Kanban vertical sorting

Re: "will there ever"

The future is now. Is that soon enough for you?

Go to the table
Settings
Advanced Properties
Go way down to the bottom and the option switch to enable that is there.

Hi Geoffrey,

Mark is correct and that functionality actually has been added to our Kanban reports based on the feedback of our users who had the same needs as you. We have a help topic that goes into that feature in more detail that you can find here. Hopefully that can help to answer any questions you have on manual sort for Kanban reports. 

yes, so this works on face value,  but the actual field value that it is sorted on doesn't change.  this is taken directly from that same help document:

"Note: This only sets an initial order for your Kanban reports. Users can then reorder cards by dragging them on a report. This does not affect the values of the field chosen as the initial order field."


So where is the future? :)

Right. It does not edit field values to change a visible sort order field. The sequence is only maintained in the Kanban format report, not on say a table report.

When you engage manual sort order it still puts information into order on the Kanban report based on the sort order of the original field being used (For example if it was in order by Date Created) but then once manual sort is enabled any records that are specifically pulled out of order, in your example record six being pulled to be the 1st in priority will now going forward be in place as the first record in that order while the other records will continue to use the previous sort until they are pulled manually into a different sort. The previous sort order exists as a stand in until you chose to take action to change the records sort order but it wouldn't change the Date Created on that record just the records place on your Kanban report. 

I want to implement an Agile type of methodology, whereby my Sprint team can moves items between columns to show the Status - this works well between columns, and if I move an item, the Status changes.
However, I also want to have my Product Owner vertically sort the Items with the "Prioritizing" Status column. I have a Priority field on the Item, but this doesn't change if I vertically move the Items within this column. How can I save this Prioritization, so that the rest of the team can see the Priorities set by the Product Owner?

In the Advanced Settings for the table there is an option to enable manual sorting. But that then would be available to all users. So it may be a problem in your use case.

You can have more than one Kanban report on a table.

On the team's report changing columns changes the Status field
On the owner's report changing columns changes the priority field. 
Then set the team's report would sort by priority

The direct answer is, right now you cannot do this. The Kanban report can only exist on one bucketing variable. The vertical sorting is a kind of epi-value that exists only for the purposes of sorting that Kanban report, and is persistent but not tracked or evident anywhere else in your app's universe.

Here's one way of addressing this. Create values in your Status field for 'update priority' for each priority ranking you want to be able to reassign your jobs to, and have them display on your Kanban. Set automations to fire when the Status value is changed to those values to change its Priority (and reset its Status as well)

It's slightly awkward to use, as you might expect. But it works! Here's a quick demo:


So we've got a two variable workspace: Status and Priority. The Kanban groups by Status and sorts by Priority. Here are the multiple choice settings for Priority and Status:





Here's the automation (I set up just one, for 'MAKE HIGHEST')
trigger




activity


Kanban



It works perfectly. Just the view doesn't refresh automatically.

Drag your Kanban card from its status column to the "change priority" column (I only drew up one for the demo but it can be as detailed as you want/have space for); the automation changes the priority to the one you've linked to that status category and then re-sets the status (I had it re-set to 'queued' but you could create a custom status or set it to a particular one, or or or..)

So it's a hack to be able to update your Kanban sort field even though the report can't directly manage that field for you. You just have to manually do one of two things: refresh the report, or drag the card to your preferred Status column (this actually works fairly well, and makes intuitive sense to me - it's like those old 'factory ball' Flash games - use the 'CHANGE PRIORITY TO..' column to 'paint' your job with the priority you want, then when you put it in its proper Status column you'll have re-sorted the priority permanently).