fields like type, due dates, attachments, and more. But here’s where the cool factor kicks in - you can add up to 15 fields of your own creation.

The currently supported variety includes:

• Text field
• Web link
• Number
• Dropdown with options
• Multiple choice grid
• Date
• User list
• Progress indicator
• E-mail address
• Votes
• Rating
• Address

Note that each of the in-card fields supports a limited number of characters.

Mix and match these fields on your card template to create the ultimate setup tailored to your project’s exact needs. Plus, each of your boards can use a completely different card template, truly allowing for building workspaces that match your unique projects use cases.

Furthermore, you can pick and choose which fields appear on specific card types (colors), giving you the power to customize the in-card details based on the nature of the task.

And for the ultimate efficiency hack, you can decide which data fields show on closed card fronts. That means quicker info digestion for you and the team.

Rock your Kanban game with probably the most personalized card templates around!