How to Use Swimlanes on Your Kanban Board

Swimlanes are horizontal rows that organize your kanban board into visual groups — by priority, team member, project type, or other categories. They make it easier to scan a busy board and find what you need. This is another way to categorize the work beyond the usual status columns.

In Leantime, swimlanes work through the Group By feature on your kanban board.

Setting Up Swimlanes

1. Navigate to your project and open To-Dos.
2. Make sure you're in Kanban view (the default board view).
3. Click the Group By button in the toolbar — it's next to Filter, above your columns.

Choose how you want to group your cards:

• Priority — Rows for Critical, High, Medium, Low
• User — One row per team member
• Milestone — Group by milestone
• Sprint — Group by sprint
• Type — Group by task type (e.g., Bug, Feature, Task)
• Effort — Group by effort level
• Due Date — Group by due date
• Parent Task — Group by parent task
• No Grouping — Back to the flat board (no swimlanes)

This will rearrange your board into horizontal groups based on your selection.

Tips

• Collapse lanes you're not focused on. Click the arrow next to a lane name to collapse it. This is especially helpful if you have a lot of lanes and only need to see one or two right now.
• Combine with filters. You can use Group By and Filter together — for example, filter to just your tasks, then group by priority to see your personal workload organized by urgency.
• Switch anytime. Grouping is a view preference, not a permanent change. You can switch between groupings or turn them off entirely without affecting your tasks.

Related

• Kanban Swimlanes: What They Are and How to Use Them — Full guide with examples for different team types
• What Is a Kanban Board? — Overview of kanban boards and how to get started

Updated on: 13/08/2026