How to Create a Kanban Board in Excel, Teams, Notion, Azure, and Worksection

1. Assign a Sta­tus: Click on the sta­tus area of the task and select an appro­pri­ate sta­tus, such as ​“New” or ​“To do”
   
   
   
2. Cus­tomize Sta­tus­es: Use Worksection’s pre­loaded tem­plates or cre­ate cus­tom sta­tus­es in the Account Set­tings to align with your team’s workflow.
   
   
   

1. Nav­i­gate to the Tasks page and select Kan­ban.
   
   
   
2. Work­sec­tion auto­mat­i­cal­ly orga­nizes tasks into a Kan­ban lay­out based on their statuses.
3. Use the drag-and-drop func­tion­al­i­ty to move tasks between columns, reflect­ing their progress.
   
   
   

• Kan­ban by Peo­ple. Eval­u­ate team work­loads and assign tasks effectively.
  
  
  
• Kan­ban by Days. Give an overview of tasks, help­ing employ­ees plan and bal­ance cur­rent and future deadlines.
  
  
  
• Project Kan­ban. Mon­i­tor project stages at a com­pa­ny-wide lev­el for a broad­er perspective.
  
  
  

1. Track Progress: Move tasks between columns as they advance through the work­flow using the drag-and-drop feature.
2. Ana­lyze Per­for­mance: Uti­lize built-in ana­lyt­ics to track task com­ple­tion rates, iden­ti­fy bot­tle­necks, and ensure dead­lines are met.
3. Refine Work­flows: Reg­u­lar­ly review and adjust the board to improve effi­cien­cy and main­tain bal­anced workloads.

1. Open Excel and start a blank workbook. 
2. Cre­ate a new sheet using the “+” but­ton and rename it to ​“Board”.

1. Cre­ate a head­er row at the top of the sheet to label the work­flow stages, such as ​“To Do”, ​“In Progress” and ​“Done”.
2. Adjust the col­umn widths to pro­vide enough space for task details. 
3. Use a dif­fer­ent col­or for each of the col­umn head­ers to visu­al­ly dif­fer­en­ti­ate between the work­flow stages.

Step 3: Design Kan­ban Cards​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

1. Add new sheet through “+” but­ton and name it ​“Cards”. Here you can cre­ate your cards template. 
2. Cre­ate the out­line of the first card tem­plate by select­ing the area and using the ​“Fill” tool.
3. Include key task details like pri­or­i­ty, sta­tus, and assignee.
4. Use con­di­tion­al for­mat­ting to high­light over­due tasks or high-pri­or­i­ty items, ensur­ing that crit­i­cal infor­ma­tion stands out.

Step 4: Start Using the Kan­ban Board​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

1. As tasks progress, move them between columns by cut­ting and past­ing rows.
2. Add fil­ters or sort­ing options to focus on spe­cif­ic cat­e­gories or team members.
3. Reg­u­lar­ly update the board to keep it rel­e­vant and reflec­tive of the project’s progress.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

1. Open Microsoft Teams and go to the chan­nel where you want to set up the Kan­ban board and add a Plan­ner Tab.
2. Click the “+” but­ton at the top of the chan­nel to add a new tab.
3. Select ​“Tasks by Plan­ner and To Do” from the app list.
4. Choose ​“Cre­ate a new plan” or select an exist­ing one.
5. Enter a descrip­tive name for the plan, then click ​“Save” to final­ize the setup.

Step 2: Add Columns and Cards​​​

1. Define work­flow stages like ​“To Do,” ​“In Progress,” and ​“Done” by adding buck­ets with­in Planner.
2. Click ​“Add task” under the appro­pri­ate bucket.
3. Enter task details such as the name, due date, and assigned team members.
4. Press ​“Add Task” to save each card.

Step 3: Assign Tasks and Collaborate​​

1. Use the ​“Assign” option to allo­cate tasks to team members.
2. Uti­lize the ​“Com­ments” sec­tion in task cards for discussions.
3. Attach rel­e­vant files direct­ly to tasks for easy access.

Step 4: Mon­i­tor Progress

1. Drag and drop task cards between buck­ets as they progress through dif­fer­ent work­flow stages.
2. Access the ​“Charts” view in Plan­ner to visu­al­ize task sta­tus­es and team pro­duc­tiv­i­ty met­rics through graphs and summaries.​​

1. Open the Notion app or vis­it the web­site via your browser.
2. In the side­bar, click ​“Add a page” to cre­ate a new workspace.
3. Give the page a rel­e­vant title, such as ​“Project Tasks” or ​“Team Work­flow”, to clear­ly define its purpose.

1. On the new page, type /​Board view on any page and press enter.
2. Notion will include default columns like ​“To Do,” ​“In Progress,” and ​“Done.” Rename these columns to align with your spe­cif­ic work­flow by click­ing on their headers.

