How to turn a management tool into a business application with Kantree

TL;DR

In 2025, Kantree evolves into a fully customizable business application that requires no technical skills. Thanks to six pillars (process security, business vocabulary, automation, external collaboration, adaptability), you can transform your project management into a tailor-made solution. This guide details how to create data models, leverage multiple views, set up intelligent automation, and manage by KPIs, illustrated by a concrete industrial case study.

Table of contents

• Understanding Kantree’s evolution toward a business approach
• The six pillars of this transformation
• Building your data model: the foundation of your application
• Harnessing the power of multiple views
• Intelligently automating your processes
• Managing with visual indicators using the Dashboard
• A complete practical case: industrial commissioning
• Kantree as the foundation of your digital transformation

In 2025, organizations are looking for custom business applications that adapt to their processes rather than the other way around. Kantree meets this need by allowing you to create tailor-made business tools without development skills. This marks a major shift: you are no longer constrained by a generic project management software, but instead create your own digital solution that speaks your business language.

The digitization of business processes is now accessible to all operational managers. No more waiting for a developer to become available or budgeting for a complex IT project. With Kantree’s new customization features, you can configure your work environment yourself, adapt it as needs evolve, and make it grow at your organization’s pace.

Understanding Kantree’s evolution toward a business approach

The key difference: tool vs business application

To fully grasp what’s changing with Kantree in 2025, you must first understand the key difference between a classic project management tool and a true business application. A traditional tool imposes its own structure and vocabulary: you must adapt your work habits to it. A business application, on the other hand, adapts to you—it adopts your vocabulary, reflects your actual processes, and is configured according to your specific needs.

This distinction is crucial, as it directly affects how well teams adopt the tool. When a collaborative software speaks the same language as your teams and faithfully reflects their day-to-day work, resistance to change drops dramatically. That’s precisely the transformation Kantree offers in 2025.

The impact on user adoption

The adoption of a tool by teams depends directly on its ability to reflect their operational reality. When your employees see familiar terms, workflows that match their daily routine, and information structured the way they naturally think, the tool becomes intuitively understandable. This business-level personalization removes the cognitive friction that usually hinders adoption of new systems.

The six pillars of this transformation

Process security

Kantree’s new approach is based on six complementary pillars that together create a truly adaptable solution. First, you can secure your processes by guiding your teams through clearly defined workflows, thus avoiding mistakes and omissions. This structure ensures every critical step is followed and all essential data is collected.

Digitization without technical skills

Second, this digitization requires no technical expertise—you no longer need to wait for a developer to evolve your tool. Business managers regain control over their work tools and can adapt them in real time as new needs emerge.

Custom business vocabulary

Third—and perhaps most crucial for adoption—you use your own business vocabulary. Instead of forcing your teams to talk about “tickets” or “items,” you can use terms they naturally use: “interventions,” “client files,” “missions,” or any term meaningful in your context. This linguistic customization makes the tool immediately familiar.

Controlled automation

Fourth, automation frees you from repetitive tasks without giving up control of your processes. Systematic actions trigger automatically while you remain in charge of key decisions and special cases that require human judgment.

Extended collaboration

Fifth, collaboration extends beyond your organization: you can involve clients, suppliers, or partners in parts of your processes while maintaining full control over what they can see or do. This controlled openness improves transparency while keeping sensitive data secure.

Continuous adaptability

Finally, the sixth pillar, adaptability, allows your tool to evolve at the same pace as your organization, without having to start over each time something changes. Your investment in configuring Kantree remains sustainable even as your processes evolve.

Building your data model: the foundation of your application

☝️ Presentation video of the new features for creating “business apps,” released as part of Kantree’s 10-year anniversary.

Why data customization matters

Imagine you manage technical interventions. In a typical tool, you might have to record the “equipment serial number” in a field meant for something else or note the “last maintenance date” in a comment. With Kantree, you create exactly the custom fields you need, named to reflect your reality.

This approach solves a fundamental issue many organizations face: the gap between what the tool allows you to record and what you actually need to work efficiently. When your data is structured according to your business logic, entry becomes more natural, errors decrease, and analysis becomes much more meaningful.

How custom fields work

From your workspace settings, you can add fields matching your business. Each field has a type (text, date, number, dropdown list, etc.), which defines how it can be filled and used later. For example, a “Priority” dropdown ensures everyone uses the same values (High, Medium, Low), making sorting and later analysis much easier.

The particularly interesting new feature for 2025 is the Members field, which lets you propose lists of people based on their roles. For instance, if you create a “Technical Validator” field, you can configure it to only show users with the “technician” role. This avoids assignment mistakes and speeds up data entry.

Understanding card types and their usefulness

Card types represent the different objects you manipulate in your business. Take a communication agency, for example: you could have three distinct card types.

The first type, “Campaign,” represents a full client project, with fields such as “Total budget,” “Launch date,” “Client,” and “Project manager.”
The second, “Deliverable,” represents each concrete output (video, visual, article), with fields like “Format,” “Duration,” and “Validation status.”
The third, “Meeting,” includes fields like “Participants,” “Agenda,” and “Minutes.”

