Swimlanes in Kanban
Swimlanes in Custom Kanban help you organize work horizontally across your board. Like columns, swimlanes are flexible and can represent any Jira field. This flexibility lets you group tasks in a way that matches your team’s workflow and makes progress easier to track.
What Is a Swimlane?
A swimlane divides your board into horizontal sections based on the field you choose. Each swimlane represents one value of that field (for example, each assignee or project).
You can customize swimlanes to align with how your team categorizes or distributes work.
Create a Swimlane
To create a new swimlane:
Hover above or below an existing swimlane until the blue ＋ button appears.
Click the button to open the creation dialog.
Fill in the details:
Project: Select the project the swimlane belongs to.
Name (Optional): Enter a name for the swimlane field.
Field property: Select a property from the dropdown list or type a new one.
Description: Add details or notes about the swimlane field.
When you create a swimlane, a corresponding property is added to the selected field in the linked project.
Swimlane Display
Each swimlane shows:
Field name
Field symbol (if available)
This helps identify each swimlane’s purpose and the data it represents on your board.
Edit Swimlanes
To edit a swimlane:
Hover over the swimlane label to reveal the ⋯ (more) icon.
Choose one of the following options:
Edit: Modify the swimlane details.
Delete: Remove the swimlane and all work item cards within it from the board.
You can also collapse or expand each swimlane to narrow down your view (using the arrow symbol). This hides all the cards and displays only the number of cards in each column.
Reorder Swimlanes
You can reorder swimlanes by dragging them to a new position on the board.
When a swimlane is moved, all cards within it move as well, maintaining workflow structure and consistency.
Tips
Collapse all swimlanes using the Collapse/Expand All button at the bottom right of the board. This makes it easier to manage and reorder swimlanes efficiently.
Change Swimlane Field
Go to Board settings to change the field that defines your columns
The board will refresh automatically with the new swimlane configuration.
Show or Hide Empty Swimlanes
You can decide whether to display swimlanes without any cards in User settings.