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How do I manage issues on the Work Tracker board?

Master visual workflow management, team coordination, and board optimization for effective daily project tracking

Understanding your Work Tracker layout

Your Work Tracker displays issues as cards arranged in vertical pipeline columns that represent different stages of your development process. The default pipeline structure includes New Issues, Icebox, Product Backlog, Sprint Backlog, In Progress, Review/QA, Done, and Closed, though you can customize these to match your team's specific needs.

Each issue card contains essential information for daily coordination:

  • Issue title with issue number and type icon
  • Assignee avatars (hover to see names
  • Labels for work type, priority, or component
  • Story points in the bottom-left corner
  • High Priority pin for urgent issues (appear at top of columns)
  • GitHub icons when connected to pull requests
  • Hierarchical indicators for issues with sub-tasks and progress tracking
  • Issue type indicator
  • Repository information
  • Sprint assignments
  • Predicted sprints
  • Milestones
  • Parent issue relationships
  • Dependencies (blocking/blocked indicators)

You can customize what appears on cards using the view options toggle at the top-right of the board. This lets you show or hide specific metadata to reduce clutter and focus on what your team needs for different activities.

Moving and updating issues

NOTE: Issues in your Goals & Planning Panel don't appear on the Work Tracker. This separation keeps strategic planning focused while execution tracking remains clutter-free.

The most straightforward way to manage work is dragging cards between pipeline columns. When you move an issue from "New Issues" to "In Progress," you're directly changing its pipeline status. This visual approach means your board always reflects current work state without additional status updates.

Setting high priority

To mark an issue as high priority:

  1. Click the three dots on the issue card
  2. Select "Pin to top and set as high priority"
  3. The issue gets a pin icon and red border, moving to the top of its column

High-priority status is workspace-specific, so different teams can have different priority perspectives on the same work. Remove priority by dragging issues below the priority section or using the options menu.

Bulk operations for efficiency

During planning sessions, you can work with multiple issues simultaneously:

  1. Click on issue avatars to enable multi-select mode
  2. Select issues using the checkboxes that appear
  3. Use the bulk actions menu to update multiple issues:
    • Change assignees
    • Apply labels
    • Move between pipelines
    • Set priority status

This becomes particularly valuable during sprint planning when organizing related work.

TIP: Use bulk operations during sprint planning to quickly assign multiple issues to team members or move completed work to "Done" status simultaneously.

Filtering and finding the right work

Your Work Tracker becomes much more useful when you can focus on specific subsets of work. The filter toolbar at the top of your board provides multiple ways to narrow your view:

  • Views: Save and reuse custom filter combinations
  • Repository: Focus on specific repositories (shows as "Repo 3/3" when multiple repos)
  • Issue types: Filter by Task, Bug, Epic, etc.

NOTE: Initiative, Project, and Epic issues are hidden on the Work Tracker by default. To show these higher-level strategic issues as cards, enable them using the Issue types filter.

  • Parent: Show issues with specific parent relationships
  • Label: Filter by work type, priority, or component labels
  • Sprint: Track current delivery commitments and progress
  • Assignee: Show individual workloads for capacity planning
  • Release: Coordinate work toward specific delivery milestones
  • Estimate: Filter by story point values
  • Author: See issues created by specific team members
  • Milestone: View work tied to particular milestones

Advanced filtering options

When applying multiple filters, you can control how they work together using the filter logic dropdown:

  • Matching ANY filter: Shows issues that meet at least one of your criteria (like "assigned to me OR high priority")
  • Matching ALL filters: Shows only issues that meet every criteria (like "assigned to me AND high priority AND in current sprint")

For exclusions, type "NOT:" before filter values. For example, typing "NOT: backend" in the label filter will show all issues except those with the backend label.

Saving and sharing views

Once you've set up useful filter combinations, click "Save as new view" to preserve them for future use. Saved views appear in the Views dropdown for quick access. To share a filtered view with colleagues, simply share the URL - the filters are built into the web address, so anyone with the link will see the same filtered results.

TIP: Create and save views for common activities like "My current sprint work" or "High priority backend issues" to eliminate repetitive filtering.

For issues with sub-tasks, you can use "Next level down" to see child items or "Show all levels" to view the complete hierarchy. This helps you focus on the appropriate level of detail for your current activity.

Managing priorities and board organization

High-priority issues automatically appear at the top of their columns with visual indicators that make them impossible to miss. Priority status is workspace-specific, meaning different teams can prioritize the same work differently based on their context and responsibilities.

Pipeline customization should match your team's actual process. Most effective teams rename columns to use their specific terminology and add or remove pipelines based on their needs. You can rearrange all columns except the Closed pipeline, which remains fixed on the right side of your board.

Monitor your pipelines regularly for bottlenecks where issues accumulate. If your Review/QA column consistently has more items than your team can process, consider whether you need clearer review criteria, additional reviewers, or a different process structure.

CAUTION: Avoid creating too many pipeline columns as this can slow down your process and make the board difficult to scan. Most effective processes use the default structure or make minimal customizations.

Customizing your board view

The view options panel, accessible via the toggle at the top-right of your board, provides several ways to optimize your display. Condensed view fits more issues on screen, while multi-column pipelines display cards in a grid format that reads left to right and top to bottom. You can also choose to show pipeline descriptions for additional context.

The "Show on issue cards" section controls which metadata appears on cards. Toggle options for repositories, labels, sprints, parent issues, milestones, estimates, and dependencies based on what your team needs to see. This customization helps focus on relevant information without overwhelming visual detail.

TIP: Start with the default pipeline structure and customize only when your team specifically needs different process stages.

FAQ

Q: How do I see all issues assigned to me across different pipelines?
A: Use the assignee filter to show only issues assigned to you, or check the "My Work" view which aggregates all your assignments across workspaces and pipelines.

Q: Can I customize the pipeline columns for my team?
A: Yes, you can add, remove, and rename pipeline columns to match your team's process. You can also rearrange all columns except the Closed column, which stays fixed on the right.

Q: Why don't I see some issues on my Work Tracker?
A: Issues in the Goals & Planning Panel don't appear on the Work Tracker by design. Also check your active filters which might be hiding issues.

Q: How do I set an issue as high priority?
A: Click the three dots on the issue card and select "Pin to top and set as high priority." This adds visual indicators and moves the issue to the top of its column.

Q: What do the different visual indicators on issue cards mean?
A: Story points appear in the bottom-left corner, GitHub icons indicate pull request connections, high-priority issues show pin icons and red borders, and issues with sub-tasks display hierarchical indicators.

Q: How do I view different levels of issue hierarchy?
A: Use "Next level down" to see sub-tasks or "Show all levels" for the complete hierarchy, helping you focus on the right level of detail.