How to Create a Board View in a SharePoint Online List?

If you’ve ever used a project management tool like Trello or Microsoft Planner, you already know how satisfying it is to see your tasks laid out as cards in columns. That’s exactly what the Board View in SharePoint Online gives you — a clean, visual Kanban-style layout for your list items, right inside SharePoint.

In this tutorial, I’ll walk you through everything you need to know about the SharePoint List Board View — from creating it from scratch to customizing your cards, moving items between buckets, and understanding its current limitations.

Let’s get into it.

What Is the SharePoint List Board View?

The Board View in SharePoint Online is a visual layout that displays list items as cards organized in vertical columns (also called “buckets”). Think of it like a Kanban board — each column represents a category or status, and you can drag and drop cards from one column to another.

This view type was introduced in January 2022 and is available in both SharePoint Online lists and Microsoft Lists. It’s particularly useful for tracking workflows, project stages, approvals, job statuses, or any scenario where you want to see items grouped by progress.

When should you use Board View?

• Tracking project or task status (e.g., Not Started → In Progress → Completed)
• Managing job applications, approvals, or support tickets
• Visualizing any list that has a Choice or Yes/No column
• When your team benefits from a drag-and-drop interface instead of a spreadsheet-style list

What You’ll Need Before You Start

Before creating a Board View, make sure your SharePoint list has at least one of the following column types:

Column Type	Can Be Used to Organize Board?
Choice	✅ Yes
Yes/No	✅ Yes
Text	❌ No
Number	❌ No
Date	❌ No
Person	❌ No

This is important — the “Organize board by” option only supports Choice and Yes/No columns. If your list doesn’t have either, you’ll need to add one before creating the Board View.

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Create a Board View in SharePoint Online List

Let’s go step by step. I’m using a Job Seekers Registration List for this demo, which has a Status column (Choice type) with values like Pending, In Review, Approved, and Rejected.

Step 1: Open your SharePoint Online list.

Navigate to the SharePoint list where you want to create the Board View.

Step 2: Click the View options dropdown.

In the top-right corner of the list, you’ll see the current view name (usually “All Items”). Click on it to open the dropdown menu, then click Create new view.

Step 3: Fill in the view details.

A panel will appear on the right side. Here’s what to enter:

• View name – Give your view a descriptive name, like “Status Board” or “Kanban View”
• Show as – Select Board from the list of view options
• Organize board by – Choose the column that will act as your buckets. In my case, I’m choosing Status
• Make this a public view – Check this if you want everyone with access to see this view. Leave it unchecked if you only want it visible to yourself

Step 4: Click Create.

That’s it! SharePoint will create the Board View and add it to your view dropdown.

You’ll see your SharePoint list items instantly transformed into cards, organized under the column values you selected. You can see the output in the screenshot below:

This is how to create a board view in a SharePoint Online list.

How to Use SharePoint List Board View

Once the Board View is set up, here’s how you can work with it day to day.

Move Cards Between Buckets

This is probably the most useful feature of the Board View. You can drag and drop cards from one column to another — and when you do, SharePoint automatically updates the underlying list item’s column value to match the new bucket.

For example, if you drag a card from the “Pending” column to the “Approved” column, the item’s Status field is automatically updated to “Approved.” You don’t need to open the item and manually change it.

The card Status value has been changed to Approved, as shown in the screenshot below.

Open and Edit an Item from the Board

Click on any card and a details panel will slide in from the right. You can see the full item details here. To make changes, click Edit all inside that panel to edit all fields at once.

Right-Click for Quick Actions

Right-clicking on a card gives you a context menu with handy options:

• Share – Share the item with others
• Copy link – Get a direct link to that list item
• Comment – Leave a comment on the item
• Manage access – Control who can see/edit this item
• Delete – Remove the item from the list

These shortcuts make it much faster to work with items without leaving the Board View.

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How to Customize Cards in Board View

By default, the cards in your Board View show only the Title field. But you can control exactly which fields appear on each card using the Card Designer.

Opening the Card Designer

Click the View options dropdown (same one you used to create the view) and select Customize Card. A panel called Card Designer will appear on the right side. Here is the screenshot below for your reference.

Choosing Which Columns to Display

In the Card Designer, you’ll see a list of available columns from your list. Toggle on the ones you want to appear on the card. For a Job Seekers list, for example, you might want to show:

• First Name
• SurName
• Registration ID
• Status
• Gender, etc.

You can rearrange the order by using the Move up / Move down arrows next to each field.

Show Column Names as Labels

There’s a toggle called Show column names as labels. When enabled, the column name appears as a small label above each field value on the card — making it easier to read, especially when cards have multiple fields showing.

Finally, click on Save. Refer to the screenshot below for your reference.

Displaying Images on Cards

If your SharePoint Online list has an Image column, the Board View can display that image directly on the card. In the Card Designer, you’ll see your image column listed with a Show preview toggle. Enable it and the image will appear as a prominent header at the top of each card.

This is a really nice visual touch if your list contains product images, employee photos, or project thumbnails.

Once you’ve made your customizations, click Save to apply them. Here is the output in the screenshot below:

This is how to use the board view in the SharePoint Online list.

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Filtering and Sorting the SharePoint List Board View

Here’s something that trips up a lot of people — the SharePoint list Board View doesn’t have an obvious filter or sort button visible in the toolbar like the standard list view does.

To apply filters or sorting to your Board View, you need to do the following:

1. Go to SharePoint Online List Settings (via the gear icon → List settings)
2. Scroll down to the Views section at the bottom
3. Click on your Board View name
4. This opens the classic view settings page, where you can configure Sort, Filter, and Item Limit options

It’s not as convenient as filtering directly from the board, but it works. Microsoft may improve this in future updates.

Check out Create SharePoint List View Using REST API in Power Automate

Board View vs. Other SharePoint List Views

It helps to know when to use Board View versus other available views:

View Type	Best Used For
Standard (List)	Browsing and managing large volumes of data
Board	Visual workflow tracking, drag-and-drop status updates
Gallery	Image-heavy lists, visual card browsing
Calendar	Date-based scheduling and event tracking

The Board View sits right in the sweet spot for team collaboration on task-oriented lists.

SharePoint List Board View — Limitations You Should Know

Before you go all-in on Board View, here are some real limitations to be aware of:

Limitation	Details
Limited “Organize by” columns	You can only organize the board by Choice or Yes/No columns. Text, date, person, or number columns won’t work
No in-board sort/filter	You can’t sort or filter directly from the Board View interface — you have to use classic view settings via List Settings
New columns don’t appear automatically	If you add a new column to your list after creating the Board View, it won’t show up in the Card Designer. You’ll need to delete and recreate the Board View to make new columns available
Empty fields are hidden	If a list item has blank/empty values for a column, that field simply won’t appear on the card. This can change the layout of cards inconsistently
Image columns become card headers	When you add an image column to your card, it appears as a large card header — you can’t position it inline with other fields
5,000 item threshold applies	Like all SharePoint views, the Board View is subject to the list view threshold of 5,000 items. If your list is large, set up filters to stay within limits

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Tips for Getting the Most Out of the SharePoint Board View

• Plan your Choice column values carefully before creating the Board View. Adding new choices later won’t break anything, but removing choices can leave cards stranded in a “deleted bucket.”
• Use a dedicated Status column specifically for the Board View rather than repurposing an existing multi-use column — it keeps things cleaner.
• Combine with Power Automate — when a card is moved to a new bucket (i.e., the Status field changes), you can trigger a Power Automate flow to send notifications, update other systems, or kick off an approval workflow.
• Set it as the default view if your team primarily uses the board layout. Go to the view settings and check “Make this the default view.”
• Use the Board View on mobile — SharePoint’s mobile app supports the Board View, so your team can update statuses on the go.

Conclusion

The SharePoint Online Board View is one of the useful features in SharePoint Lists. It transforms a plain table of data into a visual, interactive workflow board — without requiring any additional tools or licenses. Whether you’re tracking job applications, project tasks, support tickets, or approvals, the Board View gives you a quick, intuitive way to manage and update items.

The key thing to remember is to have a Choice or Yes/No column ready before you create the view, and to customize your cards through the Card Designer to show only the fields that matter most to your team.

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