Board Layout

A board’s layout is two choices: what its columns mean, and whether its rows split as well.

Everything else — which columns exist, in what order, and how full they are — follows from those two.

---

How Grouping Works

Group a board by Status, Assignee, Severity, Priority, Release, or any enabled dropdown custom field on defects.

Only dropdown custom fields are offered. Grouping needs a closed set of values to turn into columns, which a text or number field does not have.

1. Open Board settings and select Layout.

2. Choose a field under Group cards by.

3. Select Save.

The grouping picker also sits in the toolbar next to the board picker. Both are available to the board owner.

Group cards by	Columns come from	Order
Status	The defect lifecycle	New → In Progress → Resolved → Closed → Reopened
Assignee	Project members	Project members
Severity	The severity values in use	Values in use
Priority	The priority values in use	Values in use
Release	The project’s releases	Newest first
Dropdown custom field	The field’s options	The order the field’s author set

Note

Changing Group cards by rebuilds every column and clears the board’s manual card order. The defects themselves are untouched — only the hand-made ordering goes.

---

Columns Come From The Data

Columns are worked out from the defects on the board every time it loads, not stored. A new project member or a new dropdown option produces a column on its own, so a card can never end up with nowhere to live.

What board settings save is the extras: the order, a renamed label, a WIP limit, and whether a column is hidden.

Note

You cannot add or delete a column on a board. Columns follow the data — to change them, change the values themselves by adding a release or a dropdown option, or group the board by a different field.

---

The Unset Column

Turn Show an “unassigned” column on or off under Layout. It collects the cards with no value for the grouping field, and its name follows the grouping.

Whether you can drop into it depends on the field. Status, severity, and priority are set on every defect, so their unset column only ever surfaces older records and refuses drops.

Group cards by	Unset column	Can you drop into it
Status	No status	No — every defect already has one
Assignee	Unassigned	Yes — dropping unassigns the defect
Severity	No severity	No — every defect already has one
Priority	No priority	No — every defect already has one
Release	No release	Yes — dropping unlinks the release
Dropdown custom field	Not set	Yes — dropping clears the field

---

Editing Columns

1. Open Board settings and select Layout.

2. Under Columns, use the arrows to reorder a column.

3. Type over a column’s name to relabel it.

4. Set a WIP limit, or leave it blank for no limit.

5. Use the eye icon to hide or show a column.

6. Select Save.

The section header counts how many columns there are, how many are hidden, and how many carry a limit.

Renaming applies to this board only. The status, release, or dropdown option behind the column keeps its own name everywhere else.

grouping, swimlanes, and the column editor all live in the Layout section

---

Collapsed, Inactive, And Locked Columns

Three things can change how a column appears.

Collapsed — select a column’s header to collapse it to a narrow strip showing its name and count, and select it again to expand. For the board owner this is saved with the board; for everyone else it lasts the session.

Inactive — when the value behind a column disappears, such as a dropdown option that was deleted or a member who left the project, Hawzu keeps the column, dims it, and marks it inactive. The cards stay where they are rather than vanishing.

Locked — a column that cannot accept cards. Releases that no longer exist are locked, and so are releases that are completed or archived, because their defects are signed off.

---

WIP Limits

A work-in-progress limit says how many cards a column should hold.

Set the limit per column under Layout. Set what happens when a column goes over it under Behavior:

• Do nothing
• Warn — highlight the column but allow the drop. This is the default.
• Block — refuse the drop.

The count on a column header shows the total, or the total against the limit when one is set. It is grey normally, turns yellow at the limit, and red past it. The count comes from Hawzu rather than from the cards on screen, so a column that has only loaded its first page cannot hide a breach.

Caution

A WIP limit is a signal to the team, not a lock. The same defect can be changed from the Defects list, through the API, or by an inbound sync from a connected issue tracker — none of which know a board exists.

a column count turns yellow at its limit and red past it

---

Swimlanes

Swimlanes split the board into rows, so each cell is one column within one lane.

Under Split rows by, choose No swimlanes, Assignee, Severity, Priority, Release, or Label. Status and custom fields are not offered as lanes.

Lanes cannot use the field the columns already use — that would put every card on a diagonal. Hawzu leaves the current grouping out of the list, and changing the grouping to the field the lanes use turns the lanes off and tells you so.

Empty lanes are kept, so there is always somewhere to drop a card to give a lane its first one. Each lane is a panel you can collapse by selecting its header; unlike columns, lane collapse always lasts the session only.

A defect with several labels appears in every matching label lane, and a defect linked to several releases appears in every matching release column. That is deliberate — a defect really does belong to all of them.

A WIP limit belongs to a column and counts across every lane. Lanes do not have limits of their own.

For what happens when you drag a card into a different lane, see Board Cards And Dragging.

splitting rows by assignee gives each person a lane across every column

---

Paging And Wide Boards

Columns load 50 cards at a time. A column with more shows how many are loaded out of the total, with an action to load the rest, paged against the same filter the board is using.

An empty column says so — either that nothing is in it, or, when a filter is on, that no defects match, with an action to clear the filters.

When a board is wider than the screen, a small control appears at the bottom right with one segment per column. Select a segment to jump to that column, drag it to scroll, or use the arrow keys to step one column at a time.

---

Permissions

Only the board owner opens board settings and changes the grouping. Everyone else works with the layout the owner saved.

Anyone can collapse a column while they are reading the board, but only the owner’s collapsed columns are remembered for next time.

Nothing on this page changes a defect. Hiding a column hides it on this board and leaves every defect exactly as it was.

---

Next Steps

• Work with cards in Board Cards And Dragging
• Measure flow with Board Analytics
• Return to Defect Boards Overview
• Add grouping values with Custom Field Types
• Review milestones in Releases Overview