This separation into distinct types is powerful—it avoids unnecessary fields on certain cards. A meeting doesn’t need a “Budget” field, and a campaign doesn’t need a “Deliverable format.” Each object has its own structure, making the interface clearer and entry faster.

Protecting your data structure

Once you’ve built your data model and your teams use it daily, you’ll want to prevent accidental changes. That’s where the workspace lock function comes in.

Locking protects your card types and shared views from unintended changes. This doesn’t make your system rigid—admins can always unlock temporarily to make updates—but it prevents users from accidentally deleting a key field or modifying a shared team view.

Harnessing the power of multiple views

Why multiple display modes are necessary

Data can be viewed from different angles depending on what you want to understand or do. It’s like an architect using several types of blueprints for the same building: a floor plan to understand the layout, a vertical section to see ceiling height, and a 3D view to visualize the whole. Each representation reveals different information from the same data.

Kantree applies this principle to your business processes by offering five complementary display modes, each revealing specific aspects of your data.

Kanban mode to visualize workflows

☝️ Click on the image above to access your Kanban template directly.

Kanban is ideal when you want to see where your files stand in a sequential process. Imagine you manage client requests going through stages like New request, In review, In progress, Waiting for client, Completed. Kanban displays your cards in columns for each stage, letting you instantly see how many requests are at each point.

Kantree’s Kanban view is even more powerful thanks to dual grouping: you can group columns by status and, within each column, group by assignee. This way, you can see not just where files stand but also who’s handling what—helping balance workloads effectively.

Spreadsheet mode to manipulate data

Some people think best in rows and columns, like in Excel. The Spreadsheet mode offers that same familiarity while keeping Kantree’s power. You see all your cards as rows, with a column for each field—perfect for bulk edits, quick comparisons, or data exports.

It’s also ideal when you need to view many fields at once. While Kanban focuses on key data, Spreadsheet mode can display as many columns as you want, giving a full, detailed overview.

Timeline and Gantt views for the time dimension

When time is a critical factor in your work, Timeline and Gantt views are essential. The Timeline shows your cards on a timeline, helping you visualize overlaps, downtime, and busy periods, and anticipate scheduling conflicts.

The Gantt chart goes further by showing dependencies between tasks. If Task B can’t start until Task A is done, this relationship appears clearly, allowing you to identify your project’s critical path and understand how delays affect others.

Smart filtering and custom views

Beyond display modes, the ability to filter your data dramatically increases productivity. A filter lets you say “show me only the cards that match certain criteria.” For example: only delayed projects, or tasks assigned to a specific person, or interventions planned for this week.

The real power lies in combining filters. You could display only “Urgent” projects that are “Pending” and due within five days. This ultra-targeted view keeps your focus on what truly needs attention.

Kantree distinguishes between shared views, accessible to everyone, and private views, created by individuals for personal use. Shared views provide common ground for teams, while private ones let each person customize their workspace without affecting others.

Organizing and securing your views

As you create more views, organization becomes key. Kantree lets you categorize them logically—perhaps a “Management” category for supervisor dashboards, “Operations” for field teams, and “Reporting” for executive summaries.

Just as you can lock your data structure, you can also lock shared view settings, preventing accidental changes to filters or layout. Data remains editable, but the view’s configuration stays protected.

Collaborating with external partners

A highly useful but often underrated feature is the ability to grant restricted access to external stakeholders. Suppose you manage client projects: instead of sending follow-up emails or PDFs, you can share a dedicated view in Kantree.

The client sees only their own projects, in a custom view that displays relevant details (progress, key dates, deliverables) without exposing internal data (costs, margins, team discussions). All communication happens directly in card comments, ensuring full traceability and avoiding email chaos.

Intelligently automating your processes

Understanding automation logic

Automation in Kantree is based on a simple yet powerful principle: “when this happens, do that.” These are automation rules. The “this” is the trigger (e.g. when a card’s status changes), and the “that” is the action (e.g. send an email or create a new card).

This lets you automatically replicate repetitive sequences. For example, when a project moves to “Completed,” you may need to create a “Review” card and send a client satisfaction email. With an automation rule, both happen instantly.

Making your automations visually identifiable

A key Kantree innovation is the ability to assign colors and icons to automation rules. This may seem cosmetic but is incredibly helpful for understanding and adoption. When rules are visually distinct, it’s easier to see which workflow applies in which situation.

For example, you might color all validation-related rules blue with a check icon, and all client reminder rules red with a clock icon. This visual coding helps users immediately understand what will happen when an action is triggered.

New triggers: buttons and information requests

Traditionally, automations are triggered by system events (card creation, field change, etc.). Kantree now introduces more direct triggers: buttons.

A toolbar button can launch an entire sequence of actions with one click. Imagine a “Close month” button that generates reports, archives completed cards, and emails summaries to stakeholders. Instead of doing all this manually, one click is enough.

Card buttons (currently in development) go further by allowing contextual actions. On a card representing an order, a “Request delivery” button could trigger a chain: create a logistics task, email the transporter with details, and update the order status. The user just clicks once—no need to know the underlying steps.

