The Unplanned section (right) holds all cards not yet assigned to a Plan. The board area (left) is a grid of columns (Plans) and rows (swimlanes). Drag cards from right to left to plan them, or between cells to reschedule or reassign them.
1
Open the Unplanned section
If the Unplanned section is not visible, click the Show Unplanned button in the toolbar (the panel icon). The section slides open on the right side of the board.
The Unplanned section has its own filter controls. Click the funnel icon to filter cards by assignee, team, or a saved query. Use the upper-right toggle to filter out Verified work items from the list, and Filter columns to hide already-planned Verified items from the board.
2
Locate the card to plan
Scroll or filter the Unplanned section to find the work item you want to assign. Each card in the Unplanned section represents a single Polarion work item.
Predefined Queries let you surface specific subsets of unplanned work (for example, all items with status reviewed). Configure them in the widget’s Queries parameters. Once configured, enable them from the funnel icon in the Unplanned section.
3
Drag the card onto the board
Click and hold the card, then drag it into the target cell — the intersection of the Plan column and swimlane row where you want to schedule it.A visual highlight marks the drop target as you drag over valid cells. Release the card to confirm the assignment.What happens when you drop a card:
The work item is added to the Plan that corresponds to the column. Internally, Planningboard assigns the item based on the Plan’s date range (start_date / end_date).
If swimlanes are set to Users (Assignee) mode, dropping into a swimlane also reassigns the work item to that user.
If swimlanes use an Enumeration Field mode (for example, a team or component field), dropping into a swimlane updates that enumeration field on the work item.
If Assign to Parent Plan is enabled in the widget parameters, the work item is also planned into the parent Plan of the target column automatically.
Work items with status Verified are locked — they cannot be dragged or unplanned. If you need to move a Verified item, change its status first in Polarion.
4
Move cards between cells
You can also drag cards already on the board:
Between columns — reschedules the work item into a different Plan.
Between swimlanes — reassigns the work item to a different resource or changes its enum field value, depending on the swimlane assignment type.
Back to the Unplanned section — hover over the card to reveal the Unplan item quick action (the arrow icon in the upper-right corner of the card), then click it. This removes the item from its current Plan.
Dropping a card into a swimlane in Parent Item assignment mode does not change the parent link — items are grouped by their parent work item, and the parent relationship is not modified by drag-and-drop. Rearranging parent associations must be done in Polarion directly.
5
Monitor capacity as you plan
After dropping cards, watch the capacity bar at the top of each column or swimlane (if capacity display is enabled). The bar shows how much capacity has been consumed relative to the Plan’s total.
Hover over a capacity bar to see a detailed tooltip with capacity breakdown. This feature requires Show Capacity Load to be enabled in the widget’s Plans parameters.
After dropping, the card appears in the target cell. The board preserves your swimlane position and scroll location — it does not jump back to the top, so you can keep planning without losing your place.Click the card to open the Work Item Properties sidebar and confirm the Plan assignment and assignee fields are set as expected.You should now see the card in the correct Plan column and swimlane row, the capacity bar updated to reflect the new load, and the work item removed from the Unplanned section.
If no cell highlights when dragging, the board may be in read-only mode or the work item type may not match the widget’s work item type filter (wiType). Confirm you have edit permissions in Polarion and that the work item type is included in the board’s query.
Capacity calculations require the work items to have effort values (remainingEstimate or initialEstimate, or the field set in capacityField). Items with no effort data count as zero. Also verify that Show Capacity Load is enabled and the hoursPerDay parameter is set correctly (default: 8).
If your Plan names contain dashes (for example, SAFe naming patterns like PI-2401 or I-2401-1), capacity display may show zero on versions earlier than 25.3.0. Upgrade to 25.3.0 or later to resolve this.
If the server rejects the assignment (for example, due to a validation rule or a permissions error), the board rolls back the card to its previous position and displays an error alert. Check the error message and resolve the underlying Polarion constraint before retrying.
In Enumeration Field swimlane mode, multi-value enum fields are updated by adding the target value. If the field has restrictions (for example, status, resolution, or type fields are not supported as swimlane assignment fields), the drop will not change the field. Use a supported custom enum field for swimlane assignment. See Enumeration Field Swimlanes.
Planningboard saves which swimlanes you have collapsed to your browser’s local storage. They are automatically restored the next time you open the board — no need to re-collapse large swimlanes on every visit.
Enable Show Dependencies in the toolbar to display all dependency links between cards as arrows. This helps you spot blocked items before moving them to earlier sprints. Dependencies must be configured via the PARAMETER_DEPENDENCY_LINK_ROLE widget parameter. See Visualize and Manage Dependencies.
Once items are in a Plan, use the Prioritize button in the toolbar to enter prioritization mode and reorder cards within their swimlane cells. See Prioritize Work Items.
