How to re-label kanban columns in monday work management

Jack Wallen shows you how it’s possible to rename monday work management kanban columns with the help of statuses from the Main Table view.

monday work management might be one of the most powerful project management platforms on the market. With more features and options than you’ll ever use, this service can work with nearly any size or type of project. In fact, to some, monday work management might be either overkill for their project or a bit daunting in its size and scope.

SEE: Feature comparison: Time tracking software and systems (TechRepublic Premium)

However, once you’ve got the hang of monday work management, its capabilities are mind-blowing and, for any business that truly values an efficient and effective workflow, worth every penny. The one problem you might find is the crush of features can be a bit overwhelming. And although some of the options for monday work management are very intuitive, some are not. Case in point: the kanban view.

Kanban boards are typically very easy to figure out and even easier to use. Kanban boards make project management a task that just about anyone can do. But with monday work management, the kanban option isn’t quite as up to par as those sites that focus specifically on that project management metaphor.

Take, for instance, kanban column names. When you open your monday work management workspace in the kanban view, you’re in for a surprise. You’ll notice the labels of each column look familiar (Figure A) … but aren’t all that helpful. That’s because monday work management uses statuses (from the Main Table) for column labels.

Figure A

The big question is, how do you change those labels? It took me a bit of tinkering, but I finally figured it out.

The solution is, as you’ve probably figured out by now, in the Main Table statuses.

Let’s take a look at my example Main Table (Figure B).

Figure B

Once would think monday work management would derive the kanban column names from Tasks (which are the row categories you see in Figure B. That’s not the case. Instead, monday work management kanban column titles are taken from the status. By default, you’ll have pre-defined statuses of:

• Working on it
• Done
• Stuck
• Empty

How do you edit those statuses? Let me show you.

How to edit a status name

Open your monday work management Main Table and click any one of the statuses. In the resulting popup (Figure C), click Edit Labels.

Figure C

Change any of the labels you need and click Apply (Figure D).

Figure D

Once finished, go back to the kanban view and you should see your column names are now a bit more useful (Figure E).

Figure E

This is only a kludge and one that monday work management should take notice of. For those who prefer working with kanban, monday work management can be a bit of a challenge (especially compared with other platforms). But if you do prefer working with kanban, and your company has opted to go with monday work management, you can at least bend and twist the service to better meet your needs.

Hopefully, sometime in the near future, monday work management will address the shortcomings of its kanban option and make it a bit more user-friendly. Until then, your best option with the service is to stick with the Main Table view and make do.

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