Tag Archives: Task Board

About Task Boards. See also Kanban and Lean.

Kerika has a free Template for Teachers to plan their classes

Click on the image to view this Template/

This template is for teachers and professors that want to manage their teaching schedule. It offers all the tools you need to manage your teaching schedule. It gives you the flexibility to create new cards and columns inside the template.

If you want one place to manage your multiple lectures and classes, this template is perfect for you!

How to use this template:

  1. Use Resources: you will find many useful tools that will help you manage your teaching schedule. You can add your resources by editing the existing cards or creating new ones.
  2. Start of the semester: Each new semester requires creating a plan, booking specialized areas, sharing material with students, etc. And each card in this column is designed to help you with that.
  3. Week 1: Use this column when you’re finished creating a semester plan, and you are ready for the first of the semester. Create a card for each lesson plan for the first week in this column. Or use the existing cards and start filling details.
  4. Week 2: Use this column when the first week of your semester is over. Create a card for each lesson plan for the second week in this column. Or use the existing cards and start filling details.
  5. Week 3: Use this column when the second week of your semester is over. Create a card for each lesson plan for the third week in this column. Or use the existing cards and start filling details.
  6. Add more columns: When you click on the vertical three dots in any column, it will show you a tab named ‘COLUMN ACTIONS‘. It will allow you add a column to the left or right, depending on where you want a new column. This is useful when your semester is longer than three weeks, and you want more columns for them.
  7. End of the semester: This column is useful when your semesters are over, and you want to plan things for your last semester. For example, final exams.

Kerika has a free Template for Website Development & Maintenance

Template for Website Maintenance & Development
This template can be used by software and IT teams to handle website development and maintenance projects.
It comes with helpful resources and suggestions, and all the tasks that are typically needed in such projects.
How to use this template:
  • The first column on this board is Resources: the cards in here are not tasks, but instead contain helpful resources.
  • Start with the Resources column and open the cards. If the card’s suggestions and tips seem helpful, leave the card here for future reference; otherwise move the card to the Trash column.
  • Next, start with the Design column and open the cards one-by-one, starting with the topmost.
  • Cards can be assigned to people and scheduled; as work gets underway, make sure the tasks are properly assigned so everyone knows who is doing what, and when to expect deliverables.
  • While work is underway mark the card as IN PROGRESS (using the Task Status): this will let everyone on the team know that someone is working on the task.
  • If a card needs to be reviewed by someone, assign the card to that person (or persons), and mark the Task Status as NEEDS REVIEW. This will make it easy for everyone on this board’s team to know what’s going on. The people who were assigned the task will get notified.
  • Sometimes tasks will need rework; in that case use the NEEDS REWORK task status to indicate that. When someone discovers that a task needs rework, it’s a good practice for that person to document their concerns using the task’s chat tab before assigning it to the people who need to rework it.
Other useful task status are:
  • ON HOLD: this conveys to the team that work has been temporarily been stopped on a particular task, usually because the people involved got pulled away to work on something more urgent.
  • BLOCKED: this conveys that work on the task is blocked. It’s best practice for the team to unblock cards as soon as possible. When marking a card as BLOCKED, make sure you document the reason why, using the task’s Chat tab.

Kerika has a free Template for Career Development

Template for Career Development
This template can be used to set goals and deliverables, assess performance, manage career growth, and get needed training to master knowledge and skills.
Performance management and career development is an ongoing process: it’s not done just once a year; it requires continuous follow-up, adjustment when needed, and giving feedback.
Your main deliverables:
  • Matching an employee’s performance to desired objectives
  • Identifying and addressing performance gaps
  • Implementing personal development plans
  • Assessing the employee’s performance after implementation
How to use this template:
  1. Click on the USE TEMPLATE button on the top-right of the app and create your own Task Board; Kerika will set it up as using this template.

  2. If you are going to do it with others, add the people to this board’s team as Team Members. (Use the Board Team button on the top-right of the board.)

  3. If you have other stakeholders, e.g. management, add them as Visitors to this Board Team: they will be able to see what’s going on, but not make any changes.

  4. Start with the leftmost column, and pick up tasks one by one:
    • The tasks are in order, so start at the top.
    • Set the status of the task to IN PROGRESS so everyone knows that it has started.
    • Assign the task to yourself or your Team Members: you can assign tasks to more than one person.
    • Set a due date! This really helps in getting stuff done; Kerika will then alert you when things are slipping.
    • As work proceeds, use the chat feature to communicate within the team.
    • As you take photos or create contracts, be sure to add them to the tasks as attachments; Kerika will make sure they stay with the tasks so they are always easy to find.

