# Shape the board

Fifteen settings that turn a list of cards into a board your process can be
read from.

A board works the moment it is bound to a query: columns come from the state
model, cards come from the query. Everything on this page is what you add
afterwards, when the board has to answer a question at a glance: who is over
capacity, what "In Review" is supposed to mean, which requests carry a
regulatory deadline, what nobody has touched in a week.

Thirteen of them live in the board's settings panel and apply to everyone who
opens that board. The last two have no setting at all. Collapsing and silencing
a notice you have answered are both done on the board itself, and both are
yours alone. Open a board from
**Boards → AnyKanban** and select **Settings**
to reach the panel. The ad-hoc **Board** tab on a query's results has no
settings panel: it runs on defaults, so shaping a board means creating a named
one first.

## The pages

- [Cap work in progress in a column](https://anykanban.com/docs/shape-the-board/cap-work-in-progress/): put the agreed
  number on the column header and let it turn red when you are over it.
- [Write down what a column actually means](https://anykanban.com/docs/shape-the-board/write-down-what-a-column-means/): a
  per-column definition of done, in markdown, behind an info icon.
- [Put two columns over one state](https://anykanban.com/docs/shape-the-board/two-columns-over-one-state/): name the
  columns yourself and let several of them share a state, the way the native
  board does.
- [Separate "being worked" from "ready to move on"](https://anykanban.com/docs/shape-the-board/split-a-column/): split a
  column into Doing and Done, bound to a real field you can query.
- [Give expedited work its own lane](https://anykanban.com/docs/shape-the-board/give-expedited-work-a-lane/): named
  swimlanes with conditions, first match wins.
- [Get one row per work item type](https://anykanban.com/docs/shape-the-board/one-row-per-work-item-type/): swimlanes the
  simple way, one field, one row per value.
- [Compare demand with capacity, per lane](https://anykanban.com/docs/shape-the-board/compare-demand-with-capacity-per-lane/):
  sum a cost or an effort in every lane header and every cell, against a
  capacity you set per lane.
- [Get one lane per period from the iteration tree](https://anykanban.com/docs/shape-the-board/one-lane-per-child-of-a-tree-node/):
  one lane per child of an iteration or area node, read again at every load,
  with an extra lane for what is still unplanned.
- [Make regulatory work impossible to miss](https://anykanban.com/docs/shape-the-board/make-work-impossible-to-miss/):
  card color rules driven by fields and tags.
- [Color cards by any date field](https://anykanban.com/docs/shape-the-board/spot-untouched-items/): deadlines and SLAs,
  using the `@Today` macro in a rule. (For "how long has this been sitting?"
  see the age counter below, which needs no rule.)
- [Read a card's age at a glance](https://anykanban.com/docs/shape-the-board/read-a-cards-age/): the time-in-state
  counter every card carries by default (in days on most boards), the
  **Aging colors** command that highlights the cards that have sat unusually
  long in each column, on your screen only, and what those numbers do and do
  not mean.
- [Color the tags you actually use](https://anykanban.com/docs/shape-the-board/color-your-tags/): a color per tag name,
  so the pills carry meaning.
- [Choose what each card shows](https://anykanban.com/docs/shape-the-board/choose-what-a-card-shows/): card fields and
  their order, the ID toggle, and hiding empty fields.
- [Collapse the parts of the board you are not using](https://anykanban.com/docs/shape-the-board/collapse-what-you-are-not-working-on/):
  columns and swimlane rows, remembered per user.
- [Silence a notice you have already answered](https://anykanban.com/docs/shape-the-board/silence-a-notice-you-have-answered/):
  hide a warning about something that is never going to change, on that board,
  for you, and bring it back from the board's menu.