The Board View in Microsoft Lists is rolled out. It’s a new type of view available for Lists. It lets you work with a Kanban-style view with buckets. It is interactive and customizable. The Board View opens a lot of possibilities for Lists. In this post, I will show you how to start working with it and configure your first Board View. I will also describe is it a replacement for Planner.
Microsoft Lists are available for quite some time and right now it is a very powerful tool. It has a good user interface although some elements should be enhanced. Powerful template/creation features, offline app, and fantastic JSON formatting options. The latest feature called Board View lets you create a board – Kanban view that helps visualize work. Moreover, it is interactive and you can move items using drag & drop.
Creating Board View
To create a Board View you must open Microsoft Lists and open your List. Select Create new view from Views dropdown.
Now you can create a new Board View
- Enter a view name
- Select Board for the view type
- Click Organize board by and select column (Choice or Yes/No)
- Create the View
You have just created the Board View!
Each option from the selected Choice or Yes/No column is displayed as a bucket. The view is interactive and you can drag an item and move it between buckets.
You can also change a card’s view. To do this click Board view and select Customize Card.
In the pane, you can select which fields you want on the Card.
You can also add a new bucket directly from the View. Simply click on Add new bucket and enter a name. The new bucket will be automatically added as a new option in your Choice column.
Board vs Planner
As you can see the configuration is very straightforward and you can create a Board View in 20 seconds. You can drag & drop items and move them between buckets.
Is it a replacement for Planner? No, it’s not. It is a great option if you want to work with items that belong to processes or require a specific stream but those items don’t need to be tasks. For example, social media planning tools, issue tracker, invoice processing tool.
If your item (issue, invoice, or any other element) must be a direct task this Board View won’t help you. It is not connected with Microsoft To Do and will not replace Planner.
It is a great extension to Microsoft Lists and will play a major view type in many projects. I’ve just started using it in one of my projects.
