Power-ups

Power-ups let you customize the boards and fine-tune your experience with Kanban Tool, by adding a new spectrum of features that might come handy. Power-ups range from visual modifications to complete, additional functionalities.

You can choose from among simple ones, that will only add minor elements to the board i.e. Emoji Picker, or you can go ahead with the big ones, that bring a whole new level of awesomeness to your boards - i.e. Custom Theme, Recurring Tasks, Task Dependencies.
Stay tuned, we’re always getting even more ready!

To get started, please go to the Settings - Power-Ups tab and take your pick!

All of the listed power-ups can be enabled in your board’s Settings - Power-Ups tab.
Enjoy the following:

• Calendar Widget

• Interactive Checklists

• Card Aging

• Recurring Tasks

• Team Activity

• Add Task Box

• Task Navigator

• Zapier

• Developer Tools

• Card Block

• Web Attachments

• Google Drive

• Dropbox

• Box

• OneDrive

• Auto Assign

• Activity Notice

• Kanban Cast

• Emoji Picker

• Checklist Templates

• Postponed Tasks

• Task Summary

• Card Legend

• Card Covers

• Pinboard

• Task Dependencies

• Task Reminders

• Board Readme

• Giphy Gif Picker

• Time In Stage

• Column Highlight

• Work Timer

• AI Assistant

• Card Icons

• Comment Reactions

To use power-ups, go to the Settings page and open the Power-Ups tab.

Board settings aren’t visible to all users.
You need an account owner or account administrator privilege to access any board’s settings.
Users with the project manager privilege can enable power-ups, but only on boards they have created.
Also, a user that was made a given board’s owner will be able to change that board’s settings.

If you don’t see the Settings link but want to use power-ups, please ask a team member with higher access rights to enable them or to increase your privileges.

Web Attachments is the must-have power-up for seamlessly attaching web-based files to your Kanban tasks.

Say goodbye to the hassle of switching between different platforms and juggling multiple tools. With Web Attachments, you can easily attach images, websites, videos, GitHub pull requests, or any online documents directly to your tasks. Whether it’s a design inspiration or a crucial code snippet, you can now keep everything in one place.

The power-up also allows you to link related Kanban cards, providing a comprehensive view of all your work items.

To get started, just go to Settings - Power-Ups and turn on the Web Attachments add-on.

If you’d rather pick files directly from your favorite file hosting service, feel free to use the Google Drive, Dropbox, Box or OneDrive power-ups.

With Chromecast, you can project your Kanban Tool board onto a big screen, making it easier to collaborate with your team and keep everyone on the same page.

Simply plug your Chromecast streaming device into the HDMI port of any TV and mirror the screen of your device. It’s that easy! If you have a modern TV with a casting receiver built-in, you’re all set.

To use the power-up, follow these steps:

1. Open your Kanban Tool account in Google Chrome, which has built-in support for casting web content to other devices.

2. Go to the board’s Settings and enable the Kanban Cast power-up.
   You can find the Settings in the top-right corner of the board view, next to Share, Tools, Help, and filters.

3. Once you’ve enabled the Kanban Cast power-up, you’ll see a new icon for it in the board view, next to the Share link.

4. This icon gives you all the options you need to adjust the zoom, size, or contrast of the casted image. It is also here where you can turn it off when you’re done.

Just keep in mind that if you collapse a column, you’ll need to switch Kanban Cast off and then back on again to see the changes on the casted image.

Supercharge the board with our Card Aging power-up! With just a few clicks, you’ll have the power to instantly tell how long your cards have been left idle without updates, allowing you to keep your projects moving smoothly.

Enabling Card Aging is quick and easy - simply go to Settings and turn it on! Once activated, your task cards will automatically fade as time passes without any activity. You get to set your own thresholds, so you can easily track when a card has been inactive for 7, 14, or even 30 days. The longer a card stays inactive, the more it fades, making it easy to see which tasks need your attention most.

Say goodbye to guesswork and hello to enhanced productivity!

With this add-on, you can easily mark any task as blocked with just a few clicks. Simply right-click on a task and choose the Block task option from the context menu.

Blocked cards get a distinctive look, cannot be moved by drag-and-drop, and optionally can display a message that explains the reason why work on them was suspended. Thanks to that, your team can instantly see the status of any card and quickly identify any issues that may be preventing progress.

By using this intuitive integration, you can easily link your Google Drive account to Kanban Tool. All you need to do is enable Google Drive on the board’s Settings - Power-Ups page, and you’ll be ready to attach online documents to Kanban Tool cards effortlessly.

To add a file, simply click the + add attachment link.

