Overview

Kanban boards are commonly used to track tasks in projects. They consist of columns that display cards. Each column represents a stage in the process. Each piece of work is represented by a card. When the work moves to the next stage of the process, the cards moves to the corresponding column. 

To move a card to another column, the board user can:

• either change a value, such as "status", in a card
• or drag a card into a column. This automatically updates the "status" value.

Basic Steps to Creating a Kanban Board

1. Create a screen.
2. Add an area to act as a container for the Kanban board.
3. Add a card component and bind it to a table. This is known as the backing table. To do this: 
   • Either, drag a table onto the screen and create a card container.

   • Or drag a card container from a palette onto the screen. In the card properties add a backing table to Basic Settings → Table.

4. Save the changes.
5. In the card properties → Kanban Board options, select the attribute to use as the Kanban columns, in this example the attribute would be Status. See the sections below for more details on how to do this:

   1. Simple Kanban Board

   2. Kanban Board with Fixed Columns.

6. To configure:
   1. how the board looks, use options in the Style Settings section.
   2. an action to run if the user clicks on the board or drags a card, see Connecting Events to Actions and Drag Types and Drop Targets.

The backing table must have:

• attributes that have the values you want to show in columns.
• records to display as cards.
• optionally, any background filter that you want to apply to the records.

If a user or process (such as running analysis on a model) updates the backing table, the next time the Kanban board refreshes, PhixFlow automatically moves the cards to the columns that reflect their stage in the process.

Using the Kanban Board Properties

Simple Kanban Board 

A simple Kanban board, based on some example data has 3 Kanban columns, New, Work In progress and Complete, with cards displayed in all the columns. If the backing table has data, PhixFlow automatically:

• displays columns for each value of the selected Kanban Column.
• moves cards if a user changes values in the selected Kanban Column. 

Kanban column headings can be altered if required. The attribute selected as the Kanban column attribute doesn't necessarily have to be the one displayed to the user.

One Attribute for Kanban Column

If the user is dividing their data into columns and they are okay to have that attribute value displayed to the user (e.g. New, Work In Progress and Complete) then only one attribute is needed to be used for both the columns and headings. To select a single attribute to appear as the column heading:

1. As above, in the card properties → Kanban Board → Kanban Columns: select the attribute you want to use for each column. In this example Status.
2. On the screen, PhixFlow displays 3 columns New, Work In progress and Complete, with cards displayed in all the columns, when the backing table has data.
   

Different Attributes for Kanban Columns

In this scenario the user may want to divide their data into columns using an ID attribute but display a different attribute as the column header. To select a different 'display' attribute to appear as the column heading to display to the users:

1. In the card properties → Kanban Board 
   1. Kanban Columns: select the attribute you want to use. In this example StatusID.

   2. Kanban Column Headings: select an attribute to provide the headings for the columns. In this example StatusName.

      Limitations on a simple kanban board

      A simple kanban board does not:

      • display a column when there are no records that have its status. For example, if no record has the Status of Complete, then the Done column is not displayed.

Kanban Board with Fixed Columns 

Usually, you want a Kanban board to continue to display columns which have no records in, so that you can drag cards onto them. To do this you can specify the columns using expressions.

1. In the card properties → Kanban Board section:
2. Tick Evaluate Kanban Columns as Expression.
3. PhixFlow shows:

   1. Kanban Column Expression→ enter an expression that specifies the attribute and values that you want to use as columns. The values must corelate to the values in the Kanban column and are case sensitive. For example:

      _context.StatusID
      
      //or
      
      [1,2,3]

   2. Kanban Column Headings Expression → enter an expression to specify the column labels. The returned values can be anything but must be in the same order as those above. For example:

      _context.StatusNames
      
      //or
      
      ["New", "Work In Progress", "Complete"] 

Over time, users can add more values, for example statuses for blocked tasks or those in review. When you fix the columns using expressions, the new statuses will not be automatically displayed as columns in the Kanban board. You must update the expressions to add them.

To accommodate ongoing changes to the columns for your Kanban board, create a separate table that lists all the statuses. 

In the Kanban Column Expression, refer to the table using a context parameter so that PhixFlow creates a column for each attribute. When you add more attributes to the table, PhixFlow automatically adds columns to the Kanban board.

Configuring Dragging Between Columns

Configure a drag-and-drop action on the card so that PhixFlow can change the value in attributes when the user drags a card from one Kanban column to another. See Drag Types and Drop Targets.