1. Under each col­umn, click ​“New” to cre­ate a task card. Enter the task title and press ​“Enter” to save it.
2. Open a task card to add details such as descrip­tions, check­lists, dead­lines, and assignee names.
3. Use the ​“Add a prop­er­ty” option to include fields like pri­or­i­ty, tags, or addi­tion­al dead­lines for bet­ter task and mile­stone tracking.

1. Type “/​embed” to add tools such as cal­en­dars, doc­u­ments, or exter­nal links for added context.
2. Con­nect the Kan­ban board to relat­ed project time­lines, sub­pages, or knowl­edge bases to cre­ate a com­pre­hen­sive project man­age­ment ecosystem.

1. Log into your account through the Azure DevOps portal.
2. Click ​“New Project” on the dashboard.
3. Enter a project name and an option­al description.
4. Choose vis­i­bil­i­ty: pub­lic (acces­si­ble to all) or pri­vate (restrict­ed access).
5. Select a process tem­plate that aligns with your team’s workflow.
6. Click ​“Cre­ate” to final­ize the project setup.

1. Nav­i­gate to ​“Boards” > ​“Boards” with­in your project menu to open the default Kan­ban dashboard.
2. Under the ​“Columns” sec­tion, you can add, rename, or delete columns to match your work­flow stages.
3. With­in Board set­tings, spec­i­fy WIP lim­its for each col­umn to restrict the num­ber of tasks in progress. 

• Click ​“New Work Item” and choose a type (e.g., User Sto­ry, Task, Bug).
• Enter details like the title and descrip­tion, and assign it to a team member.
• Save to add the item to your board.
  
  

• Nav­i­gate to ​“Cards” in Board set­tings to deter­mine which fields (e.g., pri­or­i­ty, due date) appear on each task card.​​​​​​

1. Nav­i­gate to ​“Boards” > ​“Ana­lyt­ics” to review met­rics such as cumu­la­tive flow dia­grams and cycle time. These pro­vide insights into work­flow bot­tle­necks and per­for­mance trends.
2. Use built-in progress reports to cre­ate cus­tomiz­able dash­boards that track progress and high­light areas requir­ing attention.

• Work­sec­tion: User-friend­ly kan­ban solu­tion with no need for extra setup.
• Excel: Famil­iar and straight­for­ward for most users, but requires man­u­al set­up and updates.
• Teams: Intu­itive for those already using Microsoft 365, offer­ing quick inte­gra­tion with exist­ing workflows.
• Notion: High­ly cus­tomiz­able with an easy-to-nav­i­gate inter­face, suit­able for cre­ative workflows.
• Azure: Advanced but has a steep­er learn­ing curve, ide­al for tech­ni­cal teams.

Col­lab­o­ra­tion​

• Work­sec­tion: Pro­vide task dis­cus­sion with each task, real-time updates, and man­age­able client access.
• Excel: Lim­it­ed real-time col­lab­o­ra­tion with­out addi­tion­al tools like OneDrive or Google Drive.
• Teams: Seam­less col­lab­o­ra­tion through built-in chat, file shar­ing, and task assignments.
• Notion: Offers col­lab­o­ra­tive edit­ing and flex­i­ble shar­ing, but lacks advanced per­mis­sion controls.
• Azure: Strong col­lab­o­ra­tion fea­tures tai­lored for soft­ware devel­op­ment teams with task depen­den­cies and swimlanes.

Inte­gra­tion Options

• Work­sec­tion: Pro­vides API inte­gra­tions and cross-ser­vice automa­tion through Zapier.
• Excel: Lim­it­ed native inte­gra­tions, but works well with oth­er Microsoft tools.
• Teams: Inte­grates smooth­ly with the Microsoft ecosys­tem and third-par­ty apps.
• Notion: Relies on exter­nal wid­gets and embeds for inte­gra­tions, pro­vid­ing flexibility.
• Azure: Deeply inte­grates with oth­er Azure DevOps tools like pipelines and repositories.​​

• Work­sec­tion: Cus­tomiz­able sta­tus­es to tai­lor Kan­ban boards for var­i­ous workflows.
• Excel: Ful­ly cus­tomiz­able, but man­u­al adjust­ments are time-consuming.
• Teams: Lim­it­ed cus­tomiza­tion with­in Plan­ner but ade­quate for basic needs.
• Notion: Excep­tion­al­ly cus­tomiz­able for task views, prop­er­ties, and aesthetics.
• Azure: High lev­el of cus­tomiza­tion for work­flows, columns, and analytics.

• Work­sec­tion: Includes built-in report­ing and ana­lyt­ics for time track­ing, task per­for­mance and budget.
• Excel: Basic charts and graphs require man­u­al setup.
• Teams: Pro­vides lim­it­ed ana­lyt­ics through Planner’s built-in charts.
• Notion: Min­i­mal ana­lyt­ics unless man­u­al­ly configured.
• Azure: Offers advanced report­ing tools like cumu­la­tive flow dia­grams and cycle time metrics.