Tasks

Creating Tasks

From the board, click on the plus sign next to the column name:

Then the task creation form appears:

• Title: The title of your task, which will be displayed on the board.
• Description: Description that use the Markdown syntax.
• Tags: The list of tags associated to tasks.
• Create another task: Check this box if you want to create a similar task (some fields will be pre-filled).
• Color: Choose the color of the card.
• Assignee: The person that will work on the task.
• Category: Only one category can be assigned to a task (visible only if the projects have categories).
• Column: The column where the task will be created, your task will be positioned at the bottom.
• Priority: Task priority, the range can be defined in the project settings, default values are P0 to P3.
• Complexity: Used in agile project management (Scrum), the complexity or story points is a number that tells the team how hard the story is. Often, people use the Fibonacci series.
• Reference: External ID for the task, for example it can be ticket number that come from another system
• Original Estimate: Estimation in hours to complete the task.
• Time Spent: Time spent working on the task.
• Start Date: This is a date time field.
• Due Date: Overdue tasks will have a red due date and upcoming due dates will be black on the board. Several date formats are accepted in addition to the date picker.

With the preview link, you can see the task description converted from the Markdown syntax.

Duplicating and Moving Tasks

Duplicate a task into the same project

Go to the task view and choose Duplicate on the left.

A new task will be created with the same properties as the original.

Duplicate a task to another project

Go to the task view and choose Duplicate to another project.

Only projects where you are a member will be shown in the drop-down.

Before copying the task, Kanboard will ask you the destination properties that are not common between the source and destination project.

Basically, you need to define:

• The destination swim lane
• The column
• The category
• The assignee

Move a task to another project

Go to the task view and choose Move to another project.

Moving a task to another project works in the same way as the duplication, you have to choose the new properties of the task.

List of duplicated properties

• title
• description
• date_due
• color_id
• project_id
• column_id
• owner_id
• score
• category_id
• time_estimated
• swimlane_id
• recurrence_status
• recurrence_trigger
• recurrence_factor
• recurrence_timeframe
• recurrence_basedate

Closing Tasks

When a task is closed, it is hidden from the board.

However, you can always access to the list of closed tasks by using the query status:closed in any search form or simply choose Closed tasks from the filter drop-down.

There are two different ways to close a task, from the task drop-down menu on the board:

Or from the task sidebar menu in the task detail view:

Note: When you close a task, all sub-tasks not completed will be changed to the status “Done”.

Internal Task Links

Tasks can be linked together with pre-defined relationships:

This is also possible to link tasks across projects.

The default relationships are:

• relates to
• blocks | is blocked by
• is blocked by | blocks
• duplicates | is duplicated by
• is duplicated by | duplicates
• is a child of | is a parent of
• is a parent of | is a child of
• targets milestone | is a milestone of
• is a milestone of | targets milestone
• fixes | is fixed by
• is fixed by | fixes

Those labels can be changed in the application settings.

Task Transitions

Each movement of a task between columns is recorded in the database.

Available from the task view, you can see that information:

• Date of the action
• Source column
• Destination column
• Executor (users that moves the task)
• Time spent in the origin column

Recurring Tasks

To fit with the Kanban methodology, the recurring tasks are not based on a date but on board events.

• Recurring tasks are duplicated to the first column of the board when the selected events occur
• The due date can be recalculated automatically
• Each task records the task id of the parent task that created it and the child task created

Configuration

Go to the task view page or use the drop-down menu on the board, then select Edit recurrence.

There are 3 triggers that currently create a new recurring task:

• Moving a task from the first column
• Moving a task to the last column
• Closing the task

Due dates, if set on the current task, can be recalculated by a given factor of days, months or years. The base date for the calculation of the new due date can be either the existing due date, or the action date.

Adding Screenshots

You can copy and paste images directly in Kanboard to save time. These images are uploaded as attachments to the task.

This is especially useful for taking screenshots to describe an issue for example.

You can add screenshots directly from the board by clicking on the dropdown menu or in the task view page.

To add a new image, take your screenshot and paste with CTRL+v or Command+v:

On macOS, you can use those shortcuts to take screenshots:

• Command-Control-Shift-3: Take a screenshot of the screen, and save it to the clipboard
• Command-Control-Shift-4, then select an area: Take a screenshot of the area and save it to the clipboard
• Command-Control-Shift-4, then space, then click a window: Take a screenshot of a window and save it to the clipboard

There are also several third-party applications that can be used to take screenshots with annotations and shapes.

Tags

With Kanboard, you can associate one or many tags to a task. You can define tags globally for all projects or only for a specific project.

From the task form, you can enter the desired tags:

The auto-completion form will show up to suggest available tags.

You can also create tags directly from the task form. By default, when you create tags from a task form they are associated to the current project:

All tags can be managed in the project settings.

To define tags globally for all projects, go to the application settings:

To search tasks based on tags, just use the attribute “tag”:

Analytics

Each task has an analytics section available from the left menu in the task view.

Lead and Cycle Time

• The lead time is the time between the task creation and the date of completion (task closed).
• The cycle time is the time between the start date and the date of completion.
• If the task is not closed the current time is used instead of the date of completion.
• If the start date is not specified, the cycle time is not calculated.

Note: You can configure an automatic action to define the start date automatically when you move a task to the column of your choice.

Time Spent Into Each Column

• This chart shows the total time spent into each column for the task.
• The time spent is calculated until the task is closed.