Grid boards: Planning and prioritization management

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.

In this article:

• Creating a new grid
• Configuring a grid
  • Adding filters
  • Selecting columns
  • Sorting columns
• Adding items to a grid
• Searching items on a grid
• See also

Creating a new grid

1. From the Home submenu, hover on a teamspace or folder and click the + Create a new board or folder button which appears next to it. Select Grid from the menu.
   
   
   
   
2. In Board controls, under Items, click Add items to 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.
   
   
   
   
3. (Optional) Select other item types to visualize under the main item type by clicking + Add items beneath the main item.
4. Select filters if you want, then click Apply.
   
   
   
   

5. Any items that match your selections and filters will be automatically populated on the board.
   
   
   
   

6. You can rename your board at any time by clicking on the board’s name at the top of the screen or by clicking ••• More actions and selecting the Rename option.
   
   

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 Filter button in the board header. See Simple filters on New boards to learn more about how these filters work.

Selecting columns

1. 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.
   
   
   
   
2. 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.
   
   
   
   
3. 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.
   
   
   
   
4. To change the order of the columns, hover on the column header and click and drag it to a new position.
5. To change the column width, hover over the dividing line between the column headers and drag left or right.
   
   

Sorting columns

You can sort your grids according to certain data column types to better suit the board's workflow. The column types which can be sorted are:

• Custom number, text, member, and single select fields
• Owner
• Task
• Segment
• Progress

To sort a column on a grid:

1. Click the ••• More actions button in the column's header to access sorting options.
2. 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:

1. Click on the search bar.
2. Type in a keyword related to the name of an item.
3. 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.

See also

• The New Productboard experience: FAQ
• Initiative management in Productboard
• Timeline boards: Flexible time-based roadmaps
• Columns boards: Customizable column-based roadmaps
• Advanced filters on New boards
• How can I change the layout of a board?