# Copy a set of boards into another project

You spent an afternoon getting the business-request board right in Claims
Platform, with card fields, tag colors, the WIP limit on In Progress and the
definition of done on In Review, and Core Insurance now wants the same thing.
Export writes the boards in your board list for a project to one JSON file, and
Import recreates them somewhere else.

## Before you start

In the target project: the saved queries the boards will run, and the work item
types the boards are built on, including any field a board binds, such as the
placement field behind columns that share a state. A query can be a flat list,
a tree of work items or work items and direct links, matching the shape the
source board used; a flat query carries no `ORDER BY`, or sorts by the
process's order field ascending. Board
configuration copies; process does not, and neither does a saved query. See
[Prerequisites](https://anykanban.com/docs/prerequisites/).

## Steps

1. Open **AnyKanban** under **Boards** in the source project.
2. In the hub header, open **More actions** (**⋯**) and select **Export**. A
   file named `query-kanban-boards.json` downloads, holding every board in your
   list for that project: the project and team boards, and your own boards
   under **My boards**. Other people's personal boards are not in your file.
3. Open the hub in the target project.
4. Open **More actions** (**⋯**), select **Import** and pick the file.
5. For each imported board that ran a saved query, select its pencil (**Edit board**) icon, choose a
   **Backing query (flat list, or a tree of work items)** from the new project,
   check the **Work item type**, and select **Save**.

## What you should see

One new row per imported board, sorted by name and showing its work item type.
Each imported board records you as the person who created it, so you can
change, move and delete it, whoever made the original.
A board filed under a team arrives in **Project boards** instead, because a
team belongs to one project, and the hub tells you so after the import. Use
**Move to…** on its row to file it under a team of this project. A board from
your **My boards** arrives in your **My boards** again.
Card fields, style rules, tag colors, WIP limits, definition-of-done texts,
the split column, the swimlanes and the board's own column list all arrive with
it. A column list travels as names and states, so it lands intact only where
the target type has those states; and where several columns share one state,
the placement field has to exist on the target type as well, or the board falls
back to one column per state and says so. A saved query is the part that
cannot travel: it belongs to the project it was saved in, and a board always
runs its query in the project the board lives in, so a board bound to a saved
query has nothing valid to run until step 5. A board created from a template in
the **New board** gallery is different: it carries its own query text, which
travels in the file, so it arrives with a query to run. That query names the
project it was created in, so the copy shows the same work items as the
original; to board this project's own work, create it again from the gallery
here.

![The hub, with its export and import commands](https://anykanban.com/docs/_img/hub-export-import.png)

## Notes

Import only ever creates: importing the same file twice gives you two of every
board, each with its own id and its own settings from then on. Entries that are
not board definitions, whether a wrong schema version, no name or no query, are
counted like any other rejection and named in the result line, and a file that is not a
JSON array is refused with its own message. An entry that
*is* a board definition but carries something the settings panel would refuse,
such as a reserved field name or a column layout that cannot mean anything, is
rejected rather than stored, and the result line says how many were rejected and
why, though not which ones.
Export is a plain download from your browser and Import a plain read of the file
you pick: the file itself never leaves your machine, and the boards it creates
are stored in your Azure DevOps like any other. Board definitions do not cross
an organization boundary by themselves, so this is the only way to move them
between organizations.

## Related

- [Give a board a link you can put in a wiki page](https://anykanban.com/docs/share-and-navigate/link-to-a-board/)
- [Move between boards without going back to the list](https://anykanban.com/docs/share-and-navigate/switch-between-boards/)
- [Put a board summary on a dashboard](https://anykanban.com/docs/share-and-navigate/put-a-board-on-a-dashboard/)