  5. Once a task completes, move it to the Done column.

Kerika has a Template for Organizing a Design Huddle

Template for Design Huddles

This template can help you gather your designers, creatives, and other stakeholders to discuss and review your design projects, share updates and feedback, and collaborate to find design solutions.

It gives you a structured layout that includes design ideas, project updates, and feedback option. If you want one place to manage your multiple design projects and ideas, this template is perfect for you!

How to use this template:

  1. Use Resources: Use this column to gather useful tools and content that will help with the design project. You can use the existing resources as a starting point, and start adding your resources down the line.
  2. Concepts & Ideas: List your design concepts and ideas in this column. Collaborate and discuss ideas with your teammates, and decide which idea is the best to work on.
  3. In Progress: Once you decide which design idea to work on, create a card or move the card you already created to this column. Update the card regularly so other teammates know what’s going on.
  4. In Review:  When the task is completed, move the card from the ‘In Progress’ column to this column. In this column, you can ask the stakeholders for feedback or review your work.
  5. Implementation: Once your task is reviewed, and everyone is happy with the design, move the card to this column for the implementation.
  6. Done: After implementing the design, simply mark it as ‘Done’ or move to this column.

Kerika has a Workflow for Planning your Blog Content

If you’re a business owner or a freelance content writer, it’s important to have a content strategy. Without a solid content strategy, you end up wasting a lot of time managing your content.

By having a solid plan and sticking to it, you won’t have to spend time coming up with new ideas or scrambling to meet deadlines. One of the best ways to build a content strategy is to use a content planner.

A Sample Board to View

Whether you’re working alone or with a team, a good content planner can really boost your productivity. So, let’s see how this company uses a content planner to plan and publish its SEO content.

Click on this image to view this sample board, live!

A Free Template to Use

If you found this board interesting, here’s a free Template from Kerika that you can use to set up your own board in just seconds:

Click on this image to view the Template.

The rest of this article will walk you through the process of using this template:

Step 1: Gather resources

If you’re a serious content writer, you already know the importance of gathering resources before you start writing. After all, you need to have something to write about!

One of the best ways to manage your gathered resources is to use a Content Planner. A Content Planner can help you organize your thoughts and ideas, and it can also help you find new and relevant information to write about.

Step 2: Research Content Ideas

Before you start writing, you need to have an idea of what you want to write about. Make a list of content ideas that you think would be popular with your audience.

You can get content ideas by checking out your competitors, looking for news stories, looking for guest post ideas, and brainstorming ideas with your team.

Step 3: Drafting

Now it’s time to start writing your content. Keep your keywords in mind as you write and try to include them naturally in your text.

Step 4: Designing graphics content

Graphics in blogs capture your reader’s attention, communicate your message more clearly, and overall make your blog more visually appealing.

Once the article is ready, the next step is to add graphics to it. Graphics are important to capture your reader’s attention and make your blog more visually appealing.

Step 5: Integration/Schedule Content:

Once you’re finished writing, you need to integrate your content into your website. You can do this by adding a blog to your website or by scheduling your content to be published on your website later on.

Step 6: Promote Content

Finally, you need to promote your content. You can do this by sharing it on social media, writing guest posts on other blogs, or by paying for advertising.

Like this Template?

You can use it for free!

How to set up a good YouTube Video Production Workflow

Click to view this Template

Producing great video content is essential to a successful YouTube channel, but it can be a time-consuming task if you don’t have a proper process and workflow.

A very helpful tool for planning your content workflow is the Kanban board.

Kanban boards, like Kerika’s Task Boards, can help you plan and execute your video production process, ensuring that each step is completed in a timely and efficient manner.

In this article, we will show you how you can use Kerika to set up a great workflow and process for your YouTube video production.

A Workflow for You

This template will set you up with a good workflow. Each phase of this workflow is represented by a column; let’s take a look from left to right:

Click to view this Template

Resources

The cards in this column contain helpful resources for you to get started with. The first card, for example, helps you understand how to use video tags; the second card provides a guide for how to write a good video description. And so on.

Content Ideas

This is where you start to gather all your ideas for different videos. If you are having trouble coming up with ideas, take a look at the first card in this column.

Create Video Scripts

When you have decided a specific topic you want to work on, move its card from Content Ideas to this column and start writing your script. (And there’s a card in this column with some really useful tips on writing a template for a script.)

Record & Edit videos

Use this column to track the videos you are currently working on: once your script is ready, move the video’s card from the Create Video Script column to this column. This helps you keep track of the videos that are currently in production.

Review Videos

Once everything related to a particular is done, move its card to this column. This will help you track videos that are finished, but you haven’t published them yet.

