A stage is one step in your workflow. On the kanban board, each stage is a column, and a task sits in exactly one stage at a time. If you have used other tools, stages are the same idea as columns, statuses or lists. KanbanWP uses the word “stage” everywhere.
What a stage has
- A name, such as Drafting or In Review.
- A colour, shown as a coloured edge on the stage header and as the bar colour in the Timeline view.
- A WIP limit, an optional cap on how many tasks should be in the stage. 0 means no limit. See WIP limits.
- A position that sets the left to right order on the board.
The header of each stage also shows a count of the tasks in it.
Where stages come from
When you create a board you pick a template, and the template creates the stages for you. Editorial gives you Ideas through Published, Sales gives you Lead through Lost, and so on. A duplicated board gets copies of the original’s stages.
Change the stages of a board
Admins and members can change stages on the Kanban view of the board.
- Add a stage: click + Add stage at the right end of the board, enter a name and an optional WIP limit, and click Add. The new stage goes at the end.
- Rename a stage or change its WIP limit: click the ⋯ button in the stage header, edit the fields and click Save.
- Reorder stages: click ⋯ and use ← Move left or Move right →.
- Delete a stage: click ⋯ and then Delete stage. The tasks in the deleted stage move to the first remaining stage. A board always keeps at least one stage.
The last stage on the board is the done stage. A task gets a completion date when it moves into that stage, and Reports use the completion date for cycle time. If you add a stage after Done, the new stage becomes the done stage, so move it left if that is not what you want.
Developers can do the same through the REST API, which has endpoints to create, update, delete and reorder stages.
Moving tasks between stages
- Drag a card to another stage, or to a new position in the same stage.
- In the List and Table views, the stage is shown for each task, and you can change it from the task panel.
Each move is recorded in the board’s activity feed.
Stages and views
Stages are most visible in the Kanban view. The List view groups tasks under their stage names, the Table view has a Stage column that you can sort by, and the Timeline view colours bars by stage. The Calendar and My Tasks views focus on dates and assignees instead. See Views.