Skip to main content

​
Overview

When a work item has multiple values in its grouping field (for example, two assignees or two team tags), Nextedy PLANNINGBOARD can show that card in every relevant swimlane row simultaneously. This lets you plan across assignees or categories without losing visibility of shared items. Multi-valued swimlane grouping works for two assignment modes:
When using Users (Assignee) swimlanes, work items with multiple assignees currently display under only one swimlane row in some configurations — not duplicated across all assigned users as expected. This is a known product gap. If you need guaranteed multi-user display, use a dedicated multi-value user custom field as the grouping field rather than the built-in assignee field, and verify behavior in your version.

​
Before You Start

  • You have a Planningboard widget configured on a Polarion Wiki page or LiveDoc.
  • Your work items have a custom field of type multi-value enumeration (e.g., a team field that can hold multiple values) or a multi-user field.
  • The field is registered in Polarion and available for the work item type shown on the board.
1

Open Widget Configuration

  1. Navigate to the Polarion page that contains your Planningboard widget.
  2. Expand the Tools panel and click the Edit button to open the widget configuration.
  3. Go to the Swimlanes (Rows) section.
2

Select the Assignment Mode

For multi-valued enumeration fields:
  1. Set Assignment Type to Enumeration Field.
  2. In Field ID, enter the exact identifier of your multi-value enum field (for example, team).
For multi-valued user fields:
  1. Set Assignment Type to Users (Assignee).
  2. Confirm that the field you intend to group by supports multiple user values in your Polarion project configuration.
Planningboard validates the field type at load time. If the field is not recognized as an enumeration type (IEnumType or IListType with IEnumType items), the board will report a field validation error. Common causes: using the status, resolution, or type built-in fields (these are not supported for swimlane grouping), or referencing a text field instead of an enum field. Double-check the field ID and its type in Polarion Administration → Work Items → Custom Fields.
3

Optionally Limit Visible Rows

If your enumeration has many values and you only want certain ones to appear as swimlane rows:
  1. Click the Rows Filter field.
  2. Select the enum values you want to display. Leaving the filter empty shows all values.
The Multi-Value Selector Dialog lists all enum options available for the selected work item type. Options vary by work item type — if you change the Work Item Type filter on the board, the available enum values in the dialog update accordingly.
4

Save and Refresh

  1. Save the widget configuration.
  2. If the board does not update immediately, click Refresh (the refresh button in the board toolbar) to reload data from the server.

​
How Multi-Valued Rows Appear

Board with a team field grouped as swimlanes: WI-101 (team A,B) appears in both the Team Alpha and Team Beta rows, WI-103 (team A) appears only in Team Alpha, and WI-105 with no team value appears in the Not Assigned/Other row
Work item WI-101 carries two team values (Team Alpha and Team Beta), so it appears in both rows. WI-105 has no team value and appears in the special Not Assigned/Other row. Each swimlane row receives a unique internal row ID even when the same work item appears in multiple rows — this prevents rendering conflicts.

​
Removing a Value by Drag and Drop

You can remove a specific field value from a work item by dragging its card from that value’s swimlane row into the Not Assigned/Other row:
  • Dragging WI-101 from Team Beta to Not Assigned/Other removes Team Beta from its team field — but keeps Team Alpha.
  • The card then disappears from the Team Beta row and remains in Team Alpha.
  • The change persists after a board refresh.
Dropping a card into the Not Assigned/Other row only removes the value that corresponds to the source row you dragged from — it does not clear the entire field. This lets you adjust multi-valued assignments precisely without losing the other values.

​
Troubleshooting

Board shows “field is not enumeration” error The field referenced in Field ID is not typed as an enumeration in Polarion. Verify the field type under Administration → Work Items → Custom Fields. Only IEnumType fields and IListType fields whose items are IEnumType are supported. Items appear in only one row despite multiple field values Check your Planningboard version. Multi-enum swimlane display requires the feature to be active in your installed version. If you are on an older release, contact Nextedy support to confirm availability. After changing Work Item Type, the Rows Filter shows different options This is expected behavior. Enum values are configured per work item type in Polarion, so the available filter options reflect the selected type’s configuration. Config changes do not take effect If a configuration property change does not appear to apply, make a minor edit and save the Configuration Properties again to force a reload. This is a known quirk with some Polarion configuration caches.
Multi-enum swimlane support was committed as a planned feature for matrix-organization resource capacity forecasting. Confirm that your installed version includes this capability before building workflows that depend on it.

​
Limitations

  • The built-in status, resolution, and type fields are not supported as swimlane grouping fields.
  • Swimlane sort order is tied to item sort order — independent sorting of swimlanes versus items within them is not currently supported. See Sort Swimlanes for available options.
  • Capacity bar calculations when a work item appears in multiple swimlanes simultaneously may not distribute effort across rows. Verify capacity totals in your setup.
  • Read-only access (unlicensed users) preserves full board visibility including multi-valued rows, but drag-and-drop operations to reassign values are blocked.

​
You Should Now See

After saving and refreshing, work items with multiple enum or user values appear in each corresponding swimlane row. The Not Assigned/Other row shows items with no value set for the grouping field. Dragging a card from a specific row to Not Assigned/Other removes only that row’s value from the field.

​
See Also

KB Articles
  • Swimlane Assignment Types
  • Filter user swimlanes by Plan range
  • Sorting of Swimlanes (Parent Item Assignment Type)
Support TicketsSource Code
  • PlanningBoardWidgetRenderer.java
  • filterMultiSwimlaneRows.cy.ts
  • licenseReadonly.cy.ts
  • enum-rows-filter.cy.ts
  • AssignmentMode.java
Last modified on July 10, 2026