How to organize a project

This guide shows you how to organize the cards of a workspace: put them in groups, link them, see them in different ways, and keep your workspace tidy.

Group your cards

Groups help you sort your cards. A software team groups its cards by step, priority or release. An HR team groups them by country, department or job offer.

Groups come from four types of fields:

• State: the steps of your work, for example “Todo”, “Doing” and “Done”. A card has one state.
• Select: a choice in a list, for example a priority. A card has one value.
• Labels: tags. A card can have several labels.
• Milestone: dated milestones, for example sprints or releases. A card is in one milestone.

To show the groups as columns on a board, click Group in the toolbar, then choose the field in Group cards into columns.

Cards with no value in this field are “ungrouped”. To show them, turn on Ungrouped in the Appearance menu.

Create a group field

Open a card, then add a field of type State, Select, Labels or Milestone. See Add fields to your cards. The new field then appears in the Group menu.

Manage the groups

On a board grouped by a field, each column is a group:

• To add a group, click the + at the right end of the column headers, then enter its name.
• To rename a group, click its name.
• To change the order of the groups, drag the columns.

The … menu of a column gives more options:

• Color: the color of the group.
• Associate a state to this group: the cards that you move into the group take this card state. Kantree asks if it must also change the cards that are already in the group.
• Sort by: the order of the cards in the column.
• Select all cards: to run an action on all the cards of the column.
• Automations: run an automation when a card enters the group.
• Set date range (milestones): the start and end dates of the group. Burndown charts use them.
• Permissions: which roles can move cards in or out of the group. See Roles and permissions.
• Subscribe: get a notification when a card enters or leaves the group.
• Archive or Delete the group.

The options of the field change all its groups. Hover the field in a card, click the button above it, then Options:

• Default value (only applied on created cards).
• Automatically apply a random color to new groups.
• Allow empty state (State fields): by default, each card must have a state.
• Appearance (State fields): show the states as Arrows or as a Dropdown.
• Limit selection to one group per card (Labels fields).
• For Milestone fields: a duration for new milestones. Each new milestone starts at the end of the previous one.

Delete a group or a group field

• To delete a group, click … on its column, then Delete. The cards of the group are not deleted: they only lose this value.
• To delete a group field, hover it in a card, click the button above it, then Delete this field in … cards. All the cards lose their value in this field.

Reorder cards

In a column, drag a card to change its position.

To sort the cards automatically, click Sort in the toolbar, or Sort by in the menu of a column. You can sort by reference, title, state, number of sub-cards, creation date, last update, or by any field. Drag and drop only changes the position of the cards in Manual sort.

When a card can have several values (Labels), hold Ctrl while you drag it: the card is added to the new group and stays in the old one.

Card hierarchy

Cards can have sub-cards, and sub-cards can have their own sub-cards. For example: a project card, with phase sub-cards, with task sub-cards.

• To add sub-cards, open a card and use the Sub-cards tab. See Add sub-cards.
• To give a card its own board, click Create sub-board in its Sub-cards tab. See Create a sub-board.
• To show the sub-cards in a view, turn on Descendants in the Appearance menu.
• To filter by level, use hlevel in a KQL filter: hlevel=1 for the top cards, hlevel=2 for their sub-cards…

Link cards

Relationship field

A Relationships field links a card to other cards, in the same workspace or in another workspace. For example:

• a task and the tasks that it depends on,
• a customer request and the bug that causes it,
• a contract and its customer, in another workspace.

Relationship fields also do more:

• Group your cards by related card: for example, all the requests linked to the same bug.
• Plan with the Gantt and Dependencies views. See Timelines.
• Show information of the related cards with a lookup field.
• Start automations. See Automations.

Add a relationship

1. Click the + of the field.
2. Choose the workspace on the left, then search for a card by title or by reference (for example #3).
3. Click Add next to the cards to link. Click Add new card in … to create the card to link.

To open a linked card, click it in the field.

Appearance of the field

The linked cards appear like a small view in the card. Click the settings button of the field to choose the view mode (list, kanban…), the grouping and the fields shown on the cards.

Field options

Hover the field, click the button above it, then Options.

General

• Workspace from which cards can be selected: limit the choice to one workspace.
• Only allow to select cards of the following type: limit the choice to one card type.
• Only allow to select cards matching the following filter: a KQL filter, for example hlevel=2 for sub-cards only.
• Prevent circular relationships: a card cannot be linked, directly or indirectly, to itself.

Appearance

• Limit relationship to one card.
• Prevent the creation of new cards in the selection modal.
• Can be used to group cards in workspace views: choose a workspace in General first.

Dates

• Update date fields in related cards: when the date of a card changes, Kantree moves the dates of the related cards (Referenced in this field), or of the cards that reference this card (Referencing this card through this field). This is useful to plan tasks that depend on each other.
• Only move future dates when moved forward.