Another in-development feature, information requests, solves a common problem: how to get missing info without blocking a process. If a required field isn’t filled, the system can automatically ping the right person with a clear notification explaining what’s needed.

Advanced permissions to control automations

Coming soon, advanced permissions will let you define who can trigger which rules. This matters especially for actions with significant implications. For example, you may want only managers to trigger the rule that permanently closes a project, while any team member can request an intermediate validation.

This granular control keeps everyday workflows fluid while maintaining strict oversight of critical actions.

Managing with visual indicators using the Dashboard

Why a dedicated dashboard is necessary

Kantree’s views show operational data: cards, statuses, content. But for steering activity, you need another perspective—aggregated indicators showing trends and performance.

That’s the role of the Dashboard. Instead of viewing data card by card, you see metrics: how many projects are delayed, current client satisfaction rate, or which team has the most active files. These KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) enable informed decisions on organization and resource allocation.

Creating widgets tailored to your needs

Kantree offers predefined widgets for common indicators: evolution charts, distributions, counters, and more. They’re easy to set up—just select the data type and visualization format—and they auto-update in real time.

For specific needs, the custom query widget uses KQL (Kantree Query Language). Without deep technical knowledge, KQL lets you ask complex questions of your data. For instance, you could show the average time between project creation and completion, broken down by client type and month—all live, without exporting to Excel.

Sharing indicators with your teams

A dashboard is only useful if seen by the right people at the right time. Kantree lets you share dashboards, fostering a culture of transparency and continuous improvement. When everyone sees the same indicators, performance discussions become factual and constructive.

You can create dashboards for different audiences: a real-time operational dashboard for field teams, a weekly management dashboard for supervisors, and a monthly strategic one for executives.

A complete practical case: industrial commissioning

To truly understand how all these features fit together, let’s explore a real-world example.

The context and challenges

Consider an industrial commissioning manager leading a team of twelve. Their job: receive equipment, inspect it, commission it, handle returns, oversee sales, then close the case. Before Kantree, this was managed via shared spreadsheets, emails, and lots of back-and-forth to check progress.

Problems were many: scattered information, unclear workload distribution, delays spotted too late, and clients left uncertain about their order status.

The configuration in Kantree

The team started by defining three card types that reflected their core business objects. “Commissioning” for each piece of equipment, with fields like serial number, client, equipment type, and status. “Task” for sub-actions. “Meeting” for planning and documenting team discussions.

Statuses matched their real process: Reception, Inspection, In progress, Returned to assembly, Sold, Completed. Each status had a clear meaning, removing ambiguity.

Views created for different uses

They built several shared views, each serving a purpose. The main Kanban shows all commissioning work by status, providing a clear workflow overview. Cards move from left to right as progress is made.

The task list view, filtered by assignee, helps each technician see what’s on their plate, sorted by priority and due date.

The return tracking spreadsheet compiles all items sent back for rework, helping identify recurring issues and improvement opportunities with production.

Automations in place

Several automations simplified daily operations. When a new commissioning is created through a form (filled by sales), multiple actions trigger: assign to a technician based on workload, create standard inspection tasks, and email the client a confirmation.

When a commissioning moves to “Completed,” the client automatically receives a satisfaction form. If a product moves to “Returned to assembly,” a card is created for production with all necessary details, and the client project’s status updates automatically.

This synchronization between teams prevents oversight and drastically reduces coordination time—information flows automatically to the right people.

Client access for more transparency

Each client gets access to a dedicated Kantree view showing only their own commissionings, with relevant info: current status, estimated completion date, and milestone history. This transparency transformed client relations: instead of calling for updates, they simply log in to check progress.

All communication happens in card comments—if a client has a question, they ask directly there. The entire conversation stays centralized and traceable, invaluable for accountability weeks later.

Concrete results

After a few months, results were clear. Processes became smoother and predictable: everyone knows their tasks and others’ progress. Cross-team coordination improved thanks to shared visibility and automated synchronization. Client follow-up time was cut in half.

Most importantly, the team gained autonomy. The manager no longer has to constantly supervise or remind; the system guides actions and flags issues, freeing time for complex cases and continuous improvement.

Kantree as the foundation of your digital transformation

What makes Kantree especially relevant in 2025 is that it addresses a real, growing need: digitizing processes without launching a heavy, costly IT transformation.

Business managers—those who truly know their domain—can now structure their processes in a digital tool without depending on IT teams. This autonomy accelerates adaptation and continuous improvement since the cycle between “we identify a need” and “we adjust the tool” can happen in hours or days instead of weeks or months.

For operational teams, Kantree brings simplicity and efficiency. The interface matches how they think, automations remove repetitive work, and shared visibility drastically reduces coordination and information-hunting time.

For organizations as a whole, Kantree offers the flexibility and scalability needed to handle change. Team restructuring, new project types, process updates—all can be achieved by adapting Kantree’s configuration rather than switching tools.

If your organization wants to move from “patching with generic tools” to “a structured business application,” while keeping full control of its evolution internally, Kantree is worth exploring. The 2025 features make this transition more accessible than ever.