Kanban Board

The Kanban Board is the Board View inside OrbitalWP’s shared Task Views page. It organizes top-level tasks into lanes, lets you review work by the fields available to you, and gives users a fast way to open task details from each card.

Pro Tip: You can create your own lanes by adding custom fields using the custom fields manager.

Fields like select, radio, dropdown, and checkbox will render as lanes on the Kanban. Text fields, number fields, and url fields cannot be rendered as lanes because they cannot be parsed into lane options.

How This Fits In OrbitalWP

Board View sits alongside List View, Timeline View, and Calendar View on the same Task Views page. The views use the same task access rules and filter context, so switching views changes how permitted work is displayed without changing which tasks the user is allowed to access.

The board is parent-task oriented. Subtasks are not shown as separate board cards, but a parent card can show a subtask count when that card element is enabled.

Where To Find It

In the WordPress admin, open Orbital and choose Kanban & Timeline. The page heading is Task Views. Select Board View if another view is active.

Board display settings are under Orbital > Plugin Settings in the Kanban / Timeline tab.

Before You Start

  • A user must be logged in and have Kanban access through task permissions, task-specific overrides, or assigned tasks.
  • The board only loads tasks the current user can read.
  • Tasks do not need dates to appear on Board View.
  • The available grouping fields depend on the site’s configured fields and the current user’s access.
  • Card fields and action buttons can be hidden by an administrator in Kanban / Timeline settings.

What You Can Do

  • Group tasks by the current priority field, Due Date Timeline, available select, radio, or checkbox fields, and Assignee when that grouping is available.
  • Filter the board by Categories, Tags, Related Posts, Parent Tasks, My Tasks, and sometimes Assignees.
  • Choose whether closed tasks are shown with Show All Tasks, Hide Closed Tasks, or Show Only Closed Tasks.
  • Hide or show the Uncategorized lane with Hide Uncategorized Lane.
  • Drag cards within a lane to save a custom card order.
  • Drag cards between editable lanes to change the grouped field, except when using the computed Due Date Timeline grouping.
  • Drag lane headers to save a custom lane order.
  • Open a task panel with View Details when that button is enabled.
  • Users with administrator access can rename editable lane labels for non-assignee, non-Uncategorized lanes.

Basic Workflow

  1. Open Orbital > Kanban & Timeline.
  2. Choose Board View on the Task Views page.
  3. Open Preferences to adjust My Tasks, Hide Uncategorized Lane, or Closed Tasks behavior.
  4. Use Group tasks by to choose the field that controls the lanes.
  5. Apply filters such as Categories, Tags, Related Posts, Parent Tasks, or Assignees if those controls are visible.
  6. Review the cards in each lane. If a lane is large, use Show more to reveal more matching cards.
  7. Move cards only when the card is editable for the current grouping field.
  8. Use View Details to review or edit the task in the task details panel.

Important Controls And Settings

Preferences contains My Tasks, Hide Uncategorized Lane, and Closed Tasks. Closed Tasks offers Show All Tasks, Hide Closed Tasks, and Show Only Closed Tasks.

Group tasks by controls the lane field. Due Date Timeline creates date-based lanes named Overdue, Due This Week, Due Next Week, and Due Later. Tasks without a due date go to Uncategorized for that grouping.

The filter row can include Categories, Tags, Related Posts, Parent Tasks, and Assignees. The Assignees filter is only shown to users who can view all tasks.

The Kanban / Timeline settings tab includes Remember Filter Settings, Preferred Assignees, and Kanban Card Elements. Kanban Card Elements controls card details such as task title, task ID, content excerpt, categories, tags, author, assignee, start date, due date, status badge, approval status badge, priority indicator, subtask count, and View Details.

What Affects What You See

  • Permissions decide whether a user can access the page, see a task, edit the current grouped field, or only view the card.
  • Assignment can grant task visibility without granting broad edit access.
  • Task-specific overrides can grant access to one task without changing a user’s role.
  • Read-only users may see cards but be blocked from moving them.
  • Closed-task preferences are applied before normal dropdown filters.
  • When several dropdown filters are active, a task can remain visible if it matches at least one active filter.
  • Custom field labels and option labels can change the lane names users see.
  • Remember Filter Settings controls whether saved filter selections are restored on future visits.

Assignee Lanes

When Board View is grouped by Assignee, OrbitalWP can create lanes in two ways: from the Preferred Assignees setting (found in under Orbital > Plugin Settings in the Kanban / Timeline tab) and from tasks that are already assigned to users.

Administrators can open Orbital > Plugin Settings, choose the Kanban / Timeline tab, and use Preferred Assignees in the Assignee Lanes section. Users selected there always appear as lanes when grouping by assignee, even when they do not currently have matching tasks on the board.

Preferred Assignees does not assign tasks and does not limit who can appear as an assignee lane. If a task on the current board is assigned to a user who is not in Preferred Assignees, that user can still appear as a lane because the board adds lanes for assigned users found in the current task results.

If an assignee lane is missing, check whether the board is grouped by Assignee, whether the user has any visible tasks assigned to them, whether filters or closed-task preferences are hiding those tasks, and whether the current viewer has permission to see the assigned tasks.

Other Features

A lock icon on a card means the current grouped field cannot be edited for that task. An unlock icon means the current grouped field can be edited.

If Lock Approved Tasks is enabled, approved tasks can be blocked from board movement unless the user has approval authority for that task.

Due Date Timeline is a computed grouping. It is useful for reviewing due-date buckets, but cards are not directly draggable in that grouping. Open the task details panel, Timeline View, or Calendar View to work with task dates.

If completion or approval fields are available as grouping fields, moving cards into or out of certain lanes can use OrbitalWP’s completion or approval flow instead of a simple field change.

Common Problems

  • I cannot see Kanban & Timeline. Ask an administrator to check your task permissions, task-specific overrides, or task assignment.
  • The page says I do not have permission. Your account does not currently pass the Kanban access check for this site.
  • The board is empty. Check whether tasks exist, whether you have permission to read them, whether filters are active, and whether Hide Closed Tasks is hiding closed work.
  • A task is missing. Clear filters, switch Closed Tasks to Show All Tasks, check whether the task is assigned to someone else, and remember that subtasks are not separate Board View cards.
  • A task is in Uncategorized. The grouped field may be empty, invalid for the current field options, or unavailable for that task.
  • I cannot move a card. The current grouped field may be read-only for you, the task may be approved and locked, or the board may be grouped by Due Date Timeline.
  • My filters are not remembered. Ask an administrator to check Remember Filter Settings under Plugin Settings > Kanban / Timeline.
  • The board failed to load. Refresh the page first. If the problem continues, an administrator should check sign-in status, REST API access, security or cache rules, the PHP error log, Site Health, and available PHP memory.