Boards are helpful for showing items in a database moving through stages of a process, or grouped by property. Use them for project management and visualizing your data.

• Create a board
• Full-page board
• In-line board
• Board view in a database
• Open a card as a page
• Customize page
• Add a new card
• Card options
• Customize your board
• Edit properties
• Reorder columns & cards
• Change grouping
• Change card size
• Display images on cards
• Display properties on cards
• Hide columns
• Filter your board
• Sort your board
• Search your board
• Link to your board
• Column calculations
• Board use cases
• FAQs
• Related guides

Create a board

There are several ways to add a board to your workspace:

Full-page board

• Create a new page in your workspace.
• Click on Board in the grayscale menu provided.

• If you want to create a full-page board inside another page:
• On a new line, type /board full and press enter.
• Now when you go back to your original page, you'll see the board nested inside it.

In-line board

You can add a board inside a page that contains different types of content blocks, like text.

• On a new line, type /board and hit enter.
• Give it a title in the space provided.

Board view in a database

You can add a board to an existing database to view its data in that format. More on views here →

• Click + Add a view or the name of the current view at the top left of your database.
• Select Board from the dropdown menu, and give it a name in the text box.
• Click Create and your brand new board will pop up.
• You can still toggle back to other views using that same left dropdown.

Open a card as a page

Every card on a Notion board is its own page, where you can add more content.

• Just click on any card to open it as a page.
• You'll see all your properties organized at the top.
• Click on the property name to edit it or its type.
• Click in the property field to edit its content.
• Reorder properties by hovering and using the ⋮⋮ to drag and drop them up or down.
• Add a new property to your board from this page by clicking + Add a property.
• Under properties, there's space for comments that will be attributed to you.
• The body of the page can be edited just like any other Notion page. Add whatever content blocks you want, including in-line databases.

Customize page

When you open any page, you have the ability to change how it looks in a few ways that go beyond typography and text size.

• Click ••• at the top right of any open project page, then Customize page.
• You'll see a menu to edit the appearance of Backlinks and Comments, as well as Properties.
• For backlinks, choose to show them expanded in the body of your page or in a popover.
• For comments, choose to show them expanded or off in the page body.
• For properties, rearrange them using the ⋮⋮ icon, and choose whether to always show them, always hide them, or only show them when in use.

Add a new card

There are a few ways to add a new card to your board:

• Click the + icon at the top right of any column to add a card to the top.
• Click + New at the bottom of any column to add a card to the bottom.
• Click the blue New button at the top right of your board. This creates a new card in the inbox column and immediately opens it as a page.

Card options

Click the ••• icon that appears at the top right of every card on hover (or right click on a card) to bring up this menu of options:

• Delete: Deletes the card.
• Duplicate: Creates an exact copy of the card below it.
• Copy link: Copies an anchor link to that specific card to your clipboard.
• Rename: Lets you rename the card without opening it.
• Move to: Lets you move the card to another workspace or page (where it will show up as a sub-page).
• Edit property: Brings up a menu with all your board's properties. Click the one you want and then click the new value for it.

Customize your board

You can modify your board to do any job you need it to do. You can change its properties, the arrangement of columns, and the appearance of its cards.

Edit properties

Every board is defined by a set of properties you create. You can add as many as you want to capture all the information you need, then use them to group your cards accordingly. To edit the properties on your board:

• At the far right of your board, click + Add a group to add a new column to your board (which adds a new value to the property your cards are grouped by).
• Click Properties at the top right of the board, then + Add a property.
• Give that property a name and select its type from the Property Type menu. Learn more about properties here →

• To delete or duplicate a property, just click on it in the Properties menu and those options will pop up.

Reorder columns & cards

Switch up how your board is ordered with drag-and-drop.

• To rearrange columns, click and hold on a heading, then drag left or right.
• To move cards up and down or between columns, click, hold, and drag.

Change grouping

You can group your cards by different properties on your board to visualize them in different ways.

• Click Group by at the top of your board and choose the property you want. Property types that you can group by are: Select, Multi-Select, and Person.
• The columns of your board will change to the values you've defined for that property.
• For example, if you have a task board grouped by completion status, you can re-group it by assignee to see all the tasks assigned to each person. Like this:

Change card size

Depending on how you want your board to look, you can choose large, medium, or small card sizes. Your choice is applied to all cards.

• Click Properties at the top right of your board.
• Click the Card Size dropdown and make your selection.

Display images on cards

Dress up your board by adding an image or preview of your card's content.

• Click Properties at the top right of your board.
• Click the dropdown next to Card Preview and choose one of the following:
• Page Cover: Will show the image you chose as your page's cover on your card.
• Page Content: Will show a preview of the page's content. If you have images on your page, the card will display whichever image comes first.
• Files: If you have a Files & Media property in your database, you'll have the option to display whatever image files you've added to this property on your cards.

