Card Tables

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Meet Basecamp's take on Kanban! The Card Table is a great place for inquiries to a particular team. It's designed to manage reactive work like software bugs or design requests, but it can be used whenever you need a more visual method for organizing your team's workflow:

Screenshot of the Card Table tool in a Basecamp project.

By default, Card Tables are off in new projects. To enable them, go to the ••• menu at the top right of the page, then Set up Tools. You can enable the Card Table tool there:

A Screenshot of the Change Tools screen with the Card Table tool set to 'Off'

Working with Cards

Add a new Card

When you've got some work to track on the Card Table, just click "+ Add a card" to add it to Triage. Enter a title for the Card, assign it to a specific person on the Project, add a due date and write a description:

A screenshot of the 'Add a new card' window with options for title, assign card, due on and a description.

You can also add a new card directly to a specific column by using the ••• button to open the options menu and click "Add card":

A screenshot of a Card Table with two red arrows showing how to create a new Card directly in a Column.

NOTE: Assigned Cards will appear on a person's Assignments page. Dated Cards will appear on a Schedule with enabled assignments, and send Due Soon notifications.

Steps for Cards

To break down a Card into manageable tasks, simply open an existing Card and add steps to it. The addition of steps provides a more detailed view of the work involved, making it easier for others to track progress:

Each step can be assigned, and a due date can be set. Upon completion, the step remains visible and its status is not linked to the overall status of a Card - you don't need to complete all of the steps before you move the Card to "Done":

Reordering steps is also breeze - simply drag and drop them to a desired location.

NOTE: Card subscribers will be notified when a step is added or completed. People assigned to a step will also get a Hey! menu notification.

Move a Card

There are two ways to move a card to a new column. You can click and drag the Card to the new column from the Card Table screen:

An animated GIF of a card being moved from the 'Triage' column to the 'Waiting on Customers' column

You can also move a Card from the card page:

A screenshot of a Card with an arrow pointed to the 'Move along to...' menu

Watch a Column

Need to know what your team is working and when they add a new card? Just click the ••• menu in a Column and click 'Watch this column' to receive a Hey! menu notification when a new card is added to that Column:

Screenshot of the open three-dot menu in a column, with

Organizing Columns

New Card Tables start with four columns: Triage, Figuring it Out, In Progress and Done. If those don't fit your purpose or work, you can add, rename, delete and archive Columns.

Add a new Column

To add a new Column to your Card Table, just click the '+' to the right of the Columns:

An animated GIF of new Column creation

Rename a Column

To rename a column, click the ••• at the top right of the column to open the options menu, then select 'Rename':

On Hold

Sometimes you can't take action on a Card at the moment, but it needs to stay in the Column. You can put it On Hold in its column so everyone can see at a glance what's actively being worked on.

To enable the On Hold area of a column, just click the ••• button at the top right of the column.

A screenshot of two columns. One has the context menu open with an arrow pointed at the 'Enable 'On Hold'' option. The other column has the 'On Hold' area highlighted.

Archive or Trash a Column

If you no longer need a Column, just click the ••• button at the top right of the column to Archive or Trash it.

A screenshot of the column options menu with 'Archive this column' and 'Put in trash' highlighted.

Next up: Hill Charts →

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