You can now run a smooth workflow, handling and sharing both your Kanban projects and online files from the same location!

Getting started

Looking to save time and streamline your work processes? Recurring Tasks let you minimize the effort needed to set up work items that need doing periodically - every day, week, month, or year. To make a task pop up on your board on a specific date or several dates, you first need to have this task on your board. Fill in all the details needed for this task completion.

Once done, use the context menu of the card - right-click a closed task, or use the in-card hamburger menu - and choose Make recurring:

In the pop-up menu, select when this task should appear on your board. You can either use general repetition (daily, weekly, monthly, yearly) or use a custom schedule if more precision is needed.

Your recurring tasks will then appear in the side panel under Recurring tasks, where you can easily preview the scheduled items.

You can also apply a “Recurring tasks” filter to the board, to see which columns tasks will be appearing in. When the set time comes, your task will appear in the same column, in which it had originally been created.

Schedule editing

Because schedules can change, we’ve made it easy to edit or stop recurring tasks whenever you need to. Just use the pencil icon to edit the schedule or the “x” mark to stop recurring tasks.

Are you looking for a way to bring more personality to your comments?

Simply enable the Emoji Picker power-up in board settings. It will add an intuitive icon picker to the comment editing section, leaving you free to choose the emoji that best expresses your mood or message in the moment:

Upgrade your team communication game with the Emoji Picker!

Feel like going a few steps further? Try Giphy Gif Picker and Comment Reactions too.

With this power-up, active checklists users can view and tick off their task lists with just a few clicks, without having to open the individual task cards.

Head to your board’s Settings - Power-Ups and switch on Interactive Checklist. In its options, you will find a setting to match the checklist display preferences to your workflow. Choose to have your checklist items expanded in all columns, or just the In Progress types of columns. You also have the choice over whether to show all list items, only the incomplete ones or just the first incomplete one.

Are you struggling to keep track of all your upcoming tasks and deadlines? The Calendar Widget is the solution you need for instant due date visibility in your schedule! The power-up adds a simple yet effective calendar to your side panel. It highlights your tasks’ due dates, so you can easily see what’s coming up next. Simply click on a highlighted date, and you’ll instantly see all the tasks due on that day.

But that’s not all! With the magnifying glass icon, you can access a larger, interactive calendar view that shows all of the month’s due tasks:

Calendar view in Kanban Tool

This feature makes workflow planning a breeze, allowing you to drag and drop cards across different days to update their due dates. Plus, you can open and edit your tasks directly from the calendar view, streamlining your workflow even further.

Furthermore, if your card template uses both the due date and the start date, you will be able to observe a timeline view of your tasks, making it easy to see the planned future work progression in time.

The Add Task Box power-up makes new card creation faster, by showing a note box at the bottom of each column. You can type a new task directly into it and create it by hitting Enter.

You can also assign basic card attributes through the Add Task Box window with these symbols: [..], @, #. Were you to type:
[finances] @JS #urgent
- you’d create a task of the finances card type, with an urgent tag, and assigned to a user identified with the JS initials.

Of course, the card types and users that you call out here must be valid for the board you’re on.

With the this power-up, you’ll be able to seamlessly transition between tasks sitting in the same column. Simply use the left and right arrows to quickly switch between previous and next tasks while working on a card. This time-saving tool will help you stay focused and productive, allowing you to complete your tasks with ease.

Related: You’re also welcome to try Task Dependencies, or adding tasks as attachments to other cards, for a speedy navigation between connected items.

Want to keep up with what’s going on on the board? With the Team Activity power-up, you’ll never miss a beat. It adds a list of recent board activities to the side panel, including user comments, card moves, and more. It will help you stay up-to-date and informed on everything happening on the project board.

Related: We have even more features to enhance your experience! You can also filter the board by recently updated tasks, or do an all-boards-wide search for recent activity, to quickly see what’s been going on.

Do you wish for a low-effort way to monitor who is doing what? This power-up gives you visibility over which user is working on which task, without asking you to spend any time on making the assignments.

With Auto Assign, a task is automatically assigned to the team member who moves it to a column of the In progress type. And when that task is moved to a column of the Queue / Waiting type, the assignment will be removed. It’s that easy!

Don’t want to miss important updates and changes to tasks?

The Activity Notice will display a pop-up notification whenever your team makes a significant change to a task on the board. Whether it’s task adding, editing, moving, deleting, or archiving - you’ll be notified in real-time so you never miss a beat.

Additionally, you can enable Activity Notice to show as your regular desktop notifications.

Are you a developer looking to take your Kanban Tool workflow to the next level? With Developer Tools you can add your custom scripts and stylesheets to the board, customizing its looks and operation.

All you need is some basic knowledge of Javascript and/or CSS, and of course, some great ideas!

To help you get started, we’ve compiled a collection of cool, free scripts in our GitHub repository. To learn more about them, please visit this page.

We know that efficiency is key when it comes to staying organized. With Checklist Templates, you can prepare default sets of checklists for your cards, and be adding them to tasks with just one click. Say goodbye to creating checklists from scratch for every card!

To get started, simply enable the Checklist Templates feature in your board settings, under Power-Ups. From there, you can create customized templates to suit your unique needs. With the templates ready to go, the team can effortlessly add one or more of them to any new or existing card:

Furthermore, you can give your checklist templates more structure by creating list sub-levels, or, in other words, nesting items under one another.
To achieve this result, preface a sub-list element with one or two hyphens to nest it under a master list heading, like this:

If your board has become a bit overwhelming, cluttered with tasks that you can’t tackle just yet, then Postponed Tasks can help you restore order!

Simply choose to postpone a task until the evening, next day, next week, or a specific date and time. When the set time arrives, your task card will reappear in the column where it was originally located.

Don’t worry, you will be able to keep track of all your postponed tasks with the convenient Postponed Tasks widget, displayed in the side panel alongside other widgets like the Calendar, Recurring Tasks, Team Activity, and My Work.

You can also edit the schedule for postponed items, or bring a deferred task back to the board before the scheduled time. Need to make changes to a postponed task? No problem - simply open the card from the widget and make your edits.

Say goodbye to a cluttered board and hello to effortless task management!

Would you like to quickly access all the information about your tasks? With Task Summary, you can easily show more details on card faces, keeping yourself right on top of your workflow.

Customize the information you see on closed cards by choosing from a wide range of options (any in-card field!), including custom fields, card type, due date, external link, assigned user, priority, ID, and more. You can even display additional information like task creator, logged time, and lead time - the time that has elapsed since task creation. The choice of data is yours and at your fingertips!

Getting started is simple: just enable the Task Summary power-up in your board settings or ask your account owner/admin to do it for you. From there, choose the fields you want to see and let Task Summary do the rest:

Try it out today and elevate your productivity to new heights!

Does your team get confused about the meaning each task color holds? This neat little power-up shows the names and colors of the card types used on your board, right at the bottom of the page, for everyone to peek at.

Without obstructing the board data, you’re able to quickly find out which color symbolizes what type of work. Furthermore, clicking one of the types filters the board by that card color only!

With this convenient power-up, you can showcase your graphics and create a gallery on your cards in just a few clicks. To show your attached images on card fronts, enable the Card Covers power-up in board Settings.

You can select any of your graphic files or pdf to become a card cover or covers - marking multiple files with the eye icon will create a gallery on your card.

Furthermore, any of your file attachments (e.g., .docx, .xlsx), or Web Attachments can be pinned to the card front. While it won’t give a preview, it will make your files accessible directly from the closed card, ready for a quick download.

Say goodbye to the hassle of searching for frequently needed files and links - the Pinboard power-up lets you attach files and links directly to the board’s side panel. Besides website and online document links, you can also attach Kanban Tool tasks and links to other Kanban Tool boards.

You can enable the widget from board Settings - Power-Ups. To pin a file, just use the “+” icon, located in the Pinboard header.

Important: To pin a website link, first make sure that you have enabled the Web Attachments power-up.

You’re also welcome to pin files from your Google Drive, Box, Dropbox, or One Drive accounts, for as long as you have the respective power-ups switched on.

Task Dependencies allow for building relations between cards, to visually connect work items that need doing in bunches. This way, complex work gets broken down into items of a more manageable size, giving you a clear picture of how far along a big job has come.

It’s a great way not only to bring order to large tasks, but to also show parent-child card relations, and to delegate pieces of work to other team members or boards.

Task Dependencies power-up needs enabling in board Settings - Power-Ups.
Once active, there will be an + add dependencies link in an open task’s header:

With it, you can either create a new, dependent task, link an existing card to make it dependent, or clone the existing card, making the clone dependent on the original.

Any task that you have access to can be made dependent on another - you can build dependencies between tasks across all columns, swimlanes, and boards. Use the location selectors shown in connected tasks to choose or change a linked task’s location:

Dependent tasks can be opened directly from the master task view and will be shown over it. Cascading structures of dependent tasks can be created and viewed in this way, letting you dive into the core of work, without having to navigate through columns and boards in search of related tasks.

Use the left-right arrows and the return symbol to navigate between dependent tasks - the arrows move through cards on the same level, and the return arrow takes you one level higher in the structure.