• Once you have images on your board, you can choose to crop them one of two ways.
• Go to Properties and switch on Fit image so the entirety of the image fits within the frame of the card.
• Switch off Fit image and the image will be cropped to fill the entire card frame.
• Reposition an image inside a card frame by hovering over it, clicking Reposition and dragging it into the position you want.

Display properties on cards

You can choose which properties you want displayed on the front of your cards in your board.

• Click Properties and click the switches next to the properties listed to hide or show them.
• Rearrange their order on your cards by using the ⋮⋮ icon to drag them up or down in this list.

Hide columns

• For the column you want to hide, click ••• to the right of the heading.
• Click Hide.
• Reveal hidden columns by scrolling all the way to the right. You'll see a list of Hidden columns.
• Click on any hidden column, then on ••• to choose Show.
• You can also click on a hidden column to search its contents, or click the + icon to add a card inside it.

Filter your board

View only the cards that fit certain criteria, depending on what you need.

• Click Filter at the top right of your board.
• Choose the property you want to filter by from the dropdown.
• Choose the condition you want to use, i.e. Contains, Does not contain, etc.
• Define the value of the property you want to see, i.e. a specific tag or person assigned.
• You can add as many filters as you need.
• Remove filters by going back to Filter and clicking the X next to any you don't want.

Sort your board

When you sort your data by any property in Ascending or Descending order, your cards will re-order themselves inside each column.

• Click Sort at the top right of your board.
• Choose the property you want to sort by, then choose Ascending or Descending. You'll see your cards rearrange in real-time.
• You can add multiple sorts to your board, with sorting criteria taking precedence based on their order in the Sort menu. (Use the ⋮⋮ to drag and drop them up or down.)
• Remove sorts by clicking the X icon next to them in the Sort menu.

Search your board

You can search for specific content in your board.

• Click Search at the top right and type the word(s) you're looking for in card titles or properties.
• You'll see your board change in real-time to only show the cards that fit that criteria.

Link to your board

You can copy an anchor link to this specific view of your board so you can share it elsewhere.

• Click the ••• icon at the top right of your board.
• Click Copy link to view and the URL will copy to your clipboard so you can share it.

Column calculations

To the immediate right of each column heading, you'll see a gray number. The default is for this to show the number of cards in each column, but you can change it to give you other information. Click on the number, and you'll see a menu of the following options:

• Count all: Gives you the total number of cards in the column.
• Count values: Counts the number of values for a given property in a column.
• Count unique values: Counts the number of times a certain property value is used (without counting duplicates). Example: The number of people working on tasks in that column.
• Count empty: counts the number of cards that do not have the chosen property filled in. Example: See the number of tasks that have yet to be assigned.
• Count not empty: Counts the number of cards where the chosen property is filled. Example: See the number of tasks that are already assigned.
• Percent empty: Gives you the percentage of cards that do not have the chosen property filled in. Example: Let's say your task cards are grouped by priority, and you want to see what percentage of tasks in each priority bucket are not done yet. You could create a checkbox property to check when tasks are done. Percent empty could be selected to show the percentage of cards without checked boxes.
• Percent not empty: Gives you the percentage of cards that do have the chosen property filled in. Example: Same one as above, only the percentage would show the percentage of tasks that have been done.
• Earliest date: If you have time-related properties in your board like Last edited or Created time, you can choose to show when the oldest card was edited or created — i.e. 4 months ago. Helpful to get a quick sense of how long tasks have been lingering.
• Latest date: Shows when the newest card was last edited or created — i.e. just now. Helpful for seeing how up to date the data in the column is.
• Date range: Shows you the time gap between the oldest and newest edit or creation time — i.e. 2 weeks.

If you have a Number property in your board, you unlock several other calculation options:

• Sum: Shows the sum of the numbers in a selected property.
• Average: Shows the average of the numbers in the selected property.
• Median: Shows the median of the numbers in the selected property.
• Min: Shows the lowest number in the selected property.
• Max: Shows the highest number in the selected property.
• Range: Subtracts the lowest number from the highest to show the spread in the selected property.
• Example: The board above shows events being planned, grouped by owner on the team. Each card has a number property showing the number of event attendees. You can calculate the total number of attendees each team member is responsible for.

Board use cases

Here are some use cases for boards from our team and the Notion community:

• Work Portfolio: Create cards for work projects you want to show off grouped by category.
• Employee Onboarding: Track new employees through stages of onboarding.
• Recruiting Pipeline: Track candidates through the phases of your hiring process.
• Roadmap: Keep track of what projects you're working on when.

FAQs

Related guides

Something we didn't cover? Message us in the app by clicking ? at the bottom right on desktop (or in your sidebar on mobile). Or email us at team@makenotion.com ✌️