# Concepts

Why the board behaves the way it does. Not tasks. Read these when something
surprised you.

A board is a view of a query, and a query is not a team, a project or a backlog
level. Almost everything that looks unexpected follows from that one difference,
plus a second rule the product holds to everywhere: nothing the query returned is
ever silently dropped. If an item cannot be placed, it is parked somewhere
visible and counted; if a number cannot be trusted, it says so.

## The pages

- **[Why a column dims while you drag](https://anykanban.com/docs/concepts/why-a-column-dims/)**: the board asks
  Azure DevOps whether your process rules would accept the state, for this item
  and for you, before you drop it.
- **[Why some items sit in Unmapped](https://anykanban.com/docs/concepts/why-items-sit-in-unmapped/)**: columns come
  from one work item type's state model, so anything that maps to no column is
  parked at the right rather than hidden.
- **[Why rejected work is hidden but counted](https://anykanban.com/docs/concepts/why-rejected-work-is-hidden/)**:
  removed-category items leave the board exactly as they do on a native board,
  with a visible count above it and the full result still in the List view.
- **[What the rollup counts, and what it excludes](https://anykanban.com/docs/concepts/what-the-rollup-counts/)**:
  the requirement level, the per-level breakdown, the four exclusion reasons and
  the caps behind a trailing `+`.
- **[Why AnyKanban never writes to someone else's backlog](https://anykanban.com/docs/concepts/why-we-never-write-to-your-backlog/)**:
  cards link to existing backlog work as Related only, never as its parent or
  child: no checkboxes on Related items, nothing destructive in another team's
  process, and the backlog's order changes only on a board where someone turned
  that on. A card that is itself a backlog item can still create a brand-new
  child beneath it.
- **[Why some things need a field of your own](https://anykanban.com/docs/concepts/what-needs-a-field-and-why/)**:
  every column stands on a state; several columns over one state need a text
  field and split columns a boolean field of your own, never the hidden `WEF_`
  board fields (a board filed under a team can follow that team's own board
  instead), and an administrator can add those fields on the **Fields** tab of
  the organization settings page.
- **[Why percentiles instead of averages](https://anykanban.com/docs/concepts/why-percentiles-not-averages/)**:
  cycle times are not distributed symmetrically, so an average sits where no
  item is and moves on every straggler; what p50, p70, p85 and p95 mean, why
  p95 waits until thirty items have closed, and what the board does when there
  is too little history to say anything honest.
- **[Which version you are running, and how updates reach you](https://anykanban.com/docs/concepts/which-version-you-are-running/)**:
  where an administrator reads the version, how Azure DevOps applies an
  update without anyone installing it, and how to receive new versions sooner.

## If you came looking for steps

These pages explain; they do not instruct. For setting a board up see
[Prerequisites](https://anykanban.com/docs/prerequisites/), and for day-to-day use see the
[User Guide](https://anykanban.com/docs/user-guide/).