Flow Board Server and Data Center - User Guide

Owned by Stacy Coakley
Last updated: May 02, 2023 by Harshitha Udayashankar (Inactive) (Deactivated)
14 min read

Flow Board lets you easily manage tasks in the style of Kanban boards or to-do lists.  It contains language packs for users in dozens of languages.



Demo

Features 

  • Internationalization - Flow Boards in the user's chosen language

  • Create lists and cards on the fly

  • Drag cards between lists

  • Add details and comments to cards

  • Add due date, assignees, and comments to cards

  • Organize multiple Flow Boards on one page

  • Move cards and lists to other Flow Boards

  • Control read/write permissions per board

  • User assignment based notifications

  • Share card link

  • Export cards

  • Customize board color

  • Compact mode for displaying only one column on a board - great for SWOT analysis boards

  • Automation upon moving or adding card to a list

Adding the Flow Board macro to a Confluence page 

Choose the flow board macro while in edit mode of the page you want the flow board to display

Enter a unique Board name and Title, click Insert

The name must be unique on the containing page

The board name and the name of the containing page together form the unique key for storing your Board data.  If you later edit your Board to change the name then that breaks the link to your data.  The data will still exist but the new name key will be for an empty/new Board.  To restore the key to your original Board data you can edit the name to return it to the original value.  If you forget the original name of the Board you can see it in the Boards tab of the Admin Console where Board data is listed.

The macro displays on the page

Update / publish your page to view and use the Flow Board

Flow Board Usage Basics 

Create a List 

Click 'Add a list' to create a new list / column

You must create a list before you can add a card

Create a Card 

After you have created a list, you can then add a card to your list

Drag and drop cards between lists 

Add details to a card 

Click on a card to expand it and add more details

See Formatting Options below for how to customize a link and more

Add multiple Flow Boards to a page 

Simply add another Flow Board macro to your page and give it a unique name

The name must be unique on the containing page


Internationalization - Choose Your Language

Flow Board renders in the user's chosen language.  See Confluence documentation for Choosing a Default Language for your site.  That document contains information about how your users select their preferred language to override the site default language.  Also, this Confluence document on User Settings shows users how to specify their preferred language.

Flow Board supports all languages supported by Confluence plus Vietnamese (Tiếng Việt) and Ukranian (Український), a total of 24 languages.  Flow Board does not differentiate between language variants.  For example, Flow Board has an English language pack, not English(US) and English(UK).  Confluence's supported languages are listed here.

If your language is not supported or if you notice a translation in Flow Board that could be improved please let us know via Support Portal - Suggest Improvement.  Flow Board users can directly access the feedback form via the "..." drop-down menu for a Board, which has an "Improve translation" link on it:

  

Flow Board 2.0+ Features 

Due Dates and Time 

  • Add due date and time
  • Remove due date and time
  • Ability to mark the due date as Complete - click the checkbox
  • Indicators for when the date/time is:

    • Due Soon: < 24 hours from [now]

    • Overdue: due date/time is in the past

    • Complete: checkbox has been checked

      • Indicators display in the card and on the board

    • Does not include date/time based notifications for this release but is on our roadmap

Add Due Date and Time 

Remove Due Date 

Click the X > the X turns red > click the now red X again to remove the due date or navigate away to cancel

Due Date/Time Indicators 

GREY > 24 hours from <now> and not overdue or complete

ORANGE < 24 hours from <now> and not overdue or complete

RED Overdue

GREEN Check box checked

Board view

Card view


Formatting Options

Format the Description and Comments

Flow Board uses the Quill Rich Text Editor which allows you to heavily customize your content with rich text including adding checklists, links, images, and videos. Visually inclined people rejoice!

Create checklists 

Add a checklist to the card's Description. Since this uses the Rich Text Editor you must be in Edit mode to check off an item. 


Archive a Card or List 

Click the X > the X turns red > click the now red X again to archive or navigate away to cancel

How to unarchive cards


Archive a List

Coming soon with Flow Board version 2.2.  Until then you can archive lists the same way as cards - by double clicking the X


  1. Hover over the top right of list and click on the ellipses
  2. Click on 'Archive List'

How to unarchive lists

Delete card comments

You must double click to delete. Click the trash can, then click the red X to delete. 

(warning)This cannot be undone.  Comments are deleted not archived.



Admin Console

Security over who can edit a board, notifications settings for when a user is assigned to / unassigned from a card, and exporting a board to JSON format. As such there's a new admin console in the Confluence administration.

