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Separate "being worked" from "ready to move on"

Two change requests sit in In Review: one is still being reviewed, the other was reviewed yesterday and is waiting for whoever picks it up next. Same state, different situation. Splitting the column shows the difference without adding a state to your process.

Before you start

A boolean field on the work item type. The demo process uses Custom.BoardColumnDone. Adding a field is a process change, so it is an administrator's act, done by hand (Prerequisites) or by executing the plan the organization settings page composes. AnyKanban never changes your process without that click.

Steps

  1. Open the board and select Settings.
  2. Open Columns in the left rail, under Board.
  3. Pick the field under Done-flag field, above the strip of column tabs. The list offers the boolean fields you added to the type, meaning your custom ones. Native and hidden fields are never offered. Nothing is typed by hand, so the stored name is one the service itself reported, and a typo cannot strand the board. If the panel says the type has no boolean field yet, the field from Before you start has not been added.
  4. A Split into Doing / Done checkbox now appears in every column's form. Select the column you want split in the strip, which on the demo's cross-project change request board is In Review, and tick it.
  5. Select Save.

What you should see

The column renders two labeled sub-lists, Doing and Done, and cards are partitioned by the field's value: on the demo board "Unify customer identifiers across policy and claims" sits under Doing and "Straight-through payout below €500" under Done. Each side is its own drop target, and the column as a whole stops being one: you always drop on one side or the other.

Dropping a card on Done writes true into the field; dropping it on Doing writes false. The write rides in the same operation as the state and rank changes the drop implies, so a card that moves into the column and lands on Done is one write, not two.

A column split into Doing and Done

Notes

Moving a card out of a split column resets the flag to false in the same write, so a card can never arrive elsewhere still marked done. Clearing the done-flag field on save clears every split column with it. Because the flag is a real field rather than a hidden board attribute, you can query and chart it, which is the reason it is bound to a field you own.