Two-way relationships

In the Bidirectional tab, turn on Keep both relationship fields synchronized. Kantree creates the opposite field in the other workspace, and keeps the two fields up to date. For example, a “Customer” field in your contracts and a “Contracts” field in your customers.

Lookup field

A Lookup field shows the value of a field of the related cards. The value updates automatically. For example, in a task, show the due date of the project that it belongs to, even if the project is in another workspace.

1. Make sure that the card has a relationship field.
2. Add a field of type Lookup (in More types).
3. In its options, choose the Relationship field, then the Value field: the field of the related cards to show.

Move or copy cards

You can move or copy cards to another place in the workspace, or to another workspace: right-click the cards, then Move or Duplicate. See Copy or move cards.

When you move a card or a workspace to another team, its groups and its card types are copied to the new team.

Filter cards

Click Filter in the toolbar to show only some cards. Choose a field and a value, or search the text of the cards. Add more conditions with Add condition.

For advanced filters, use KQL, the query language of Kantree. See the KQL guide.

In the kanban and table views, the headers of the groups show the number of cards that match the filter.

To apply an action to all the cards that match the filter (archive them, change a field…), right-click a card, click Select all, then choose the action.

Save your filter in a view to use it again. See Save a view.

Archives

Archive cards and groups instead of deleting them. You can restore them, or delete them later.

Archive a card

Right-click the card, then Archive. See Archive a card.

Archive a group

Click … on the column, then Archive. You can archive the group alone, or the group and its cards.

See archived cards

Turn on Archived in the Appearance menu.

Archive a workspace

Workspace administrators can archive a workspace: open the workspace menu, click Settings, then Archive at the bottom of the General tab.

To see the archived workspaces, open the Workspaces tab of the organization, then turn on Show archives.

Favorite cards

Add the cards that you use often to your favorites: right-click the card, or click … in the card, then Add to favorites. Your favorites are in the star menu of the app sidebar.

To follow a few cards closely, you can also pin them: click the pin at the top of the card. Pinned cards appear in My cards, at the bottom of the screen.

See your cards in different ways

Each view mode has its own use. Click the name of the view mode in the toolbar to change it.

Kanban

The kanban board shows the cards as tiles in columns. The columns are the groups of a field. Drag the cards from one column to another to change their value. This is the best view to follow a workflow.

Swimlanes

A kanban board can group the cards a second time, in rows: click Group, then choose a field in Group cards into rows. You get a matrix, for example the states in columns and the priorities in rows.

With swimlanes, you can:

• drag the columns and the rows to reorder them,
• drag a card to a cell to change its two values at once,
• fold the columns and the rows that you do not need,
• create a card in any cell.

To go back to a simple board, choose Ungrouped in Group cards into rows.

Table

The table shows one card on each row and one field in each column, like a spreadsheet. Click a cell to change the value.

Click the … of a column header to sort the column, rename the field, open the options of the field, or hide the column. To show more columns, or to add a field, click the + at the right end of the headers. Drag the headers to change the order of the columns.

Map

The map shows the cards that have a Location field. If the cards have several location fields, choose one in Using field ….

Other view modes

• List: a simple checklist. Check a card to complete it.
• Quadrant: the cards on a matrix with two axes, for example urgent / important.
• Dependencies: the cards and the links between them. See Timelines.

Planning tools

The planning views show the cards on their dates. The cards need a date field.

Timeline

The timeline shows each card as a bar, from its start date to its end date. Drag a bar to change its dates. See the Timeline guide.

Calendar

The calendar shows the cards on a calendar, like Outlook or Google Calendar.

• Choose the date field in Using field ….
• The Unscheduled cards panel lists the cards without a date. Drag a card to a day to give it this date.
• Drag a card in the calendar to change its date.
• Choose between the week, month and agenda displays.
• iCalendar feed gives you a link to add the calendar to Outlook, Google Calendar or another calendar app.

Journal

The journal shows all the changes in the workspace, day by day. Filter it by member or by type of action, and export it.

To add a journal, click Add view, then Journal.

The journal is a good way to see what your team did, for example before a meeting.

Logs overview

The logs view shows all the logs of the cards, for a period and for a type of log. For example, the time spent by each person this month.

To add it, click Add view, then Logs.

Forms

A form lets people send you information, even if they do not have a Kantree account. Each answer creates a card in your workspace, with its fields filled. See the Forms guide.

Export

You can export the cards of a workspace:

1. Open the workspace menu (click the name of the workspace), then click Export.
2. Choose a format: Excel, CSV, JSON or tabular JSON.
3. Choose the fields to export. Turn on Include descendant cards to also export the sub-cards.
4. Click Export. Kantree sends you a link to the file by email.

If you often make the same export, click Save as a template.

You can also export with an automation, with the Export the workspace action. See Automations.