Board view

Board View Databases
In this Article

Boards are helpful for showing items in a database moving through stages of a process, or grouped by property. Use them for project management and visualizing your data 📋

Jump to FAQs

There are several ways to add a board to your workspace:

Full-page board

  • Create a new page in your workspace.

  • Click on Board in the grayscale menu provided.

In-line board

  • If you want to create a full-page board inside another page:

    • On a new line, type /Board view and press enter.

Note: Expand in-line databases to full-page by clicking  at the top right. Hover over the top of your database to see its option menus. Click ••• to see the PropertiesFilter, and Sort options.

Add board view to a database

You can add a board to an existing database to view its data in that format. More on views here →

  • Click + Add a view or the name of the current view at the top left of your database.

  • Select Board from the dropdown menu, and give it a name in the text box.

  • Click Create and your brand new board will pop up.

  • You can still toggle back to other views using that same left dropdown.

Open a card as a page

Every card on a Notion board is its own page, where you can add more content.

  • Just click on any card to open it as a page.

  • You'll see all your properties organized at the top.

    • Click on the property name to edit it or its type.

    • Click in the property field to edit its content.

    • Reorder properties by hovering and using the ⋮⋮ to drag and drop them up or down.

  • Add a new property to your board from this page by clicking + Add a property.

  • Under properties, there's space for comments that will be attributed to you.

  • The body of the page can be edited just like any other Notion page. Add whatever content blocks you want, including in-line databases.

Customize page

When you open any page, you have the ability to change how it looks in a few ways that go beyond typography and text size.

  • Click ••• at the top right of any open project page, then Customize page.

  • You'll see a menu to edit the appearance of Backlinks and Comments, as well as Properties.

    • For backlinks, choose to show them expanded in the body of your page or in a popover.

    • For comments, choose to show them expanded or off in the page body.

    • For properties, rearrange them using the ⋮⋮ icon, and choose whether to always show them, always hide them, or only show them when in use.

Add cards

There are a few ways to add a new card to your board:

  • Click the + icon at the top right of any column to add a card to the top.

  • Click + New at the bottom of any column to add a card to the bottom.

  • Click the blue New button at the top right of your board. This creates a new card in the inbox column and immediately opens it as a page.

Note: Every board has an inbox column for cards that have no value in the property that you're grouping the board by. You can hide this column by clicking the ••• icon at its right and choosing Hide.

Card options

Click the ••• icon that appears at the top right of every card on hover (or right click on a card) to bring up this menu of options:

  • Delete: Deletes the card.

  • Duplicate: Creates an exact copy of the card below it.

  • Copy link: Copies an anchor link to that specific card to your clipboard.

  • Rename: Lets you rename the card without opening it.

  • Move to: Lets you move the card to another workspace or page (where it will show up as a sub-page).

  • Edit property: Brings up a menu with all your board's properties. Click the one you want and then click the new value for it.

Tip: You can apply these actions to multiple database pages at once. Just select all the pages you want to modify. Then, right click or use the shortcut cmd/ctrl + / to edit properties in bulk!

Edit board properties

Every board is defined by a set of properties you create. You can add as many as you want to capture all the information you need, then use them to group your cards accordingly. To edit the properties on your board:

  • At the far right of your board, click + Add a group to add a new column to your board (which adds a new value to the property your cards are grouped by).

  • Click Properties at the top right of the board, then + Add a property.

  • Give that property a name and select its type from the Property Type menu.

     

  • To delete or duplicate a property, just click on it in the Properties menu and those options will pop up.

Reorder columns & cards

Switch up how your board is ordered with drag-and-drop.

  • To rearrange columns, click and hold on a heading, then drag left or right.

  • To move cards up and down or between columns, click, hold, and drag.

Change grouping

You can group your cards by different properties on your board to visualize them in different ways.

  • Click Group at the top of your board and choose the property you want. You can group by nearly any property type: Select, Multi-select, Person, Text, Number, Date, etc.

  • The columns of your board will change to the values you've defined for that property.

Tip: Board view columns are colored by default, but you can turn this off by clicking Group at the top right, and then toggling "Color columns".

Add or change sub-grouping

In board view, you can add a second layer of grouping, called sub-grouping. This lets you further organize cards, while preserving your main grouping columns.

  • Click Sub-group at the top of your board and choose the property you want. You can group by nearly any property type: Select, Multi-select, Person, Text, Number, Date, Checkbox, URL, Email, Phone, Formula, Relation, Created time, Created by, Last edited time, and Last edited by.

  • The board will now sub-group by values of that property in addition to the columns. Each sub-group includes a toggle to the left, so you can quickly hide and show sub-groups to focus on what you need.

  • Empty sub-groups can also be hidden from view with the "Hide empty groups" toggle.

Change card size

Depending on how you want your board to look, you can choose large, medium, or small card sizes. Your choice is applied to all cards.

  • Click ••• at the top left of your board.

  • Click Layout and the Card size dropdown

Display images on cards

Dress up your board by adding an image or preview of your card's content.

  • Click ••• at the top left of your board.

  • Click Layout and the Card size dropdown.

    • Page cover: Will show the image you chose as your page's cover on your card.

    • Page content: Will show a preview of the page's content. If you have images on your page, the card will display whichever image comes first.

