In this article:
1. Introduction
2. How to Assign an Owner to a Card?
Option 1: From the Closed Card View
Option 2: From the Card Details
Option 3: From the Card Context Menu
3. Is It Possible to Have Multiple Owners of a Single Card?
4. How Are Owners Displayed in the Closed Card View?
Taking ownership of tasks is crucial for effective task management and team collaboration. Assigning owners to cards maintains transparency in the work process and indicates resource allocation.
1. Introduction
Every Kanban card has an Owner field that produces a dropdown list with the team members assigned to the respective board. You have to select a team member to assign the task. This offers an overview of who is doing what on the boards.
When assigning tasks, you can use the Board filter to show all cards assigned to you or a particular team member. Moreover, assigning cards facilitates further reporting from the Advanced search panel.
Whether from the closed or open card view, when you click to assign an owner to a card, the list will have the same layout: None, Self (the current user), Recent Users, Other Users.
The Recent Users list contains the most relevant and active users on the current workflow. This is very helpful as every workflow contains a different type of work and it is very likely that the owners per workflow are different. The separation helps you browse through a shorter list with the most relevant potential owners.
The Other Users list contains the remaining team members.
Next to each user, you will see an info (i) icon. On hover, it will show a pop-up box with more details about them, including their user attributes.
2. How to Assign an Owner to a Card?
There are several ways to assign a user to a card:
Option 1: From the Closed Card View
To assign an owner to a card (or change the current owner) in the closed view, click the Owner icon* in the upper right corner and select a user from the dropdown. If there was no previous owner, the icon will display None ("N"). Alternatively, if there was a previous owner, the icon will show that user's avatar.
* Depending on the card/initiative view settings, you may not see the Owner icon or the user avatar. Check pt. 4 to learn more.
For convenience, your username always appears as a second choice. You can also use the filter to quickly find the user you want.
Option 2: From the Card Details
Open the card and click the Owner field to get the dropdown menu with the users assigned to the board. Select the user you want to assign to the card and update it.
Option 3: From the Card Context Menu
Open the card Context menu and select the Owner icon. The system will open a dropdown list of all users assigned to the respective board. Select the user you want to assign to the card. Their name and/or avatar will be visualized on the card.
3. Is It Possible to Have Multiple Owners of a Single Card?
The default Owner field of the card allows only a single user selection. We believe there is always one person who truly owns the task. We think of a card as a car - there is always one driver, while the other contributors are the passengers. Having said that, there is a way to add co-owners to both cards and initiatives.
You can add more card owners/participants/contributors by using the Co-Owners field in the open card view. This field will produce the same dropdown list of the users assigned to the board as the default field. Select a user to make them а Co-Owner of the card.
You can also use a custom field of type Contributor to add more people to collaborate on the task, depending on your use case and workflow.
4. How Are Owners Displayed in the Closed Card View?
You can configure what elements are displayed when a card or initiative is closed, and that includes the Owner field. To access these settings, click the Configure views icon located in the Board sidebar. There is a separate setting for cards workflows and initiatives workflows.
The available visualization options for cards are:
- Avatar and username — the owner's username will be displayed in the upper right corner, as well as their avatar next to the card title.
- Avatar only — only the avatar will be displayed next to the card title
- Username only — only the owner's username will be displayed
- Row — the owner's name and avatar will be displayed in a separate row
- Off — the owner will not be shown.
The visualization options for initiatives are:
- Avatar only
- Row
- Off
To learn more about these settings, please check how to configure your card and initiative views.