On Monday morning, Marta opens the task list for her six-person agency. She sees 34 items across three projects and is looking for an answer: what's urgent, and what's happening with each client? A list helps you start with deadlines; the Board in Task Manager shows work organised by workspaces, not kanban stages.
Kanban board for a small business: a column means a project, not a stage
In Task Manager, each Board column corresponds to one workspace, not to a stage such as "to do", "in progress" or "done". A workspace is a separate space that groups tasks and chats related to a project, team or topic.
So Marta can see "New website", "Marketing" and "Sales" side by side. In each column she'll find the Favourites, Tasks and Chats sections. Columns show what's happening in each workspace, but they don't move tasks between stages. See how the Board works in Task Manager.
If you're looking for a kanban board with its own status columns, work-in-progress limits and flow between stages, the Board in Task Manager doesn't work that way. Status belongs to the task, not to the column. For an agency running several different accounts, though, this kind of split can be clearer: Marta sees everything for a client together, even when the website project and the ad campaign are at completely different stages of work.
Kanban board or task list - when should you choose the list?
Choose the list when you start with the question "what do I have today?" or "what's overdue?". Above the list are four tiles: On time, Today, Overdue and Chat; each shows a number of items and works as a filter.
On Tuesday, Piotr from a four-person service business wants to check which tickets need a response before the end of the day. He works mainly in one workspace, "Service", so the Board would mostly show him a single column. On the list, he clicks "Today" and immediately narrows the view. When he's looking only for tasks, he can also use the type filter, which separates tasks from chats.
On list cards, a coloured circle shows the number of days until, or past, the due date. If your main question is about the date, you don't need to scan through projects first. Filtering tasks by due date and status also helps with this. You can read about setting up a review of overdue work in your team in the article on keeping track of task deadlines.
So the list isn't a poorer version of the Board. It shows the same tasks from a different angle: the item first, then which project it belongs to. When you work task by task, this order saves you from scanning several columns.
Dragging tidies up the view, but doesn't move the due date
Dragging on the Board changes the display order, not the task's due date or status. You can move a column by its header, and an item up or down within its column.
Drag a task or chat into the Favourites section. Removing an item from this section takes it out of favourites. New items are added at the end according to the current sorting, and you can undo the reordering with the undo icon or the Ctrl+Z shortcut.
Imagine that on Wednesday, Marta moves the "Website project" task higher up in the "New website" workspace column, to find it more easily during a conversation with Magda. The task's due date stays the same. If she wants to change its status without opening the thread, she uses the ⋮ menu on the card and picks an option from the Status section: New, In progress, Done or Cancelled. Moving a card here doesn't mean "done", even if you're used to boards that work by stages.
Filters stay with you, even though the view changes
Switching from the list to the Board doesn't mean setting up filters again from scratch. Show only and Sorting work together across the task list, the Board and the Calendar; a change made in one place also applies in the others.
| What to check | Task list | Board |
|---|---|---|
| Due date | Coloured circle with a number of days | Text description, e.g. "today 2:30pm" or "in 4 days" |
| Due date state | Red, blue, green or grey | The same colour rules |
| Filters and sorting | Show only and Sorting | The same shared settings |
| Actions on a task | ⋮ menu, including Status | The same ⋮ menu |
Red means the due date has passed; blue - the due date is today and hasn't passed yet; green - the due date falls on one of the following days. You'll see grey on an item with no due date, or one that's closed. A task with no time specified stays "today" all day and only turns red the next day. Done and cancelled tasks don't count as overdue, even if their former due date has already passed.
On Thursday, Marta filters overdue work on the list, then opens the Board to see it broken down by workspace.
Clicking a card makes room for the conversation
Clicking a task or chat on the Board opens the thread alongside it, and the Board itself docks to the left. The open item stays highlighted, so you can see which column the conversation came from.
On Thursday, Marta opens the "Website Project" task in the "New Website" workspace and reads Magda's message. She still has the column of other workspaces at the side - she doesn't need to go back to a separate screen with projects to find the next task. At the bottom of the column there are also Task and Chat icons; they open add windows with the workspace already selected.
On a phone the layout behaves differently: when you open an item, the Board collapses into a floating button. You scroll through columns horizontally, and the back button from a task takes you back to the Board, not to the list. You change the order of workspaces there by holding down a column header and dragging it sideways.
When do columns start helping a team?
Columns help when you regularly compare several parallel projects and ask "what's happening with client X?". The Board shows workspaces side by side, and within each one both tasks and chats.
On Friday, Marta does a review of three workspaces with her team. Instead of selecting them one by one from a list, she looks at three columns: in "New Website" she sees the "Website Project" task and the chat with agreed points, next to it she checks "Marketing", then "Sales". She opens the chat in "New Website" and asks the team about the agreed points regarding the website.
Marta drags the "New Website" column header to the front. The Board remembers this order for her, so next time she opens it she'll see the layout she left. This is useful when, at a weekly meeting, you want to start with the project that needs the most attention. How work is grouped is also described on the page about workspaces for projects and teams.
Three workspaces are an example, not a threshold for changing views. If on Monday you're looking for one urgent task, a list can still answer faster than three columns side by side.
One week is enough to test both views
For a week, check deadlines on the list, and at the Friday meeting compare workspaces on the Board. Ask the team where they found a specific task and its related chat faster.
You don't need to declare that from today the whole team works exclusively on the Board or exclusively on the list. The views icon in the top bar of the middle column opens a menu with Calendar, Board and Notes; the same menu is in the header of each of these windows.
Task Manager also remembers the window layout. If the previous view was docked, the next one opened from this menu will also dock; if you worked full-screen, it will keep that layout. On a phone, the window always opens in full view.
Before you invite your team to the test, check whether your division into workspaces matches your actual projects. The number of Board columns comes from your workspaces, so a separate space for every little thing will make reviewing harder. The "All" item in the left-hand column shows tasks and chats from all spaces at once, when you need a wider view. If you're using the Pro variant, separate Mail inbox columns will also appear on the Board; you can turn them off. In the Standard variant, there are no Mail columns.
Tomorrow morning, open the Board and arrange the columns in the order you want to discuss projects on Friday. For the rest of the week, work on the list when you're checking deadlines. You can try both views in the Demo.
Frequently asked questions
Does Task Manager have a kanban board with "to do", "in progress" and "done" columns?
No, the Board's columns correspond to workspaces, not task statuses. You change the status on the task itself or from the ⋮ menu, choosing New, In progress, Done or Cancelled.
Does dragging a card on the Board change the task's due date?
No, dragging a card up or down only changes its display order. You can undo the reordering with the undo icon or the Ctrl+Z shortcut.
Do the filters set on the task list also apply to the Board?
Yes, Show only and Sorting are shared across the task list, the Board and the Calendar. A change made in one of these views also applies in the others.
Does the Board work on a phone?
Yes, on a phone you scroll through columns horizontally and can reorder them by holding down the header. After opening a task, the back button takes you to the Board.
Will I see emails on the Board too?
Yes, in the Pro plan, Mail module inboxes get their own columns on the Board, which can be turned off. In the Standard plan, there are no Mail columns.
Sources
The Task Manager Team - we write about teamwork, AI in business and keeping tasks organised, using examples from Task Manager, software installed on your own server. Task Manager has been developed by Blue Creation Group (Piotr Łącz) since 2013 and is used by organisations including Neonet, the Military University of Technology and Polpharma - read customer reviews. We check our articles against the user guide and the latest version of the software.