    • Files: If you have a Files & media property in your database, you'll have the option to display whatever image files you've added to this property on your cards.

  • Once you have images on your board, you can choose to crop them one of two ways.

    • Go to Properties and switch on Fit image so the entirety of the image fits within the frame of the card.

    • Switch off Fit image and the image will be cropped to fill the entire card frame.

    • Reposition an image inside a card frame by hovering over it, clicking Reposition and dragging it into the position you want.

Display properties on cards

You can choose which properties you want displayed on the front of your cards in your board.

  • Click Properties and click the switches next to the properties listed to hide or show them.

  • Rearrange their order on your cards by using the ⋮⋮ icon to drag them up or down in this list.

Hide columns

  • For the column you want to hide, click ••• to the right of the heading.

  • Click Hide.

  • Reveal hidden columns by scrolling all the way to the right. You'll see a list of Hidden columns.

  • Click on any hidden column, then on ••• to choose Show.

  • You can also click on a hidden column to search its contents, or click the + icon to add a card inside it.

Calculations

To the immediate right of each column heading, you'll see a gray number. The default is for this to show the number of cards in each column, but you can change it to give you other information. 

  • Click on the number, and you'll see a menu of the following options:

    • Count all: Gives you the total number of rows in the column.

    • Count values: Counts the number of property values contained in the column. 

    • Count unique values: Counts the number of unique property values contained in the column, omitting duplicates. 

    • Count empty: Counts the number of rows that do not have a value in the column. 

    • Count not empty: Counts the number of rows where the column is filled. 

    • Percent empty: Gives you the percentage of rows that do not have the chosen property filled in. 

    • Percent not empty: Gives you the percentage of cards that do have the property filled in. 

    • Earliest date: If you have time-related properties in your table like Last edited or Created time, you can choose to show when the oldest row was edited or created.

    • Latest date: Shows when the newest row was last edited or created.

    • Date range: Shows you the time gap between the oldest and newest edit or creation time.

  • If you have a Number property in your table, you unlock several other calculation options:

    • Sum: Shows the sum of the numbers in the column.

    • Average: Shows the average of the numbers in the column.

    • Median: Shows the median of the numbers in the column.

    • Min: Shows the lowest number in the column.

    • Max: Shows the highest number in the column.

    • Range: Subtracts the lowest number from the highest.

Filter your board

View only the cards that fit certain criteria, depending on what you need.

  • Click Filter at the top right of your board.

  • Choose the property you want to filter by from the dropdown.

  • Choose the condition you want to use, i.e. ContainsDoes not contain, etc.

  • Define the value of the property you want to see, i.e. a specific tag or person assigned.

  • You can add as many filters as you need.

  • Remove filters by going back to Filter and clicking the X next to any you don't want.

Sort your board

When you sort your data by any property in Ascending or Descending order, your cards will re-order themselves inside each column.

  • Click Sort at the top right of your board.

  • Choose the property you want to sort by, then choose Ascending or Descending. You'll see your cards rearrange in real-time.

  • You can add multiple sorts to your board, with sorting criteria taking precedence based on their order in the Sort menu. (Use the ⋮⋮ to drag and drop them up or down.)

  • Remove sorts by clicking the X icon next to them in the Sort menu.

Tip: If you find yourself recreating and deleting the same filters over and over again, consider creating a new database view for that filter. That way, you can switch back and forth without having to recreate the filter each time.

Search your board

You can search for specific content in your board.

  • Click Search at the top right and type the word(s) you're looking for in card titles or properties.

  • You'll see your board change in real-time to only show the cards that fit that criteria.

You can copy an anchor link to this specific view of your board so you can share it elsewhere.

  • Click the ••• icon at the top right of your board.

  • Click Copy link to view and the URL will copy to your clipboard so you can share it.


FAQs

How can I turn a full-page database into an in-line database?

To turn a full-page database into an in-line database, you can just drag the database into another page in the sidebar, which will turn it into a sub-page.

Then click the ••• button at the right of the title of the subpage, and go to Turn Into Inline in the dropdown menu to turn it into an in-line database.

To turn it back into a full-page database, you can click and drag the in-line database back into your sidebar.

Is there a way to skip the modal view, and always Open as Page by default?

Not right now, apologies!

How can I tell which pages in my database contain comments?

If you add a comment in the discussion section of a timeline project page, or anywhere in the body of the page, you'll see a word bubble appear in that row of the table portion of your timeline with the number of comments it contains. If you hide the table, you cannot see whether projects contain comments at a glance.

Is there a way to add background colors to board cards?

Not at the moment, unfortunately. It's a popular feature request though, so definitely on our radar! For the time being, you can use Select and Multi-select properties to add a pop of color to your cards 🎨

Any way to group by a relation or formula property?

Not currently 😓 It’s a legit use case though, and definitely something we want to support in the future.

I have a "Done" column in my board that's getting a bit crowded. Can I archive these automatically?

We'd recommend hiding this column. You can do this by clicking the ••• icon next to the column heading and selecting Hide. You can drag any completed tasks into this hidden archive by clicking and dragging your cards into that tag under Hidden Columns.

Still have more questions? Message support

Give Feedback

Was this resource helpful?


Powered by Fruition