Boards and columns

Every project has a board: a Kanban view of its tasks, one column per stage of work. Each column is linked to one or more Autotask task statuses, so moving a card on the board changes the task’s status in Autotask, and a status change in Autotask moves the card.

How columns and statuses fit together

Each column has:

A name you choose, such as To do, In progress or Waiting on customer.
A colour, so the board scans at a glance.
An optional work-in-progress limit. The column shows a warning when it holds more cards than the limit.
One or more linked Autotask statuses, picked from your Autotask task status list. The first one is the column’s primary status. A status can be linked to only one column on a board.

The rules are simple:

Move a card into a column and ProjectSmith sets the task’s status in Autotask to that column’s primary status.
Change a task’s status in Autotask and the card moves to whichever column that status is linked to, at the next sync.
Several statuses can share one column. For example, link Waiting Customer and Waiting Vendor to a single Waiting column. Cards with either status sit in that column; a card you drag into it gets the primary status.
A status that isn’t linked to any column lands in Needs a column rather than disappearing, and a Planner is prompted to link it. This happens when someone adds a new task status in Autotask.

Screenshot placeholder: a project board with four columns and the Needs a column bucket.

Board templates

Your workspace’s columns are set once, on the default board template, so every board looks the same across projects. There is no per-project column editing: change the template and every project follows.

Set up the template

You need a Planner seat.

Go to Settings > Board templates and open the template marked Default.
Choose Build from Autotask statuses to start from your Autotask task status list, one column per status, or edit the columns that are there.
For each column, pick its statuses from the Autotask statuses dropdown. The first status you pick is the column’s primary status (the one a card gets in Autotask when it is dropped there). A status already used by another column shows as taken; remove it from that column first.
Rename, reorder, recolour and set limits as you like, then Save.

If the dropdown says No Autotask statuses yet, your task statuses haven’t been read from Autotask. An Owner or Admin can choose Refresh from Autotask right there; anyone else can ask them, or check the connection under Settings > Autotask.

Screenshot placeholder: Settings > Board templates with the Autotask statuses dropdown open.

What saving does

Every project’s board is laid out from the default template: new columns are added, renamed and reordered ones are updated, and columns you removed are deleted.
Cards in a removed column move to the column linked to their Autotask status, or to the first To do column if none is.
On a project synced from Autotask, cards follow the new links: a card whose status you linked to another column moves there, and cards waiting in Needs a column move out as soon as their status is linked.
Nothing is changed in Autotask.
Making another template the default lays every board out from that template instead. Other templates are drafts until you make them the default.

Common questions

Why did a card jump to another column on its own? Someone changed the task’s status in Autotask, or a workflow rule in Autotask changed it. The board follows Autotask.

I dragged a card and it moved back. Autotask refused the change, for example because the status needs a field your Autotask makes mandatory, or because the write-scope guard is on for that project. Open the card to see the reason.

Can a column have no status? Yes, but on a project synced from Autotask a card can’t be dropped into it: ProjectSmith would have no status to send to Autotask. Link the column to a status first.