  • Only users with the "Confluence Administrator" permission have access to the Flow Board admin console

  • Settings within the admin console apply to all boards within your Confluence instance https://<your server base url>.atlassian.net/

Access Configuration Tab

  1. http://<your server base url>/plugins/servlet/flowboard/admin/config
    OR
  2. Follow this path:
    1. Settings (gear icon in upper right corner)
    2. General Configuration
    3. Flow Board
    4. Configuration

(warning) Must have Confluence Administrator permission to access

Notification Events

  • What users are notified about

Notification Channels

Permissions

  • Whether users must have read and/or write permissions for the page the board is on in order to edit the board. See Board Read/Write Permissions section below for more info


Notification Events 

Users can be notified via Confluence and/or email when they are assigned to and/or unassigned from a card. These notification events and notification channels are controlled via the Admin Console. We recommend enabling this and then allow users to manage their own notifications.

Users can be notified when a card is due soon (less than 24 hours) or when a card is overdue.  The due date checkers are scheduled jobs that run with a frequency of every 2 hours by default.  The frequency of the due date checkers can be modified in the Confluence administration "Scheduled Jobs" tool.  The jobs for the due date checkers are named "Flow Board Card Due Soon Notifier" and "Flow Board Card Overdue Notifier".

(warning) Must have Confluence Administrator permission to configure board notifications



Board Read/Write Permissions

You might be asking yourself... "What's the point of the 'read' permission since users without page read permission can't even see the page with the board on it anyway?" The Flow Board read permission is all about board data access. It uses the same data API used to render boards to a page. Users without the read permission for the page with the board on it could still access the board data via the API even though they can't see the page/board

Require page read permissions
users without page read permission cannot access that page's board data via the API
users without page read permission can access that page's board data via the API

Require page write permissions
users without page write permission cannot modify the board nor the page's board data via API
users without page write permission can modify the board nor the page's board data via API

If you enable the write permission, then users without page edit permissions will not be able to see the content in the cards. They will see the board and the card titles but will not be able to open the card and view the contents.

  • We recommend enabling the read permission. You'll likely find out fairly quickly if your organization needs it disabled, which should be rare. Or perhaps you'll stop prying eyes in their tracks.
  • If you enable the write permission, we recommend you enable the read permission too

(warning) Must have Confluence Administrator permission to configure board permissions

Access Boards Tab

  1. http://<your server base url>/plugins/servlet/flowboard/admin/boards
    OR
  2. Follow this path:
    1. Settings (gear icon in upper right corner)
    2. General Configuration
    3. Flow Board
    4. Boards


(warning) Must have Confluence Administrator permission to access

Export Boards to JSON Format

  1. http://<your server base url>/plugins/servlet/flowboard/admin/boards
    OR
  2. Follow this path:
    1. Settings (gear icon in upper right corner)
    2. General Configuration
    3. Flow Board
    4. Boards

(warning) Must have Confluence Administrator permission export boards

Users must have page read permissions for the page the board lives on.

If a user is still unable to view the card, verify your Flow Board admin settings. See Admin Console and Board Read/Write Permissions sections, listed on this page, for instructions and tips.

Choose Board Color

In page edit mode, click on the Flow Board macro and select your preferred color from the Theme dropdown.

Refresh / Sync Board

Say you have your Flow Board page open and a colleague says they updated a card but you don't see it. Click the refresh button and voila! This is also handy for when you personally have the Flow Board open on two different browser tabs and update it on one then later find yourself saying "I swear I updated it" without realizing you're on another tab. Not that this has ever happened to us or anything.   Being in sync is good. Now if we could just figure out how to sync all other "tabs" in life this easily...

The refresh/sync button location has moved with Flow Board 2.1.

Flow Board Version 2.0





Flow Board Version 2.1

Unarchive cards and lists

  1. Click on the ellipsis to access the dropdown menu

  2. Choose Cards or Lists, whichever you want to unarchive

  3. On the specific card (or list) you want to unarchive, click on the circular undo arrow and choose which list you want the card to go back to


Compact mode

We find this feature handy for minimizing the page footprint of boards, for boards containing only one list, and doing SWOT analyses. We’d love to hear how you use it.

In page edit mode, click on the Flow Board macro and check the ‘Compact’ checkbox

Add list while in compact mode 

As you’ve probably noticed, compact mode removes the ‘Add list’ input field. To add a list to a compact mode board:

  1. Click the ellipses

  2. Click ‘Add List’ from the dropdown menu

Move cards to a different board

Drag and drop cards to a different board. This works regardless if compact mode is enabled.

