In this article:
1. Link Order and Visualization
2. The Links Overview Panel Capabilities
3. Detailed Links Hierarchy Visualization
The hierarchy visualization of linked cards in Businessmap makes it easy to differentiate between cards and understand their relationship at a glance. You can read more about the types of card links to get started on the topic.
1. Link Order and Visualization
If you have configured your account to make the linked cards visible in the closed card view (see Note below), you will see all linked cards displayed in default order.
The card in the image below has all types of card relations, where links are ordered as follows:
- parent (arrow points up)
- child (arrow points down)
- successor (curved up arrow)
- relative (right arrow)
- predecessor (curved down arrow)
Note: To customize how links are visualized in the closed card view, go to the board sidebar to the right of your interface, select Configure Views, and configure the Links option to fit your use case.
2. The Links Overview Panel Capabilities
The system allows you to see the entire hierarchy of the currently opened card, even if it spans across multiple levels in the organization. This allows team members to see how their tasks contribute to the bigger picture, while managers can easily get an overview of entire projects.
To locate the panel, open a card, and go to the Links Overview menu (the bottom right side of the card) where all links are displayed. You can see the position of the currently opened card in the hierarchy. Click on any of the links to instantly open the respective linked card.
You can also collapse both “Parents” and “Children” levels in cards with an extensive hierarchical structure. This will help you get a better overview and understanding of those cards that have many “parent” and “children” links without having to scroll up and down all the time.
Moreover, you can filter the currently opened card's hierarchy by clicking on any of the linked card's designated filter buttons, to display specific card links only. Using it comes in handy when you have several levels of links and you want to filter out the structure for a particular card only.
In the example below, let’s say that you want to see all the cards linked as “parent” or “child” only to the “Evaluate quarterly performance” card. All you have to do in this case is click the filter icon next to it, and the system will display the unique structure of that card.
The "Links overview" section shows two sub-sections:
- Hierarchy — shows parent and child cards at different levels. The system does not allow users to manually change the order of the dependencies, except for the child cards order*.
* You should be an Account Owner or a Workspace Manager to be able to change the order of the child cards. - Relatives & Dependencies — shows relative, predecessor, and successor cards.
All levels of children and their children are displayed below the currently opened card, which is marked with a yellow background. The "Children (Level 1)" section visualizes the direct children of the current card. Level 2 visualizes all grandchildren of the currently opened card, and so on.
The same logic goes for all levels of parent cards. Parents at level 1 represent the direct parents of the current card. Parents at Level 2 represent the grandparents and so on.
Note: All subsequent link levels after the first level will be collapsed by default.
You can also create new cards and set the type of relation between the cards directly from the Links Overview panel. Use the plus icon to open the dedicated panel and create a new linked card or link existing cards in the system.
Important: There are several ways to link already existing cards and to create new linked cards in the system. You can learn more about linking cards in Businessmap here.
3. Detailed Links Hierarchy Visualization
The Links Overview section also lets you access the full hierarchy visualization in detail. To do that, click on the highlighted icon below (available for initiatives only):
This would display a separate window where the initiative status data can be visualized similarly to the Initiatives and Outcomes Management Dashboard. If you want to see the full links hierarchy, you can open a window with it from the three-dot menu.
From that window, you can select all properties that should be visualized for the cards that are part of the hierarchy by using the Configure results button.
You can rearrange the results based on your needs and download them in a spreadsheet.
All adjustments in the Configure results window are locally stored in your browser for ease of use, meaning you would not need to configure what properties to be visible in the Links Hierarchy.
In addition to accessing the detailed links hierarchy via the Links Overview section of the card, you can also access the same functionality from the closed card view (board view) from the context menu of a card. This lets you select multiple cards and access the detailed links hierarchy for all of them, as visualized in the image below: