The Connect Boards Column allows you to easily link a column to the items of another board - or multiple boards! This column is a great way to connect information between different boards and is especially handy when your workflow involves interrelated boards.

For example, your board listing names of clients can connect with your clients' orders on another board. That way, you never have to go searching for a client's related order as the information will be right there. There are so many possibilities with this column. Keep reading to learn how it works. 👇

 

How to add it

To add the Connect Boards Column, click on the + icon located next to your last column, at the far right-hand side of your board. From the resulting dropdown menu, select "Connect boards" as so:

 

How it works

Step 1

Immediately after adding the Connect Boards Column onto your board, a screen will pop up prompting you to select which board(s) you'd like to link to:

Step 2

Press on the "Select boards" button and choose a board (or multiple!) that you would like to create a connection with. In our example, we are using the current board to get an overview from multiple different project boards so we want to connect the boards "Project A", "Project B", and "Project C" to our "Project Overview Board":

 

 Step 3

After selecting our three project boards, we have the option to automatically create a Connect Boards Column on the connected boards as well to allow for two-way connection (bidirectional linkage).

In the image below you can see that the "Project A" board is also linked back to the "Project Overview Board".

If you choose this option, the item links that you create on the connected board (we'll go over this in Step 4!) will automatically be populated here as well. No need to flip back and forth between the boards to make sure they're manually synced! Changes made on one board will be reflected onto the connected board as well.

 

 

Step 4

Great, our "Project Overview Board" is now connected to our three project boards! From here, it is now time to link specific items from the connected boards to the items on our "Project Overview Board". 

To do this, you can click inside any cell within the Connect Boards Column and it will reveal the items from the connected boards for you to choose from. You can go ahead and select one or more items to have linked in each of your Connect Board Column cells!

 

 

If you have multiple boards connected through the Connect Boards Column, as we do in our example, you can select the specific board that you'd like to link items from. 

 

Not only this, but you can easily link items from each of the connected boards all into one if you wish!

 

Once connected, if we click inside any cell within the column it will reveal the linked items from the connected boards.

 

Next to each project, we will now have the names of the related activities from the connected boards. If you have multiple items linked, as in the screenshot below, the column will show the number of items additional linked there. You can hover over the number to show the names of the linked items.

To view the update section on an item from a connected board, click on that item in the connected boards column and select the "comment" icon at the top of the item card. You will be redirected to the update section linked to that item. 

 

 

 

That's not all! Keep reading below to discover more amazing stuff!👇

 

The pop-up view

Once you have linked the items between the connected boards, you will be able to view details of your connected items directly from the board you're currently in. To do so, click into a cell within the Connect Boards Column, hover over the right of the connected item and click "Open Item". 

Pressing on "Open item" will open a pop-up card view of the connected item, in which you can easily view and edit all the relevant details of that linked item! In our case, this can be extremely useful so we can edit specific project details directly from our overview board. Any changes made to the connected item here will also be reflected in the board where it comes from.

 

Customization

Through the Connect Boards Column settings, you can customize which boards are connected as well as choosing to enable or disable the option to link to multiple items!

To unlink a board or create a new link, click on the arrow located to the right of your Connect Boards Column title and click into the column settings. From there, click on the "Disconnect" button next to the name of a connected board to remove it or select the blue "+Connect more boards" button to add a new one.

 

From the same setting menu, you can also choose to disable the linking to multiple items if you wish. By disabling this feature, you'll only be able to link one item per each cell in the Connect Boards Column. By doing this, when you click on the linked item, you'll be able to directly access the pop-up card view without having to press "Open item" as mentioned earlier: 

Alternatively, by keeping the link to multiple items enabled, you can go ahead and connect as many items as you'd like in each cell of your Connect Boards Column. 🌟

 

Automate board connection

If you're looking for a way to speed up and automate the connection between boards using the Connect Boards Column, we recommend checking out some of our cross-board automation recipes!

When searching for "connect" in the automations center, you'll find several automation recipes, such as the ones below, that can help to instantly connect between items on one board to another according to any trigger that you decide.

 

 

If you have any questions, please reach out to our team right here. We’re available 24/7 and happy to help.