Kanban Boards¶

Kanban boards provide a visual way to organise active tasks and cases by stage, status, or any other category your team represents with tags. Each item appears as a card, and each board column represents a tag such as Ready, In Progress, or Waiting for Customer.

You can use Kanban boards in:

Worklist for tasks available in your personal work queue
Team Worklist for tasks available through a team role
a channel with case management enabled, for that channel's open cases

Note: Kanban boards may not be enabled in every environment. The boards and actions you can see also depend on your permissions.

Switching Between List and Board Views¶

Open the view menu in the page toolbar. The button shows List while you are using the standard list and shows the name of the current board while a Kanban board is active.

The menu contains:

List, which returns to the standard list view
available Shared boards, followed by available Personal boards
New board — Personal boards, for creating your own board
Edit and Delete when one of your personal boards is active

Select a board name to open it. Emakin remembers the last view you selected separately for your Worklist, Team Worklist, and each channel. If that board is later removed, the page returns to the list view.

Use the list view when you need search, structured filters, export, item selection, or bulk actions. These controls are not available while a Kanban board is active.

Understanding a Board¶

Each named column corresponds to one user tag. A board also contains an Untagged column automatically.

A card shows the item's subject or task name, its number when available, and its visible tags. Select the card title to open the task or case. The number beside a column heading shows how many matching items the column contains. If a column has more cards than are currently displayed, select More to load the next group.

Only active items are shown:

a Worklist board contains the active tasks available in that Worklist or Team Worklist
a channel board contains the channel's open cases
completed tasks and closed cases leave the board automatically
a reopened case can appear on the board again

When one workflow step is completed and the process continues with another active task, the board position can carry forward because task boards classify the related workflow instance by tags.

Creating a Personal Board¶

Personal boards are visible only to the user who created them. Your personal boards for the Worklist, Team Worklist, and individual channels are kept separate.

To create a board:

Open the Worklist, Team Worklist, or a channel with case management enabled.
Open the view menu in the toolbar.
Select New board — Personal boards.
Enter a descriptive Board Name.
Select Add Column for each stage you want to track.
For every column, select an existing tag or type a new tag name.
Arrange the rows in the order in which the columns should appear.
Save the board.

A board must contain between 1 and 20 named columns. Every column requires a tag, and the same tag cannot be used more than once on a board. Tag names are matched without regard to upper- or lower-case letters, so Review and review cannot be added as separate columns.

Tip: Use column names that describe a clear working state. A short sequence such as Ready, In Progress, Review, and Done is easier to scan than many overlapping categories.

How Columns and Tags Work¶

Kanban columns do not create a separate status field. They organise cards using the tags already associated with each task's workflow instance or each case.

This has several practical effects:

moving a card into a named column applies that column's tag
tags used by the other named columns on the same board are removed from the item
moving a card to Untagged removes the tags represented by that board's named columns
unrelated tags that are not columns on the board remain unchanged
a card that already has tags from more than one board column can initially appear in more than one column; moving it to a column resolves that overlap for the current board
changes made on one board are reflected on other boards that use the same tags

The Untagged column therefore means that the item has none of the named tags configured on the current board. It does not necessarily mean that the item has no tags at all.

Moving and Reordering Cards¶

To move a card with a mouse or touch-capable pointer:

Press the non-interactive area of the card and begin dragging.
Move the card to the required column and position.
Release it when the destination is highlighted.

You can also move the focused card with the keyboard:

Alt + Left Arrow or Alt + Right Arrow moves it to the adjacent column
Alt + Up Arrow or Alt + Down Arrow changes its position within the column

Cards can be reordered within the same column as well as moved between columns. If another user changes the board at the same time, Emakin refreshes the board so that you can continue from the latest order.

Cards Positioned by System Tags¶

Some items are placed in a column by an automatically managed system tag. These cards display a lock icon. You can reorder a locked card within its current column, but you cannot move it to another column because that would attempt to replace a system-controlled classification.

Editing or Deleting a Personal Board¶

Open a personal board, then open the view menu again.

Edit lets you rename the board, add or remove columns, select different tags, and change column order. Changing the board definition does not delete the underlying tasks, cases, or tags.

Delete removes the personal board after confirmation. Deleting a board does not delete its cards and does not remove tags from the underlying tasks or cases.

Shared boards do not show these personal-board actions in the view menu. They are managed through the related channel settings by authorised users.

Shared Boards in Channels¶

Shared boards give channel members a common view of the channel's open cases. They are available only when case management is enabled for the channel.

If you have permission to manage the channel's operational settings:

Open the channel menu and select Edit.
Open the Kanban Boards tab.
Select Add Board.
Enter the board name.
Add the required tag-based columns.
Save the channel.

The board then appears under Shared boards in the channel's view menu for channel members. Shared boards cannot be created from the New board action; that action always creates a personal board.

Note: The Kanban Boards tab appears only when Kanban is enabled, case management is enabled for the channel, and you have sufficient channel permissions.

Troubleshooting¶

The board menu or Kanban Boards tab is missing
Kanban may not be enabled, the channel may not have case management enabled, or your permissions may not allow the action. Contact the channel manager or your Emakin administrator.

A task or case is not on the expected board
Confirm that you opened the correct Worklist, Team Worklist, or channel. Also check whether the item is completed or closed and whether its tags match one of the board columns.

A card appears in Untagged even though it has tags
The card has none of the tags used as named columns on this particular board. Other tags do not prevent it from appearing in Untagged.

A card appears in more than one column
The item currently has more than one of the board's column tags. Move it to the intended column to keep only that board-column tag.

A card cannot be moved to another column
A lock icon indicates that a system tag controls its current position. The item can be reordered within that column, but its column cannot be changed from the board.

A column is empty or does not update immediately
Refresh the page or switch to List and back to the board. If the column could not be loaded, select the error message shown in the column to retry.