Schedule / Publish Videos

When you have decided when to publish a video, move its card to this column. This way you and your teammates know which video is when going live. Kerika will remind you if you scheduled a video but forgot to publish it.

Promote Videos

Promoting videos is essential to growing your YouTube channel: once a video is published, move its card to this column and create a checklist of where your videos should be shared and promoted.

Best Practices of Great Teams

If you are working just by yourself, you are ready to go. But if you are working for an agency or the Marketing department of a company, there will be others you need to get involved in this project.

Set up your Team Members

Kerika makes it really easy to organize your team: if there are people who will be actively involved in the video production, e.g. photographers or content writers, add them as Team Members on this board.

They will be able to make changes to this board in real-time, as they get their pieces ready, and everything that they do will be instantly accessible for everyone else that’s on this board’s team.

Set up your Visitors

There are often people who need to be informed, but aren’t necessarily going to contribute in an active way. For example, there may be a product owner who needs to keep track of videos that are relevant to their product, or a senior manager who wants to be kept in the loop.

Add these stakeholders as Visitors to this board team: they will always have a real-time view of what’s going on, but they won’t be able to move any cards or make any changes (in other words, mess up with your careful workflow!) and you won’t have to keep giving status reports. That’s a double-win.

Understand the Workflow

In a Kerika board, every column represents a particular stage in a workflow, and every card represents a specific task (e.g. a video that needs to be produced).

Start at the top-left

  1. Open the first card in the first column
  2. Read the instructions inside
  3. Check out any resources that are attached to the card
  4. Take action.

Some tasks are best handled by you, and others should clearly be handed off to coworkers.

Update the cards as work gets done

  1. A card can be assigned to one or more people, and this can change throughout the course of the project: something is initially assigned to you and then gets handed off to someone else.
  2. As cards get worked upon, update the status of each card: start with READY, then IN PROGRESS, and so on.  This makes it easy for everyone to always have a clear idea of where things stand.
  3. Set due dates. This will help you make sure nothing slips.
  4. Use Kerika’s chat instead of email: this will keep your communications quick and focused.
  5. Move cards along the columns as the work progresses.

Get to Done

The team’s goal is to get all your cards all the way over to Done, on the right-end of the board.

Sometimes things that were initiated need to be discarded: maybe something turns out to be a bad idea? In that case, move the card to the Trash column. (If you change your mind later, you can always retrieve items from the Trash.)

Kerika gives you Resources

The Resources column, the first in this workflow, contains six cards to help you get started:

Kerika provides you with resources
  1. Video Tags: Tags are important as they help YouTube algorithms understand what your video is about. This influences when your video appears in search results.
  2. Video Description Template: one of the most important things you can do is create descriptive, keyword-rich video titles and descriptions. This will help your videos rank higher in search results and give your audience a better idea of what your video is actually about.
  3. Video Thumbnail Template: Your thumbnail is what appears first on your YouTube channel and in the search results, so it needs to be eye-catching and representative of your video content.
  4. How To Edit YouTube Videos Quickly: All successful YouTubers put a lot of time and effort into their editing because that is what helps them stand out from the crowd. This card has useful links, including some of the best video editing tools.
  5. The Easiest Way To Write A Video Script: Writing a video script for YouTube can be as easy or as difficult as you make it. If you have a clear idea of what you want to say and how you want to say it, the process can be relatively straightforward.
  6. 10+ Places To Share Your Video For More Views: Sharing your videos on other platforms lets you borrow their audience and show your content to people who might not have found it otherwise. This helps get more views and subscribers on your channel, which leads to more success on YouTube.

Start Generating Content Ideas

The second column is Content Ideas and it contains five cards:

  1. How to Generate Video Ideas: content ideas are the basis for your YouTube videos, and without a clear idea, it is hard to plan, make, and edit videos that are engaging and effective.

    This card will help you generate good video ideas. It gives you useful resources and a list of content ideas that you can use for your videos.
  2. Your Video Ideas: Use this card to keep a list of video content ideas. Remember, no idea is too specific or too vague! Refer to this card when you need a content idea to work on.
  3. Example Video (DUPLICATE THIS): This card will come in handy while writing your video script: it contains a template for writing content that you can duplicate for each of your content ideas and a checklist that divides the script writing process into smaller tasks.

(Example) Video Idea: Latest Smartphone Review is an example of a video idea that discusses the latest smartphones. This video needs a script to educate the viewers about the pros and cons of the latest smartphones launched this year.

