# Boards

EvoHub Board is a Kanban board for your team's work: lists you drag cards between, with one extra rule an engineering team needs. If you want it, work cannot reach the done list until someone other than the people doing it has approved it. This page covers creating boards, working with cards, the review gate, who can see a board, and the archive.

Boards live under **Board** in the EvoHub console. A board holds lists, and lists hold cards. There is no project layer: the board is the project.

## Create a board

:::steps
### Start a new board
In **Board**, click **New board** (or **Create a board**).

### Name it
Enter a **Name**, for example `Q3 platform work`.

### Choose a card prefix
Every card gets a reference made of the board's prefix and a number, such as `DEV-1`, `DEV-2`. Type two to six letters, or leave it blank and EvoHub picks one from the board's name. The prefix must be unused in your organization.

### Pick a template
Choose how the board starts. See [Templates](#templates).

### Choose who sees it
**Private** (only people you add, the default), **One team** (everyone in the team you pick, and nobody else), or **Everyone in the organization**. You can only pick a team you belong to; administrators can pick any team.

### Create
Click **Create board**.
:::

> [!WARNING]
> A board's card prefix cannot be changed later. Card references are meant to be written into commit messages and stay valid, so choose it with care.

### Templates

| Template | Lists | Review gate |
|----------|-------|-------------|
| **Blank** | None. Add your own. | No |
| **Kanban** | To Do · In Progress · Done | No |
| **Kanban with review** | To Do · In Progress · Review · Done | Yes |
| **Sprint** | Backlog · To Do · In Progress · Review · Done | Yes |
| **Bug triage** | Reported · Confirmed · Fixing · Verify · Closed | Yes |
| **Product roadmap** | Ideas · Planned · Building · Shipped | No |
| **Support queue** | Triage · Investigating · Waiting on customer · Resolved | No |
| **Content** | Idea · Drafting · Review · Published | Yes |
| **Hiring pipeline** | Applied · Screening · Interview · Offer · Hired | No |

Templates already mark the right lists as the review list and the done list. You can change that afterwards.

## Lists

- **Add a list**: click **Add a list** at the end of the board, type a name and click **Add list**.
- **Reorder** lists by dragging them by their handle.
- From a list's menu: **Rename**, set what the list is for (**An ordinary list**, **The review list** or **The done list**), choose a **Celebration…**, or **Archive list**.

Archiving a list archives all the cards in it. See [The archive](#the-archive).

### The done list

Mark one list as **The done list** to tell EvoHub that cards there are finished. A card that reaches it gets a **Completed** badge, and it is archived automatically after a while. See [Auto-archive](#auto-archive).

### Celebrations

A list can play a short effect when someone drops a card into it: **Confetti**, **Hearts**, **Sparkles**, **Fireworks**, **Balloons**, **Bubbles**, **Petals**, **Applause** or **A ring of light**, or **Nothing**. It plays once, only on the screen of the person who moved the card, and not at all if their device is set to reduce motion.

## Cards

Click **Add a card** at the top or bottom of a list, type a title ("What needs doing?"), and press Enter. Drag cards within a list or to another list. Cards never move between boards.

Click a card to open it. A card can have:

| Field | What it is for |
|-------|---------------|
| **Description** | Details of the work. |
| **Assignees** | The people doing it. Click **Add** and pick someone from your organization. |
| **Labels** | Board-wide tags, such as `urgent` or a sprint name. |
| **Colour** | A colour stripe on the card's tile. |
| **Due date** | When it is due. |
| **Checklist** | Steps, ticked off one by one. The section shows progress, such as `Checklist · 2/5`. |
| **Linked work** | Links to things in other EvoHub products, such as an incident, a monitor, a retro or a status page. |
| **Comments** | The conversation about the card. |
| **History** | Everything that has happened to the card. Click **Show**. |

To archive a card, open its options menu and choose **Archive card**.

### Comments

You can edit and delete your own comments; an edited comment is marked "edited". People whose role can manage boards (`board:board:write`) can also delete anyone's comment, but nobody can edit someone else's.

### Labels

Labels belong to the board, so the same label can go on many cards. Create them from a card's **Labels** section with **New**, or on the board's **Labels** page with **New label**. Label names are unique on a board, ignoring case. Deleting a label removes it from every card.

## Find cards

Use **Search cards…** at the top of the board to search card titles. You can also type a card reference, such as `DEV-42`, or just its number.

