A couple questions about CWM

Marlon Dale
Tera Expert

3 weeks ago

  1. Is there an ability to add a colored dot/tag like in VTB to a card? If not what would be an alternative?
  2. When viewing the kanban board what is the alternative to the VTB being able to click on a user's name at the top to automatically filter by what's assigned to that user?
  3. Will raw HTML tags always show in the Kanban board inside a card?
  4. Does anyone have issues collapsing the horizontal swim lanes in kanban view?
  5. When going through a backlog, does anyone else realize the filter doesn't persist and resets going to the next page?
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Itallo Brandão
Tera Guru

3 weeks ago

Hi @Marlon Dale ,

It seems you are transitioning from the flexibility of VTB (Visual Task Boards) to the structured world of CWM (Strategic Planning Workspace). While they look similar (Kanban), the underlying technology (Seismic/Next Experience vs. Angular/Legacy) and the design philosophy are very different. VTB is "Ad-hoc/Freeform", while CWM is "Structured/Data-Driven".

Here is the breakdown for your points:

1. Colored Dots/Tags (VTB Style)

  • Current State: CWM does not support ad-hoc "Labels" (the colored dots you toggle manually on a VTB card).

  • Alternative: You must use "Color by" rules in the Board Settings. You can configure the cards to change the color of the vertical bar on the left based on a field (e.g., Priority, State, or a custom Choice field).

  • Workaround: If you need ad-hoc tagging, create a "Tags" field or a specific Choice field on the record and map the "Color By" setting to that field.

2. Filtering by User Avatar

  • Current State: The "Click Avatar to Filter" is a unique feature of VTB. It does not exist in the Workspace Kanban component yet.

  • Alternative: You must use the Filter icon (Funnel) on the top right or the "Group By" feature (Group by Assigned To) to see the lanes per user.

3. Raw HTML Tags in Cards

  • The Cause: This happens because you have mapped a Rich Text / HTML field (like description or html_description) to a Card Slot that expects a String. The Card component in Workspace often does not sanitize/render HTML; it treats it as raw text.

  • The Fix: Go to the Card Layout settings (Configure > Card Layout). Ensure you are mapping Short Description or create a stripped-down string field to map to the card body. Do not map HTML fields to the card summary.

4. Collapsing Horizontal Swimlanes

  • Validation: This sounds like a UI Bug (Defect) or a browser caching issue. The expand/collapse chevron should work. If it is stuck, try clearing the cache (cache.do). If it persists, this is likely a ticket for ServiceNow Support (Hi), as it is core component behavior.

5. Backlog Filter Reset on Pagination

  • Validation: You are not crazy. This is a known annoyance in some versions of Workspace List views. The "View State" sometimes fails to persist the query parameters when fetching the next set of 20/50 records. This is considered a platform defect in state management.

Summary: CWM is stricter than VTB. For the HTML issue, changing the mapped field usually fixes it instantly. For the filtering/swimlane issues, those are platform limitations/bugs you might have to work around for now.


If this comparison helps you navigate the CWM limitations, please mark it as Accepted Solution.

Best regards,
Brandão.

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Marlon Dale
Tera Expert
In response to Itallo Brandão

3 weeks ago - last edited 3 weeks ago

Do you have a link to the documentation on the Color by rules in the Board Settings? I can't seem to find that. 

I also don't see any funnel to create filters when viewing the Kanban board.

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Sunil B N
ServiceNow Employee

3 weeks ago

Hi Marlon
Thank you for great detailed questions! Keep them coming..
1. There is no option at the moment. We will consider this for our future roadmap.

2. We are building Filters within Kanban view to support this which will help to see what you like to. Mostly will be delivered by H1 2026.

3. We are allowing users to configure the fields to be shown on kanban card by end user in CWM (By H1 2026)
4. Can you please elaborate the issue so that we can assist further?
5. That should be a bug - we will try to fix it asap.

Thanks and Regards,
Sunil B N

Marlon Dale
Tera Expert
In response to Sunil B N

2 weeks ago

For #4 I opened a hi ticket and got a solution. Source Declarative Action on the UX Add-on Event Mapping record was missing a value and it should be set to 'swimlane_action_performed'

I do have some other questions in the Kanban view for viewing Story Work Items. I've come across some issues where in the Sprint planning tab I'll create stories in the Backlog in the Draft state, and they'll show up in my Kanban view in the Draft columns. I was hoping that I could select which Sprint I want to view stories from in the Kanban view so it's not cluttered, and if no Sprint is assigned to those Draft stories in the Backlog then they shouldn't be shown in the Kanban view.

Also I want to be able to hide a vertical lane. Say I want to hide the Cancelled vertical lane. How could I accomplish this?

And what is the best practice of importing old Sprints from VTB into CWM so that the previous Sprint of the story when importing the Story into CWM remains instead of blanking the Sprint field out?

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