Move lists to a different board

Drag and drop lists, and all cards within it, to a different board on the same page. This works whether or not compact mode is enabled.


Currently, dragging a list to an empty board does not work as smoothly as it should – while possible, it can be hard to activate the drop zone in the empty board.

In the mean time, you can use this workaround:

  1. Create a temporary list on the empty board (board B)

  2. Move the desired list from board A to board B

  3. Remove the temporary list from board B

Automation upon moving or adding card to a list

Coming soon with Flow Board version 2.2

Why waste time doing the same type of card updates every time you move one to another list. We’ve thought of several automation opportunities and decided to start with this core set. We hope you like it as much as we do. Inhale the bandwidth, exhale the minutia.

Set unique rules per list 

  1. Hover over the top right corner of the list you want to set rules for -> click on the ellipses

  2. Click on ‘Card Transitions’

Set what happens when a card is moved or added to a specific list 

  1. Clear due date

    1. Never

    2. Always

  2. Add due date

    1. Never

    2. Number of days or hours from date/time card is moved to the list

  3. Update completion

    1. Never

    2. To complete if the card has a due date

    3. To incomplete if the card has a due date

  4. Unassign people

    1. Never

    2. Always

    3. Choose specific user(s) to unassign

  5. Assign people

    1. Never

    2. Choose specific user(s) to assign

These settings are for when a card is moved or added to that list

Adding different types of links to a board 

Add an embed webpage link to a card 

  1. Add content to the card

  2. Highlight the content you wish to use a link on
  3. Select the link button
  4. Add link
  5. Click save

Adding an image or video to a card from an outside website 

  1. select picture for picture or video for a video add button

  2. add the URL where the picture lives

  3. click save

  4. The picture will be added at the same size as it is on the original web page

  5. The video will automatically make the video 300 X 150 px

    1. you can play the video within the card

  6. you can't change the size

  7. It can be removed by editing the Description and deleting 

  1. Click add link
  2. Select type of internal link you'd like
  3. Start typing the name of the space, page, or blog
  4. From the list select the one you wish to add
  5. remove double click the X on the right

Adding an attachment to the card 

  1. Have a file attached to the page

    1. Click the ... options on the right of a published page

    2. Select attachments

    3. View any attachments that have been added 

    4. Add any additional needed by selecting the choose file. 

  2. Click add link

  3. Select link attachment

  4. Start typing the name of the attachment

  5. From the list select the one you wish to add

  6. remove double click the X on the right

Card Templates and Card Copy

Use "Make Template" on a card and then it is available as a template for creating new cards.
Also, notice the new “Copy” button next to “Make a Template”.
The copy button can copy a card to create a new one without specifying the original card as a template:

After you click “Make Template”:

Your card is designated as a template and will show up in the “Add card from template” widget:

All card templates that are on Boards on the same page are available in the “Add card from template” widget.
This is in the spirit of cooperation between Boards that are located on one page.
Group Boards on a page to allow cooperation between Boards (drag and drop cards between Boards, etc.)


Search Filtering of Cards on a Board - Searching and Sorting Card Titles

We added a notification for when a card is moved from one list to another.
It is enabled when "A card is updated" notification trigger is enabled in admin tool:

Additional Notification - Card Transition Between Lists

Notification for when a card is moved from one list to another.
It is enabled when "A card is updated" notification trigger is enabled in admin tool:

Card Theme/Color

To add colors to a card title.
Opened the card and click the paintbrush which will open the color picker

Manually Archive All Cards in a List

From the list menu ...
Select the Archive All Cards

You can recover cards by going to the board ... menu and click on cards

This will give you a list of cards that have been Archived.
Hover over the card title which will reveal the restore and delete forever button.

Compare Flow Board to Flow Board Lite 

Flow Board Lite allows you to continue to use your board even after the evaluation period has ended. You will continue to have the great security features, however, you will be limited to three lists per board. You can see all the features that are available both in Flow Board Lite and Flow Board Full. 

Click to see a visual comparison list

REST API for power users

Flow Board uses a REST API for maintaining Board data. This API is available for your use.  The REST API is most likely to be used by power users of the Flow Board app who have use cases not yet covered by the UI. If you decide to use the REST API and would like to see your use case supported by the UI then please notify us via our support portal.

API documentation: Flow Board REST API

Product Backups

Flow Board data is persisted in Active Object (AO) tables in the Confluence database.  The data is in the tables with names that start with "AO_9366BF_".  For example, AO_9366BF_BOARD.


Release Notes

Knowledge Base & Support Info


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