Kanban view for pipeline

What it does

The Kanban control turns an opportunity view into swim lanes of cards that can be dragged between lanes. Lanes are either the stages of the Sales Process business process flow or the opportunity status (Open, Won, Lost), and each lane header shows the count and total estimated revenue sitting in it.

Key facts

The control is supported on the Opportunity and Activity tables only, on public views, and on the main grid — not on subgrids.
You add it as a component on the view in the classic customisation interface. If Kanban isn't in the component list, it's pulled in from Get more components > Built by Microsoft.
Opportunity Kanban has two modes selected by the user from a Kanban type dropdown: business process flow (the default, using the Sales Process BPF) and status. Activity Kanban is locked to the Status field and can't use another choice column.
In BPF mode a card can only be dragged to the immediately adjacent lane, forwards or backwards. Non-adjacent lanes dim during the drag. Dropping opens the main Opportunity form with the process flyout so the stage's required steps can be completed.
In status mode a card can go to any lane, and dropping onto Won or Lost opens the opportunity status change dialog and closes the record. Dragging a closed card back to Open reopens it.
Closed opportunities show a lock icon. In status mode the card fields go read-only; in BPF mode inline editing is off but lane moves are still allowed.
Three fields per card are editable inline. Which fields appear on a card can't be changed, and neither can the swim lane field.
Each lane initially loads ten records and pages in more as you scroll, with the header count updating as it goes.
Above 50,000 records in a lane the estimated revenue aggregate goes blank and the count shows as 50000+.
Not supported in the Dynamics 365 for phones app. Web and tablet only, configured per display surface when you add the control.
There are no role-based Kanban views — the control is on the view, so everyone using that view gets it.

When to use / skip

Kanban demos brilliantly and gets asked for by name, usually by someone who's used a task board elsewhere. It genuinely works for a seller managing thirty to a hundred open deals, where dragging a card is faster than opening a record to advance a stage.

It falls over on volume and on customisation. You can't choose what's on the card, you can't have different boards for different roles, and the ten-record initial load means a lane with two hundred deals needs scrolling before the count means anything. If the client wants a configurable board, the pipeline view's grouped editable grid is a better fit and gets more Microsoft attention.

Skip it where the sales team is mobile-first on phones — it isn't supported there — or where the BPF has more than about six stages, since the horizontal lanes stop fitting.

Set it on a dedicated view rather than the default one. Making My Open Opportunities a Kanban board takes away the grid from everyone who preferred it.

Configuration decisions

Which public views get the control, and whether a separate "My Pipeline Board" view is created for it rather than converting an existing view.
Whether the client wants BPF lanes, status lanes, or to leave both available and let sellers switch.
Which display surfaces to enable — web only, or web and tablet.
Whether the Sales Process BPF stage count is small enough to read as lanes, and whether stages need collapsing before the board is usable.
Whether Activity Kanban is also in scope, remembering it can only lane by Status.
How the board coexists with the opportunity pipeline view, and which one the client presents as the default seller experience.

Gotchas

Adjacent-lane-only movement in BPF mode surprises people who expect to drag a deal straight from Qualify to Close. It's by design and there's no setting for it.
Dragging in status mode closes the record. Sellers doing it by accident is the most common support call in the first fortnight.
Card fields are fixed. If the client asks to show the close date on the card and it isn't there, the answer is no, not "raise a change request".
The 50000+ aggregate cap means the revenue figure in the lane header disappears rather than showing an approximate number.
Applying the control to a shared public view changes the experience for every user of that view, including managers who wanted a grid.
Phone users get nothing. If the mobile app is part of the rollout, this needs saying before the board is demoed to the field team.

Consultant notes

Demo it, but demo the pipeline view straight after so the client chooses on merit rather than on novelty.
Warn sellers explicitly about the status-mode drag closing deals, and consider only enabling BPF mode's view initially.
Check the stage count against a laptop screen at the client's actual resolution before promising the board will be readable.
If the client asks for custom cards or role-based boards, be direct: the control doesn't do it, and a custom PCF board is a real cost with a real maintenance tail.
Before go-live, test with a seller who has a realistic number of open deals, not the ten records in the demo data.

Worth another look after the next release wave, or if Microsoft starts investing in the board the way it has in the pipeline view.