Limit to number of cards in card view for Kanban board use

Hi,

I would like to use the card view of my spreadsheet as a simple Kanban board, but I need to set a limit for the amount of cards that each column can contain (or at least get notified when a set threshold is crossed).

For example, if the Kanban board is designed to show my projects sorted by their status (like "not started", "in progress", "done"), I would like to set up a threshold so that, if there are already 5 cards in the "in progress" column, a further card can't be created (or moved from another column) in there. Whether I am prevented from adding a card in the column or that I am only notified that the set threshold has been crossed, that's okay anyway.

Is there a way to do it?

Thanks.

Paolo

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Genevieve P.

Hi @padad

There currently isn't a way to lock the card lane after a certain threshold, but please let the Product team know about your feature request by filling in this form, here!

You can, however, count how many rows (or cards) have the specific dropdown value (or are in that card Lane), which could trigger an Alert.

To do this, you'd want to create a "helper column" in the Grid View of your sheet. This column would have a COUNTIF Function to count how many times the current status of that row appears in the sheet, like so:

=COUNTIF(Status:Status, Status@row)

Then you can set up an email Alert to let you know when that number changes above a threshold you want for a certain status. Let me know if this makes sense or if you'd like to see screen captures of how I'd set this up.

Cheers,

Genevieve

padad

Hi @Genevieve P. ,

Thanks, you gave me a great suggestion! Actually my situation is a bit more complicated: my spreadsheet contains a long list of projects, each of which has a status and an assigned manager. What I am trying to do is set a threshold for each manager, not in general. So for instance, my sheet is done like this:

PROJECT A - STATUS: NOT STARTED - MANAGER X

PROJECT B - STATUS: IN PROGRESS - MANAGER Y

PROJECT C - STATUS: DONE - MANAGER Z

PROJECT D - STATUS: IN PROGRESS - MANAGER Z

PROJECT E - STATUS: NOT STARTED - MANAGER Y

ETC.

Ideally, I'd like to be able to set thresholds tailored to each manager's needs, like:

MANAGER A: no more than 5 projects NOT STARTED, no more than 3 IN PROGRESS;

MANAGER B: no more than 10 projects NOT STARTED, no more than 5 IN PROGRESS;

ETC.

For the moment, I have created a helper column containing the following formula:

=COUNTIFS([Activity Status]:[Activity Status], [Activity Status]@row, [Manager]:[Manager], [Manager]@row)

this returns me the number of projects that are in each status for each manager. This way I could setup a common rule for all the managers and all the statuses (like: notify me whenever any manager has more than N projects in any status). Can you think of any way this can be refined?

Thanks!

Genevieve P.

Hi @padad

Thank you for the clarification! Yes, this makes sense and that's the formula I would use as well.

Another thing you could do is set up a Report based on this sheet. You could Group by Manager, and then have a second Grouping by Status. Then apply a Summary to Count the rows in each section. This would allow you to quickly evaluate what tasks should be in a different status and change them from the Report, if it helps!

See: Build a row report and Redesigned Reports with Grouping and Summary Functions

Cheers,

Genevieve

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