Grid boards: Planning and prioritization management

Jake Sawyer

Updated December 11, 2024 16:30

V12 4:24 Start+.svg

Grids are boards that excel at prioritization. They're similar to a spreadsheet in that you'll be working with rows and columns of data, but grids are specifically designed to help you visualize and manage the connections between your objectives, initiatives, and features so that you can prioritize your work according to your strategic plans.

Creating a new grid

Click on the + plus button on the left panel next to a teamspace or your personal space or a folder.
Select the Grid menu item and give a title to your new board.
On the Board controls panel, choose the main item type of your grid. Your options here may differ by plan. Select:
- Objectives for high-level strategic planning.
- Initiatives to connect tactical execution to high-level strategy.
- Products or Components to focus on your product hierarchy.
- Features for tactical planning.
- Releases to plan horizons or milestones.
You can also select other item types to visualize under the main item type by clicking + Add items beneath the main item.
When you're happy with your item selection, click Apply at the bottom of the Board controls panel.

Configuring a grid

Once you have chosen the items you would like to interact with, you may now apply additional configuration to the grid. This includes adding filters, the column selection and sorting.

Adding filters

Each board has its own filters, which you can set from the Board controls menu or from the dedicated Filtered by button in the board header. See Advanced filters on New boards to learn more about how these filters work.

Selecting columns

Click the Add columns button in the board header to open the column sidebar, where you can choose from Default fields or other types of elements.
Select an element type and switch the toggles beside any element you wish to display as a column. You can also search for a specific element using the Search field at the top of the sidebar.
You can edit the data in a column by clicking on it. For example, you can click the circle in an objective column's cell to associate that row's item with that objective.
To change the order of the columns, hover on the column header and click and drag it to a new position.
To change the column width, hover over the dividing line between the column headers and drag left or right.

Sorting numerical columns

Click the ••• More actions button in a numerical column's header to access sorting options.
You can apply an ascending or descending sort.

Sorting is applied on each level of the items in the board. In the below example, you can see that Initiatives are sorted by Impact first and then each of their features are sorted by Impact.

Adding items to a grid

There are two ways to add items to a grid, depending on whether you're adding a main item or an underlying item.

Main items

Click the + Create button at the bottom of the list to create a new main item inline.

Note: If a newly-added item doesn’t match your board’s filters, it will immediately disappear and you’ll see an alert pop up with options.

Underlying items

Hover on an item and click + Add item to create new underlying items.

Searching items on a grid

The search bar always lives in the top right corner. To search:

Click on the search bar.
Type in a keyword related to the name of an item.
Click Search or press Enter/Return on your keyboard.

Results will be displayed below the search bar, separated by whether the results appear on the current board or not. In either case, you can click on an item from this dropdown menu to open that item's Details sidebar.