Board Columns
Rename, merge, remove, limit, colour and reorder the columns on a project board
A board's columns are a project setting, not a fixed layout. You choose what each column is called, which statuses it shows, what colour it carries, how much work in progress it tolerates, and what order the columns sit in. Elixion, the platform for Engineering Intelligence™, keeps one rule underneath all of that: every status is either on exactly one column, or listed under Not shown on board, so no issue can fall off the board without you choosing that.
Open the settings
Go to Project Settings > Board. The tab is labelled Board and the page is titled Board, at /projects/{project-id}/columns.
You can also get there from the board itself using the Configure columns tile at the far right of the columns, or Configure columns in any column header's kebab menu.
Personal projects have this tab too, because they render a board.
The seven statuses
A status is either on one column, or listed under Not shown on board:
Backlog, To Do, In Progress, In Review, Testing, Done, Deferred.
There are no user-defined statuses. A new project is seeded with one column per status except Deferred, which starts under Not shown on board -- parked work by default, but never invisible: its issues still show in List view and search, and moving it onto a column is one click away.
Status groups
Independent of which column (if any) shows a status on any one project's board, every status also belongs to one of four groups:
| Group | Statuses | |-------|----------| | To do | Backlog, To Do | | In progress | In Progress, In Review, Testing | | Done | Done | | Deferred | Deferred |
Deferred is its own group, not folded into either To do or Done: it is parked work, not finished and not currently being worked.
The group a built-in status belongs to is fixed. Nothing in the product changes it: renaming a column, merging statuses into it, moving a status to Not shown on board or removing a column all change where a status sits on the board, never which group it is in.
Each status chip on this page shows its group next to it, as a small label with a coloured dot.
What a column row offers
Each row on the settings page carries:
| Control | What it does |
|---------|--------------|
| Column name | The name shown on the board |
| Statuses | A chip per status, captioned with where it lives now (in Testing, or not shown on board) and its group (see Status groups above). Click a chip already on this row to send it to Not shown on board, a chip that is not shown yet to add it, or a chip on another column to move it here |
| WIP limit | A switch plus a number field. The placeholder is None |
| Colour | No color or one of eight presets: Indigo, Blue, Teal, Green, Amber, Orange, Rose, Purple |
| Bin button | Remove the column |
| Grip handle | Drag to reorder. It also works from the keyboard: focus the handle, press Space, move with the arrow keys, press Space again to drop |
Under the status chips, the row tells you which status a dropped card takes, for example Cards dropped here become In Progress. That is always the first status on the row.
Nothing is written until you click Save. Reset throws the draft away and returns to the saved layout.
Not shown on board
At the bottom of the page, a Not shown on board section lists every status no column shows, each with the number of issues currently in it. Those issues do not appear on the board, but they are never hidden from the rest of Elixion: they still show up in List view and in search, exactly like any other issue.
Move a status onto a column with the Move to… picker next to it -- that add is immediate, since nothing is being taken away from anywhere. Sending a status the other way, from a column into Not shown on board, asks first (see below): it can carry issues with it, and the dialog says how many.
Done cannot be moved to Not shown on board. Velocity, cycle time and burndown all depend on knowing when work finished, so Done always needs a column. If Done somehow has none, both its chip and the Not shown on board section say so as plain text on the page, and Save stays disabled until you give it one.
Merge two statuses into one column
There is no merge command. Click a status chip on the column you want it to live in. A chip that is not shown on board yet is simply added, with no confirmation, since nothing is being taken away from anywhere. Click a chip that belongs to a different column, or one already on this row, and a confirm dialog opens first: Move Testing from Testing to Deferred? (or Move Testing from Testing to Not shown on board?), with Move and Cancel. Cancel leaves the layout exactly as it was; Move commits it -- moving In Review onto the In Progress column, for example, so the board then shows one column carrying both, labelled · 2 statuses.
The dialog also warns about either side of the move when it applies:
- if the source column would be left with no status, it says so:
The Testing column will have no status left. - if the destination is Not shown on board, it names how many issues would stop showing on the board:
Issues in Testing (12) will no longer show on the board.
Only the two places named in the dialog change; nothing else in the layout moves.
To split a merged column apart again, click the status chip on a different row, move it to Not shown on board, or add a column for it, confirming the move the same way.
Add a column
Click Add column. A row appears called New column with no statuses, no limit and no colour. Give it a name and at least one status, then save. Because a status is shown by at most one column, taking a status for the new column removes it from wherever it was before.
Remove a column
Click the bin on the row. A column with no statuses on it is removed immediately -- there is nothing to ask about. A column that still shows one or more statuses opens a dialog first, one line per status, naming its issue count and asking where it should go: This column shows Testing (12 issues). Where should Testing go?, with a picker offering every other column in the draft plus Not shown on board, which is the default. This works even for a status that still has issues sitting on it: choosing Not shown on board (or leaving the default) does not block the removal -- those issues simply keep their status and stop appearing on the board, exactly like any other status sent to Not shown on board from this page. Cancel leaves the layout exactly as it was; the dialog's action button applies every choice and takes the column out of the draft. Save to commit.
Two limits apply:
- The Done column cannot be removed. Rename it or change which other statuses share it, but Done has to stay on a column.
- Removing a column is restricted to the project owner and project leads. A member who can edit the board but not remove a column sees the bin disabled, with the reason: only the project owner or a project lead can remove a column. Moving statuses off the column via the status chips is the alternative that is open to them.
Removing a column from the board's kebab menu is a different, stricter control: the menu item is offered only while every one of the column's statuses is empty, so a column still holding cards has no remove control there at all, and no dialog asking where its statuses should go. Move those cards out first, or remap the statuses onto another column here in settings, where a status with issues on it can go straight to Not shown on board. The board's remove dialog is titled Remove column? and says plainly that it cannot be undone. The API refuses that removal while the column still holds cards, and its message says how many issues are in the way.
WIP limits
Turn the WIP limit switch on and type a number. Turning the switch off clears the number with it, so a stale limit cannot hide behind a disabled switch.
A limit of 0 is legal from this page, and means the column accepts nothing new. The board's own inline editor only takes positive numbers; anything else there clears the limit.
On the board, the count badge reads count/limit and turns red once the count is strictly greater than the limit. Nothing is blocked: a limit colours the number and reports itself, and that is all.
The count a column is judged against is the total across every status it shows, taken from the server, so a long column that is only partly loaded still reports its true size.
What blocks a save
Save stays disabled until the layout is valid, and the reasons appear in a red block above the button:
| Problem | Message |
|---------|---------|
| A status on two columns | {Status} is shown by two columns. A status belongs to exactly one. |
| Done not shown | Done must be in a column. Velocity, cycle time and burndown depend on knowing when work finishes. |
| A column with no status | "{name}" shows no status. Give it one or remove it. |
| A blank name | A column needs a name. Give this one a name or remove it. |
A status other than Done that no column shows is not a problem: it belongs in Not shown on board, and Save works normally with it there.
Save is also disabled while a save is in flight, when nothing has changed, and when your role does not allow editing. Hover it and the reason is given.
A successful save confirms with Board layout saved, and every open board in the project refreshes itself.
Who can change what
| Action | Who | |--------|-----| | Edit names, statuses, WIP limits, colours, order | The project owner, and members whose role is not view only | | Remove a column | The project owner, or a member whose role is Scrum master, Product manager, Project manager, Project owner, Owner or Admin |
Without edit permission the page is read only, and says so: this board's layout is read only for your account, and the project owner and members whose role is not view only can change it.
Things worth knowing
- The layout saves as a whole. Column identifiers change on every save, so do not treat one as a stable reference.
- A column's icon and auto-assign settings are not editable here, and a save leaves them exactly as they were.
- If a board somehow ends up with no column for Done, reading the board repairs it: Done gains a column. Every other status a board's columns do not map simply stays "Not shown on board" -- there is nothing to repair.
Next: Roadmap, the timeline of epics and milestones.