Better than just a single Kanban

Showcase
1

Tried to make a Kanban board but after 10 minutes and I was done just added more functionality!
I was expecting problems along the way, but none came. Added some things, used it for a while, moved stuff around, refined, etc.

Screenshot 2024-03-08 2.35.38 PM
Screenshot 2024-03-08 2.35.38 PM1868×850 56.2 KB

Now I have a job timer, a section showing the 2 most important things and a Kanban board with 4 sections. Fits my monitor nicely and no need for additional.

This is just SO MUCH better than a single Kanban program. Uses existing data, easy to change on the fly if necessary, already integrated to workflow. Just all around better. Sure, if it updated immediately, that would be great but still works awesome!

So the layout has my job timer which Grist does better than previous software in a few ways.

  1. Immediately starts a timer
  2. Job name does not have to exist yet
  3. Easy to edit record at any time
  4. Wonderful auto backup and undos for when I do something wrong.

The small area just to the right

  1. Has the most important categories and the most urgent job at the top
  2. The ‘cut stencil’ category is the most urgent and once done does not need moved into another column
  3. ‘NEW JOB’ has jobs started that for whatever reason don’t have a category and they wont get lost this way. 60 year old with ADHD, trust me when I say I forget important things easily.

And the Kanban

  1. No it doesn’t do drag and drop, just click and change
    a. Not sure why this is so important on Kanban, how many things need moved at one time???
  2. I have a “Next” box that I don’t use much, but if I need to do something specific on a project, just type it here first so (as you guessed) I don’t forget it.
  3. Come up with a new idea that would improve workflow? This is Grist - do it right now.

I definitely have things I would like to tweak, but still learning and can’t do some things well, like making reports, writing little scripts or even doing formulas very well.

But isn’t it amazing what is possible without even being able to do those things???

Oh yes, and I just made a report that Im testing for new jobs to be entered that uses the same database, requires no importing or correcting of CSV columns.

I will shut up now and gush more about Grist later. Let me know if you copy and of this or you think of other cool ways to change it.

Let me know if you like to experiment with it drop me a message brucewestfall@gmail.com and I will send a link to a copy ( Not sure if I want it all posted public just yet until I clean up some data)

5 Likes
2

Ok, so you are not using JPeron’s Kanban widget.

You did create a Kanban the same way I tested some time ago.

However, I run into a big problem at the time, a bug

so basically, each of my Kanban columns was a filtered view of the TASK (your columns are FILTERED BY STATUS) I suppose you used the same method, each Kanban column is filtering

When I change the Task (it would be changing status for you), the “card” gets duplicated, because it appears under the It Preparation task filter, but it did not disappear from the Training task filter

That was in December. Wunter replied and said the Grist team did that on purpose.

As far as I know, this is the expected behavior for now.

I ran into a similar issue with todo list items not disappearing from a filtered view when I checked them “done”.

Grist told me that they have it set up so that changing a row will exclude that row from the view filter until you refresh the page.

The idea is that it will be less jarring (in general) for users if the row they are making changes to doesn’t just suddenly disappear if they change something that affects the filter.

I agree with you, though, that there are definitely times when the user expects the row to disappear after making a change.

So, did they fix it or that problem does happen with your Kanban?

3

just confirmed the problem still happens.

When I change the status/task of my “Grist Kanban”, it appears on the other column (filtered widget) but don´t disappear from the previous

4

ok, just noticed something I hadn´t noticed before.

It DOES work if you change the status/task through ANOTHER widget (let’s say, a single card widget.

If you change it DIRECTLY on the Kanban widget, it doesn´t work

PROBLEMS. Each column is a widget.

Your single card widget can´t be SELECTED by multiple widgets.

That means you must find the card you want to change “Status”, by clicking one by one until you find the correct card, and then change the status.

The ideal would be selecting card from the columns and the Single Card widget be changed by it. But as I saidn, that can´t be done because you can only select a widget by a single other widget.

Did you find a way to solve that?

Another problem is that if you want a Kanban by tasks in a process, involving maybe like 10 tasks, each column will be VERY thin, as you can´t scroll sideways in a view (like show only 5 columns in the screen and scroll to see the rest…

This is a problem JPeron’s Kanban widget doesn´t suffer, as it has a scroll bar

image
image1637×859 27.7 KB

5

I find if you just do a page refresh, all is fine. It only appears to make a duplicate. I don’t mind this behavior since I only make a change at most every 10 minutes. Sometimes only once a day.

6

ok, personally i think it’s very confusing when you change the status in a card, the card continues in the same column and shows in another.

7

Just realized I made it sound as if this is better than the JPeron’s Kanban board, but that is not what I intended. I meant being able to do Kanban in any format while using Grist is better than using just a single stand alone Kanban app.

I tried JPeron’s and did like it. I was only highlighting how flexible and customizable Grist is. And really amazed I was able to make my own Kanban board in just a few minutes.

Again, I most certainly did not mean to minimize the excellent work of others. In fact once I get a few other parts working the way I want it would be nice to learn from and use JPeron’s. And if someone doesn’t mind some bugs they can copy mine!

Thanks for the feedback. Now I need to dig in and learn more.

1 Like
8

Don’t worry about @jperon: he’s neither touchy, nor closed to suggestions for improvement!

1 Like
9

I did not mean you thought yours was better than JPeron’s.

As I said, I created a Kanban test that was almost exactly like yours, a few months ago. I was very proud until I noticed the problem I mentioned. I posted it as a bug on GitHub I think.

I also don´t think JPeron’s Kanban is ideal LOL.

I have my own ideas about how a Kanban board should look, to be ideal to me. lol

I suggested to JPeron, but he had done it while on vacations (!!!) and now had less time.

If possible, I would like to try to mess with the code (or rather, tell ChatGPT to mess with it) to test changing a few features. :grin: