How to use the portfolio kanban

Lay your portfolio out in columns by status, priority, assignee, or tag category, and drag items between them to move them along.

The Board view is Smaply's kanban board for your portfolio: it lays every item out in columns so you can see your work by where it stands. It groups by status out of the box, you can drag a card from one column to another to move it along, and you can switch the grouping to priority, assignee, or tag category whenever a different cut is more useful.

Prerequisites

Anyone in the workspace can open and read the Board. Moving cards (which changes the field the board is grouped by) needs Editor access at the workspace level.

How to open the Board view

The Board lives on the portfolio views screen, alongside the Table and Chart views. The Portfolio menu opens on the Summary dashboard first, so you get there in two moves.

1

Open the portfolio views screen

Click Portfolio in the workspace sidebar to open the Summary, then click View details in the header (or Explore all on any type card). Both open the views screen.

2

Switch to the Board

In the Table / Board / Chart switcher at the top right, click Board.

The Table / Board / Chart switcher, Board active

The screen remembers the last view you used, so the next time you open the portfolio it lands here.

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What the columns mean

By default the Board groups items by status, and each column is a status category: Not Started, In Progress, Completed, and No status for items whose status hasn't been set. Each column header carries a live count and a ... menu, and cards show the item's type icon and title.

Portfolio Board, grouped by status category

The categories are fixed, but the individual statuses underneath them are not. Each portfolio item type defines its own statuses, and each maps to one of these categories. A type's statuses might run Research, Design, Development, and Done, for example, where Research and Design count as In Progress and Done counts as Completed. That is why two cards in the same column can show different underlying statuses. To change which statuses a type has and how they group, see How to create custom portfolio item types.

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How to group the board by priority, assignee, or tag category

Status is only the default. Open Settings (the Display settings menu) and pick a different dimension under Group columns by to lay the same items out a different way:

• Status - delivery stage (the default).

• Priority - High, Medium, Low, and None columns, to see how much high-priority work is outstanding.

• Assignee - one column per owner, to balance and review workload.

• Tag category - columns from one of your tag categories.

Display settings > Group columns by

For example, grouping by priority replaces the status columns with High, Medium, Low, and None, so the board becomes a priority backlog you can rebalance at a glance.

The same board, grouped by Priority

The same Display settings menu also sets Card display options (Compact or Standard) and a Show empty columns toggle.

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How to move an item

Drag a card from one column to another to move it. The board updates the field it is grouped by to match the new column, so dragging a card to a different column changes its status when grouped by status, its priority when grouped by priority, and so on. The columns re-count as you go.

To set a value precisely, or to change several fields at once, open the item instead.

1

Open the item

Click the item's card to open it. The edit modal opens on the Details tab.

2

Change the field and save

Pick a new value from the Status dropdown (or Priority, Assignee, or Tags to match how the board is grouped), then click Save. The board re-sorts the item into its new column.

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How to filter the board

Click the filter icon in the toolbar to narrow the board to a subset of items. The same dimensions are available as on the Table view, so you can focus on one journey map, type, priority, assignee, or tag. The column counts update to reflect what's left after filtering.

Related topics

How to use the portfolio table

Review items row by row with filtering and sorting.

How to use the portfolio chart

Plot items on scoring axes for workshop-style prioritization.

How to use the portfolio summary

Scan volume, activity, and status across every item type.

How to create custom portfolio item types

Define the statuses and scoring each type uses.