How to use the Lanes view

This article applies to TrackVia’s current UI. For information about this article in the new UI, go HERE

TrackVia's Lanes views (commonly referred to as Swimlanes) help you create an agile workflow that is simple to manage for everyone. Lanes are useful for visualizing a business process that involves more than one department, or has many stages and/or steps to go through in order to be completed. 

Lanes Views consist of categories represented by vertical columns called Lanes (highlighted in red below), and the records in the view appear as Cards (example of a Card highlighted in green box below) that can be moved from one lane to another either by dragging and dropping the card from lane to lane, or editing the record and changing the value of the in the Drop Down or Relationship field that is used as the categories for the Lanes.

Converting a View into a Lanes View

Note that to create a Lanes view a Drop Down field or a Relationship field linking to a Parent table must be included in the view. You can either create a new custom view or choose an existing view that includes at least one of those field types, and then open the view menu and select Lanes.



 

Note: Lanes views will only include the first 250 records from the grid view that is converted into the Lanes view.

Set up your Lanes

In the "Name" field you have the option to edit the name of your Lanes view.

Next, choose the Drop Down or Relationship field that you wish to organize into lanes (see red box below), choose which values from the Drop Down or Relationship field to be displayed as the Lanes (see purple box below), and choose up to three (3) fields to be displayed on the Cards (see green box below). 


The order in which you choose the values is the order in which the Lanes are displayed. You can choose up to 100 Lanes. The Record ID always appears on each Card.

If you use a Relationship field, you will also choose a Preferred Parent View. Best practice is to choose a custom view rather than the Default view. You can also choose an existing filter, or create a new one, for your Lanes view.

Image fields can be displayed on Cards. Users can open a fullscreen preview of the image on any Card without opening the record.

Location fields display their Lat and Long as text, and URL and Email fields display as text (not clickable links). 

Admins can also set up a Lanes view as a vertical list instead of horizontal columns, which can help on large displays. You can check the "Allow custom sort within each Lane" checkbox (see red box below) to enable a custom vertical sort for each Lane. 

To change these settings later, open the view menu and select Lanes. "Edit This View" opens the general View Builder instead of the Lanes setup. 

After customizing your settings, click "Save", and you've created your Lanes View! 

This will allow you to not only drag & drop cards from one lane to another, but to move the cards to a specific spot within a lane and save it in that spot.

While interacting with the Lanes view, moving a card from one lane to another will update the record associated with that card's Drop Down field to the corresponding Drop Down option for the Lane the card is placed in. For example, in the GIF shown above, moving the card from the "In Progress" lane to the "Complete" lane will update that record's Task Status Drop Down field value to "Complete". 

Users need edit permission to drag a Card from one Lane to another. Users without edit permission can't drag Cards to re-sort a Lane, even if custom sort is turned on.

Your Lanes view can also include an "Empty" Lane for records that don't have a value in the Drop Down or Relationship field. This Lane always appears as the left-most column, which makes it easier to manage backlogs or new records that haven't been reviewed yet. Empty fields on a Card show as a dashed line ("--"), so missing data is easy to spot.

Conditional Formatting 

When conditional formatting is applied, the color shows on the side bar of each Card rather than the whole Card. While setting up a conditional formatting rule, you'll see a preview of the Card style. 

Sharing a Lanes View by Email

When you share a Lanes view by email, the email shows a grid view of up to 250 records. An immediate share includes only the records in the Lanes chosen for the view; a scheduled share includes records from all Lanes, whether or not they are chosen for display.


Related Articles: 
How to create views
How to interact with views
How to use conditional formatting