The tree-like scheme of dependent tasks shows additional information about cards status - you may come across backlog, in progress, waiting and done icons. They relate to what lane type column that task is in, thereby hinting on their completion stage.

If present, team member assignments and any tracked time records will also be displayed in the tree-like list. You can also reorder the dependent tasks with the vertical double arrow icon, shown when hovering over a listed item.

With Task Reminders, you’ll never miss a deadline or overlook a critical task again! To get started, simply enable Task Reminders on your board Settings - Power-Ups page.

Now, when viewing an open card, click any date-based field - whether it’s the default due date or a custom date field - and along with the calendar, you’ll see an + Add reminder option.

Choose when the reminder should be sent out, for example, on the day - your due date or custom field date, depending on what you’ve chosen, a day or two prior to that, a week before, etc. Then choose the time at which the reminder should arrive, and select to whom the email should be sent.

You can notify:

• any named user that has access to the board you’re on
• the person who created the task
• the person assigned to the task
• everyone assigned: the person to whom the task is assigned, as well as all users to whom any uncompleted checklist items are assigned
• a user group that has access to this board

Once set, hit the blue Save button, and on the selected date and time, an email will be sent to the chosen person or people. The email will contain a direct link to the task it refers to for easy access.

While email notifications can be helpful, we know that not everyone has time to constantly check their inbox while working on a Kanban board. That’s why we offer a range of other ways to get reminders and stay on top of your work.
Instead of setting up an email notification, you can choose a time when a task should:

• be moved to the top or the bottom of a specific column
• be assigned to a given team member
• have the card type (color) changed
• be added to a specified person’s My Work list
• get a priority change

To review or change a once set reminder, please right-click a closed task, or use an open card’s context menu (shown below), to find the Set reminders option again.

Other features related to keeping track of time-sensitive work are Due Dates, Recurring Tasks, and Postponed Tasks.

If you would like to receive a bulk reminder of all upcoming due tasks, please use the default due tasks reminder email. You can also create email notifications for completely custom events through the process automation.

Want to be able to give your team clear and concise instructions on how to use the board effectively? You can easily add a Readme information window to your Kanban Tool board! First, enable the Board Readme power-up in settings.

Now, simply provide your team with guidance on the do’s and don’ts of using the board, who to contact for final approval, and any other helpful tips that will improve their understanding of the workflow.

There are a few options for when the window is to open for users viewing. And since you can make it show every time that the board gets opened - you could even use it as a company news page for the team!

And i you’d rather keep a separate information box for each column, you can do that too, using lane policies - please read more here.

Feel like adding more life to your team conversations in the task comments field?

To add to the optional emoticons support in comments, you may also enable animated images support, through the Giphy Gif Picker power-up. Using images will make team collaboration more fun and a lot faster in many cases!

As with all power-ups, you first need to enable the add-on in board settings. Then, open your task comments, and click the black icon to open a Giphy image search.

Type in what you’re looking for, and click on the chosen image. That will add the image’s information to the comment editing window. Feel free to add text, emoticons, or attachments and post the comment.

Looking for further personal-touch features for team chats? Be sure to enable Comment Reactions too!

If you’d like to track the amount of time each task spends in each process stage, to get valuable insights into the regularity and flow of your process, then please enable the Time In Stage power-up.

The colorful horizontal Time In Stage bar provides a clear and concise overview of how much time a card has sat in each of your board’s columns.

The colors across the bar will always align with respect to the applied lane type, rather than to specific columns. Columns can be set to use a Backlog, Waiting, In Progress or Done lane type.

To find out how long the task has spent in each specific column, just hover the mouse pointer over the bar, to see a detailed list of time spent in a given stage.

Whether you’re analyzing your process flow, looking to engage more people in specific process steps, or simply trying to improve your team’s productivity, Time In Stage will be an essential tool in your arsenal!

Looking to improve the readability and usability of your board? The Column Highlight power-up will let you underline your board’s columns with colorful strips, making it easier than ever to identify specific process stages.

Whether you’re working on a multi-stage board or simply looking to better associate a color with a process step, the power-up has you covered. You can highlight just one column, such as the Doing column, or all of them, depending on your specific needs.

Go ahead and improve the visual appeal of your board, while at the same time speeding up the identification of specific process stages!

Are you looking for a simple way to increase your productivity and better manage your time?
The Work Timer lets you define the length of a focused work session, as well as the duration of breaks between sessions.. You can also specify the total hours you want to work in a day.

Additionally, you can select a background sound for focused work, e.g., a calming sound of rain or a ticking clock, and another sound to tell you when it’s time to take a well-earned break.

Need to take a break earlier than planned? No problem - simply use the arrow next to the Pause button to select a long or short break and start right away:

If you’re using the Kanban Tool Enterprise plan with Time Tracking & Reporting, activating and pausing the work timer can optionally synchronize with your tasks’ Time Trackers. So that you’d only need to stop work in one place - either in Work Timer or in My Work.

To edit the Work Timer settings, click on the blue timer in the middle, or the hamburger settings icon in the top-right corner of the clock.

Get ready to take control of your time and increase your effectiveness!

This power-up gives you the easiest way to synchronize your Kanban Tool data with hundreds of other web services you and your team already use.

The Zapier platform offers easy-to-use connections - Zaps - between your chosen applications, for instance, Kanban Tool and Google Tasks, Kanban Tool and Mailchimp, or even within the bounds of one service, where, e.g., an automated Kanban Tool task update is triggered by another action on your Kanban Tool page!

Please check out Zapier’s supported apps page to see if your favorite services are available.

If you’d like to see some example Zaps, please visit these pages:

• Setting up workflow stage notifications
• Linking tasks between boards

The AI Assistant power-up for Kanban Tool is an innovative feature that integrates cutting-edge artificial intelligence technology to save you time and ensure that tasks are well-planned and comprehensive. Should you be planning work in a subject matter that you lack experience in, the AI Assistant will guide you through the steps typically involved in the type of work you’re approaching.

Checklist Suggestions

Want to speed up and simplify your checklist creation process? With AI Assistant you will get smart list item recommendations, making it far easier to organize, complete and prioritize work.

Once you’ve activated the power-up, a new + Suggest checklist option will show on the card - next to the standard +Add checklist link.

The AI Assistant will analyze your task name or a separate prompt that you provide, and on that basis, it will suggest a list of relevant to-do items. You can then pick and reorder them as needed, generate even more ideas, and add the selected items to your task’s checklist with just a click of a button. The AI Assistant’s suggestions are personalized and tailored to your specific needs, ensuring that you have the most effective and efficient to-do list to help you complete your task.

Task Suggestions

You can also benefit from AI integration when designing new project boards and when populating columns with new tasks. Under a right-click in any column, you will find a Suggest tasks option in the context menu. Simply type in what you’re going to work on, and the AI assistant will suggest task cards that are most likely to help you realize your goals. It’s that easy!

As we continue to develop the AI Assistant, we will be adding even more features and functionality to further enhance your experience.

Connect your Dropbox account to Kanban Tool in just a few clicks!

Simply enable the Dropbox connection on the Power-Ups page and you’re all set to attach your online documents to Kanban Tool cards! To attach a file, click the + add attachment link and select the file you want to pin to the card.

Done! You’re ready to enjoy a seamless workflow allowing you to manage the projects and online files in one place.

This straightforward integration connects your Box account with Kanban Tool.

By activating the Box connection in Power-Ups, you can easily attach your online documents to Kanban cards in just a few clicks. To attach a file, select the + add attachment link and pick the file you want to pin to the card.

This integration will streamline your workflow by allowing you to manage projects and online files in one convenient location.

Linking OneDrive with Kanban Tool could not be easier with this integration.

Switch on the OneDrive connection on the Power-Ups page and start attaching your online documents to Kanban Tool cards in a breeze. All you need to do is click on the + add attachment link and select a file to pin to the card. Now, you can effortlessly work on your projects and online files in a single spot.

This power-up displays informative icons on your cards, that may signal specific traits of the tasks, e.g., a flag icon on stale tasks or a bell icon on tasks that require scheduling a call.

Automatic icon display for tasks matching given criteria

How does it work? The feature will show icons on cards that meet the given criteria pre-set for the whole board by you, using our search and filtering syntax.

For instance:

• show a flag icon on cards that weren’t updated in 10 days
  
• show a bell icon on tasks with a “phone number” custom field filled out
  

Manual icons selection for individual cards

Predefining the conditions for Card Icons to show on cards allows you to decide what facts about the tasks matter the most, and get informed about them visually, in an instant and automated way.
However, if you'd rather have the ability to add icons to your cards as and when you wish - without pre-setting their meaning - that too is possible.

To make it work, use a custom field of a "dropdown with options" type, naming up to 10 options with your selected icon names, e.g.:

Then, go to the Card Icons power-up settings and match each of the custom field's options with the specific icon, like this:

With that, you can select the icons from a dropdown directly inside the card!

Want even more on-card data display? Be sure to try these power-ups as well: Interactive Checklists, Task Summary, and Card Covers.