(Example) Video idea: How to create a successful advertising campaign is another example of a video with tips on how to create an advertising campaign:

Create Video Scripts

This column contains two cards:

Create Video Scripts
  1. The first card will save you time by giving you a ready-made format for scripts. It offers a clear and consistent structure for you to follow, which can help organize your script ideas and ensure that you tell the story in the most compelling way possible.

    The card also includes guidelines for things like video titles, introduction, body, conclusion, and call to action. It will help you follow industry-standard conventions and make it easy for you to read and follow later on.
  2. The second card will help you write a script that keeps your audience interested and engaged in your content, and this card shares some of the most useful tips to help you with it.

Record & Edit Videos

This column contains two cards:

Record & Edit Videos
  1. The first card helps you understand keyword optimization, which is an important aspect of creating and promoting YouTube videos.This will increase the number of views on your videos, ultimately leading to more engagement.
  2. The second card has useful tips to improve the overall quality of your videos and make them more professional-looking.This will increase the chances that viewers will watch your videos all the way through and even share them with others. Overall, video editing is an important part of creating successful videos on YouTube.

Review Videos

As videos are ready, drag the video card here and assign them to the folks who will be reviewing them, and change the status of the card to NEEDS REVIEW.  If you need feedback by a certain date, set the Due Date on this card so people understand its urgency relative to everything else that’s going on.

Schedule & Publish Videos

When a video is ready to be scheduled for publication, move its card here. This makes it easy for everyone to know what the publishing queue looks like.

Finally, Promote Your Video

When you promote your videos, you are essentially making people aware of its existence and inviting them to visit and subscribe. This can help attract more viewers and subscribers, which can in turn help your channel grow and become more successful.

We have some tips for you in this template.

Tips for Promoting Videos

Like what you just read?

Here’s the template: just one click, one the USE TEMPLATE button, will set you up with a new Kerika account and your first board, in just seconds.

Click to view this Template

You can try everything free, with your entire team, for 30 days.

 

 

How to make sure someone sees your Chat

With our latest update we have made it easy for you to ensure that someone on a board team always sees your chat message, even if they are not assigned to that card.

The old rule was that everyone who is currently assigned to a card would get new chat pushed to them as emails.  Now, you can make sure someone gets that email notification right away, even if they aren’t assigned to a particular card:

Screenshot showing examples of directed chat
Directed chat

Using this feature is simple: just type the letter “@” anywhere in your chat message and Kerika offers all the matching suggestions:

Screenshot showing example of sending new chat
Sending new chat

“@All” lets you push your chat to every Board Admin and Team Member — something you should do only rarely to avoid annoying people!

Try this feature and let us know if we can improve it.

Kerika’s New Search Capabilities

We have completely rebuilt Kerika’s search capabilities, both on the back end and on the user interface, to make it much easier to find tasks (cards) and documents across all your Kerika boards.

Screenshot showing Task results from Search
Search Task Results

Search results are organized into two tabs at the top: Tasks and Documents.

Within each tab, results are further segmented into two tabs: This Board, and Other Boards.  This makes the most common use of Search even easier: most people want to find something that’s on a large board that they are viewing.

For each search result Kerika shows you what part of the task/card matched the query; in the example above, the search term showed up in 8 Board Chat messages.

Clicking on a search result gives you two action buttons: Open the task/card, or get a link to that task.

The search results are ranked by relevance; we spent weeks fine-tuning the algorithm based upon real-world usage and we think we have got it right now! But we know there will be times when you really need to narrow your search very specifically, and that’s handled by the Filter Results button which gives you so many options:

Screenshot showing Task Filter options for Search
Task Filter

The Documents tab shows you all the content that matches your search results: we get this from Google, if you signed up using your Google ID or email, or from Box, if you signed up using your Box ID.

Screenshot showing Document Results from Search
Search Results for Documents

Selecting a document result gives you two buttons: OPEN, which will open the document for you in a new browser tab (or in Google Apps or Box on a mobile device), and DOWNLOAD.

As with Tasks, there are numerous options to filter and narrow your search for documents:

Screenshot showing Documents Filter options for Search
Documents Filter

 

A more space-efficient layout for Task Boards

We have redesigned the Task/Card details dialog to provide a more space-efficient layout, so you can see more of what you need without having to scroll:

Screenshot showing the Task Details dialog
Task Details

What used to be vertical tabs for Details, Chat, etc., is now a compact horizontal tab; this frees up a lot of space to see the details of the tags.

The other big change we made is to make the Priority setting separate from other Tags:

Screenshot highlighting position of Task Priority field
Task Priority flag

Clicking on the star will bring up your task priority options:

Screenshot showing possible values for Task Priority
Task Priority