Kanban swimlanes
The Kanban groups tasks into columns by status. Swimlanes add a second dimension: horizontal lanes that split the same board by another field. So columns still answer how far along, while lanes answer which group, and every card sits at the intersection of the two. It turns one board into a small grid without leaving the Kanban.
MEDIA-DOCS-074-1: A Kanban with status columns across the top and priority swimlanes down the side.
Columns and lanes
Keep the two axes separate in your head:
- Columns come from the board's pipeline, one column per status. See Pipelines and statuses.
- Swimlanes come from a field you choose, one lane per value of that field.
A card lands in the column for its status and the lane for its swimlane value, so "high priority, in progress" is one cell of the grid. Moving a card between columns changes its status as usual; the lane reflects the swimlane field.
Sorting is resolved per status column and then applied independently inside each swimlane cell. A Pipeline column sorting override wins for that column; otherwise the cell uses Board sorting. Manual order is therefore kept separately for each status-and-lane intersection rather than as one list for the whole board. See Kanban manual order.
Choosing the swimlane field
Swimlanes are set per Kanban preset, in the preset's quick settings, through a Swimlane field dropdown. Pick one of the built-in fields, or any custom field, or leave it empty for no swimlanes.
| Swimlane field | Lanes become |
|---|---|
| Priority | One lane per priority (the default) |
| Tags | One lane per tag |
| Contexts | One lane per context |
| Assignees | One lane per assignee |
| Due date | Lanes by due date |
| Scheduled date | Lanes by scheduled date |
| A custom field | One lane per value of that key |
Because the setting lives on the preset, you can keep one saved board grouped by priority and another grouped by assignee, and switch between them. See Kanban manual order for how presets hold board settings.
MEDIA-DOCS-074-2: The Swimlane field dropdown in a Kanban preset's quick settings.
List-valued swimlanes and card moves
Tags, Contexts, Assignees, and a custom key configured as a List can hold more than one value. A task therefore appears once in every lane named by its current list values. These are visible copies of one task, not separate tasks.
- Move across status columns in the same lane: only the task status changes. Every visible copy moves to the matching status column because all copies share that one status.
- Move vertically from one list lane to another: Operon removes the source lane value, adds the target lane value, and preserves all unrelated list values. For example, moving
1a → 1breplaces1awith1b; it does not keep both merely because the task was dragged from a multi-value field. - Move from No value to a named lane: the target value becomes the task's first value for that list field.
- Move to No value: the source value is removed. The task appears in No value only when no list values remain.
A text-style custom key remains single-valued, so a vertical move replaces its one current value with the target value. Horizontal and vertical moves use the same task write path for inline and file tasks.
Empty lanes
A swimlane field can produce lanes that hold no cards right now. The preset has a collapse empty swimlanes option so those lanes fold away instead of taking up space, which keeps a board grouped by a wide field, like tags, readable. Turn it off when you want every possible lane shown even when empty.
When swimlanes help
Swimlanes are most useful when you want to see two things at once:
- Status across the columns and owner down the lanes, to see each person's pipeline.
- Status across the columns and priority down the lanes, to see what is urgent at each stage.
- Status across the columns and a custom field down the lanes, to slice the board by whatever you track.
When you only care about status, leave the swimlane field empty and the board stays a simple set of columns.
FAQ
Do swimlanes change a task's data? Merely showing or grouping lanes does not. Dragging a card into a different lane does change the grouped field, just as moving it to another column changes status. One drag can change both.
Can two boards group differently? Yes. The swimlane field is saved per preset, so each board can group by its own field.
My board has lots of empty lanes. Turn on collapse empty swimlanes in the preset so unused lanes fold away.
Why does one task appear in several swimlanes? Its selected swimlane field is list-valued and contains several values. A horizontal move changes the shared status for every copy; a vertical move replaces only the source lane value with the destination value and keeps the other list values.