Monitor work in a kanban project

The Kanban board is a board that was created using the Kanban preset.

Kanban is based on the continuous delivery of work. Rather than plan iterations, the flow of work is constantly monitored to ensure that there are always tasks being worked on. This means that when tasks are completed, new tasks are pulled into work-in-progress.

Use the Kanban board if your team focuses on managing and constraining work-in-progress.

If your team is using the Kanban backlog in your Kanban project, see Using your Kanban backlog instead.

Before you begin

You need to configure the columns for your board. When configuring the columns, make sure to:

Assign a distinct function to each state (column) in your development process, like in progress, testing, awaiting merge.
Configure appropriate constraints for the columns.

Also, different functionalities on the Kanban board require different permissions. For example, to create a version, you need to be a project administrator for the project that the version belongs to. See Permissions overview for more information.

About the Kanban board

An issue will only be visible on the Kanban board if:

the issue isn't a subtask,
the issue matches the board's saved filter,
the issue's status maps to one of the board's columns (but not the Done column), and
there's at least a status being mapped to the right-most column. For example, if you have the columns Selected for Development, In Progress, and Done, ensure that you have a status mapped to In Progress at least. If you map all the statuses to the first (Selected for Development) column, you won't be able to see any issues in the Kanban board.

Access the Kanban board

Go to your Kanban project.
In the project menu, select Kanban board.

What can I do on a Kanban board?

Task	Instructions
Add issues to the Kanban board	Click Create in the navigation bar. Fill in the issue details in the Create issue dialog, then click Create. The issue will be added to the bottom of the Kanban board. Check the Create another checkbox in the Create Issue dialog to keep it open if you're creating multiple issues.
Prioritize the Kanban board	Drag and drop an issue to rank it. You can also right-click the issue to open a menu that allows you to send it to the top or the bottom of the column.
View and edit an issue's fields	Select an issue to open the issue detail view and edit issue fields. To open the issue in a separate tab or window, right-click on the issue key. To view the fields of an epic issue, click the epic lozenge on the issue itself. To edit multiple issues from the board: Select multiple issues from the board. You can either: hold Ctrl (Windows) or Command (Mac) while selecting issues hold the Shift key to select a group of adjacent issues Right-click or select More actions (•••) on one of the selected issues, then select Bulk change. Select Edit Issues and select Next. Select a value for any required fields and, if available, decide whether you'd like to send email notifications before selecting Next. Review your bulk edits and select Confirm, then Acknowledge.
Filter issues	Select a filter from the Quick filters dropdown to apply it to the board. To display quick filters as buttons, switch on Show quick filters in the dropdown menu. Learn more about quick filters
Prioritize an issue	Drag and drop an issue within a column to rank it.
Transition an issue	Drag and drop an issue between columns. To transition multiple issues from the board: Select multiple issues from the board. You can either: hold Ctrl (Windows) or Command (Mac) while selecting issues hold the Shift key to select a group of adjacent issues Drag the issues into the column corresponding to the new status. If you are unable to move the issues using this method, complete the following steps. Right-click or select More actions (•••) on one of the selected issues, then select Bulk change. Select Transition Issues and then Next. Select the available workflow action. The actions available are dependent on the issues (and their associated workflows) that you have selected. Select Next. Select a value for any required fields for this transition, and if available, decide whether you'd like to send email notifications. Select Next. Review your changes and select Confirm, then Acknowledge.
Create subtasks	Select an issue and click . Subtasks are useful for breaking a story (issue) down into implementable chunks.
Flag an issue	Select an issue and click > Add flag.
Delete an issue	Select an issue and click > Delete.
Bulk change issues	Select multiple issues from the board. You can either: hold Ctrl (Windows) or Command (Mac) while selecting issues hold the Shift key to select a group of adjacent issues Right-click or select More actions (•••) on one of the selected issues, then select Bulk change. More about bulk changing issues
Release issues	Click Release to release completed issues. When you release issues, these issues no longer appear in the Done column, and a release version is created, which you can view in the Releases tab of the project.

Need help? If you can't find the answer you need in our documentation, we have other resources available to help you. See Getting help.

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