Click **Filters** to narrow the board by label, by due date (**Overdue**, **Due today**, **Due this week**, **No due date** or **Between two dates…**), or by when cards were created. **Clear all** removes the filters.

## The review gate

The review gate makes sure work is checked by someone other than the people who did it before it counts as done. It is opt-in: a board only has a gate if one of its lists is marked **The review list**.

How it works:

1. When a card enters the review list, it is **In review** (pending).
2. A reviewer opens the card and clicks **Approve**, or **Send back** with a note on what needs doing.
3. An approved card can move to the done list. If the board has a review list, a card cannot enter the done list without approval.
4. **Send back** returns the card to the list it came from, and the note is added to the card's comments.

The rules:

- **An assignee cannot approve their own card.** Anyone else with review permission can, including the person who created it. If you try, the console explains: "You cannot approve work assigned to you."
- A card with no assignees can be approved by anyone with review permission.
- Sending a card back is not restricted the same way: assignees can pull back their own work.
- A card that is in review cannot be moved out of the review list except by approving or sending it back.
- If an approved card is moved back to an ordinary list, its approval is cleared and it needs reviewing again.
- While you drag a card, lists it cannot enter say why: "Needs review first" or "Waiting for review".

Approving and sending back need `board:review:write`. Choosing which list is the review list or the done list needs both `board:review:write` and `board:board:write`.

## Who can see a board

A board decides who **sees** it. What people can **do** on it comes from their organization role.

| Visibility | Who sees it |
|------------|------------|
| **Private** | Only the people and teams on the board's **Members** page. |
| **One team** | Everyone in that team, plus anyone named on the board. |
| **Everyone in the organization** | Everyone in the organization. |

Owners and Admins can see every board, including private ones.

### Share a board

Open the board's **Members** page:

- **Add member**: choose a person and click **Add to board**. They can now see the board.
- **Share with a team**: pick a team. Everyone in it can see the board. Use **Unshare** to undo.
- Remove someone from the board from their row.

Members of the board's own team are listed as **Via team**. Adding people needs `board:member:write`.

To change a board's name, description or visibility, open its **Settings** page and click **Save changes**. That needs `board:board:write`.

## The archive

Cards leave a board through the archive, whether you archive them by hand, archive their list, or they are archived automatically. Open the board's **Archive** page to search archived cards and **Restore** any of them to the board.

### Auto-archive

Cards that sit in the board's done list are moved to the archive on their own after a number of days. Set it under **Archive after** on the board's **Settings** page: between 1 and 365 days (365 is the default). It cannot be turned off. Only the done list is affected; cards in other lists are never archived automatically, however old they are.

### Retention

Archived cards stay readable and restorable for two years. Two years after being archived, a card is deleted for good, with its comments, checklist and history.

## Archive a board

Boards are archived, not deleted. On the board's **Settings** page, click **Archive board** and confirm. The board disappears from everyone's list of boards. Its lists, cards and comments are kept, but there is no way back to it from the console.

Only Admins and Owners can archive boards (`board:board:delete`). Members see the button disabled with the note "Only admins can archive boards".

## Live updates

Everyone looking at a board sees cards and lists change as others work, without reloading.

## Permissions

| Action | Permission | Built-in roles |
|--------|-----------|----------------|
| See boards, lists, cards and the archive | `board:board:read`, `board:list:read`, `board:card:read` | Everyone |
| Create a board; rename it, change its visibility and auto-archive; manage labels; delete others' comments | `board:board:write` | Owner, Admin, Member |
| Add, rename, reorder and archive lists; set a celebration | `board:list:write` | Owner, Admin, Member |
| Add and change cards, and everything on them; restore from the archive | `board:card:write` | Owner, Admin, Member |
| Add people and teams to a board | `board:member:write` | Owner, Admin, Member |
| Approve or send back cards in review | `board:review:write` | Owner, Admin, Member |
| Archive a board | `board:board:delete` | Owner, Admin |

Viewers can see boards that are visible to them but cannot change anything. See [Roles and permissions](https://docs-dev.evohub.io/roles-and-permissions.md).

## Related

- [Retro boards](https://docs-dev.evohub.io/retro-boards.md)
- [Organizations and teams](https://docs-dev.evohub.io/organizations-and-teams.md)
- [Roles and permissions](https://docs-dev.evohub.io/roles-and-permissions.md)