This article walks you through the Planning Board (Gantt chart) in KEBS, including how to navigate the project, view and understand the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), explore activity hierarchies and timelines, and assign team members to tasks using the My Task tab. These tools help project managers plan, schedule, and track project activities with full visibility into timelines and ownership.
Navigate to the Project
Quickly orient yourself with the project’s current status, timeline, and key stakeholders before diving into detailed activity planning.
Navigate to Projects from the left sidebar and open the project you need to work on. In this example, the project is Cloud Migration & Support (Project Code: #DNBDSOW00007). The project overview page displays the header bar with key details including the project status, customer name (D&B Hoovers), region group (USA), start and end dates, delivery manager, project type (Fixed Capacity), and the project completion percentage.
The Project Insight section shows the My Task widget with a donut chart summarizing task counts by status (Open, Execution, Completed, Overdue). From the navigation tabs at the top of the page, click on Planning Board to open the Gantt chart view.
Explore the Planning Board (Gantt Chart)
Gain a visual overview of the entire project schedule, understand how activities are structured in phases, and identify timelines for each deliverable at a glance.
The Planning Board tab opens the Gantt chart view, which is the primary tool for visualizing project activities and their timelines. The view is split into two panels:
- Left panel (Activity Table): Displays the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) as a hierarchical list of activities. Each row includes the WBS number, activity type icon, description, start date, and finish date.
- Right panel (Gantt Timeline): Shows horizontal bars representing the duration of each activity, plotted against a monthly timeline. Bars are color-coded to distinguish between different levels of the hierarchy.
Understanding the WBS Hierarchy
The WBS organizes the project into a structured hierarchy of phases, activities, and tasks. In this example, the project is broken down as follows:
| WBS Level | Type | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Level 1 (1) | Project (root level) | Cloud Migration & Support (01-Jan-2026 to 31-May-2026) |
| Level 2 (1.1, 1.2) | Phase / Summary Activity | Assessment & Planning (01-Jan-2026 to 28-Feb-2026), Migration & Deployment (01-Mar-2026 to 31-May-2026) |
| Level 3 (1.1.1, 1.2.3) | Activity / Task | Analyze Current IT Infrastructure, Configure Cloud Environment |
Each activity type is represented by a different icon in the Type column. Summary activities (phases) use a folder icon, while individual tasks use a task/clipboard icon. The Gantt bars for summary activities span the entire duration of their child tasks, providing a roll-up view of the phase timeline.
Gantt Chart Toolbar
The toolbar at the top of the Planning Board provides several controls for managing your project plan:
- Navigation arrows: Move activities up, down, left (outdent), or right (indent) to restructure the WBS hierarchy.
- Add activity: Insert new activities or sub-activities into the plan.
- Indent/Outdent: Change the hierarchical level of an activity to nest it under a parent or promote it to a higher level.
- Filter and column options: Customize which columns are visible in the activity table.
- Expand/Collapse: Expand all activities to show the full hierarchy or collapse them to see only summary levels.
- Sync and export: Synchronize changes and export the project plan.
- Timeline scale (Months): Adjust the timeline granularity. You can switch between days, weeks, months, or quarters for different levels of detail.
- View modes: Toggle between the Gantt chart view, grid view, network diagram, and other visualization options using the icons on the far right.
View and Manage Tasks in the My Task Tab
Get a flat, sortable list of all tasks in the project to quickly assess workload, identify unassigned tasks, and track progress across the entire project timeline.
Click on the My Task tab from the project navigation. This opens a List view of all tasks in the project. The view shows the total task count with a badge (e.g., “All Task 8”) and displays each task in a table with the following columns:
| Column | Description |
|---|---|
| #Id | The unique task identifier (e.g., 25065744). |
| Task Name | The descriptive name of the task (e.g., Analyze Current IT Infrastructure, Identify Cloud Readiness). |
| Assigned To | The team members currently assigned to the task. Shown as avatar icons. If no one is assigned, this column appears empty. |
| Status | The current task status (e.g., Open, Execution, Completed). Displayed as a colored badge. |
| Start Date | The planned start date for the task. |
| End Date | The planned end date for the task. |
| Priority | The priority level of the task (e.g., Very High, High, Medium, Low). Color-coded for quick identification. |
| Estimated Hours | The estimated effort in hours and minutes (e.g., 00h : 00m if not yet estimated). |
| Commercial | Indicates whether the task is Billable or Non-Billable. |
| Progress | A visual progress bar showing the percentage of completion for the task. |
| Actions | Quick action icons for viewing task details, adding comments, or marking as favorite. |
The toolbar in the top-right corner provides additional options including search, grid view toggle, team member filter, individual user filter, and advanced filter settings.
Bulk Assign Team Members to Tasks
Save time by assigning resources to multiple tasks in a single action instead of updating each task individually, ensuring consistent ownership across related activities.
To assign team members to multiple tasks at once, follow these steps:
Step 1: Select the Tasks
Use the checkboxes on the left side of each task row to select the tasks you want to assign. You can select individual tasks or use the header checkbox to select all tasks at once. Once tasks are selected, a bulk action toolbar appears at the top of the list showing the count of selected items (e.g., “8 Selected”).
Step 2: Open the Assigned To Panel
Click the Assigned To button in the bulk action toolbar. This opens a dropdown panel listing all available team members who are allocated to the project. Each team member is shown with their avatar and name. You can use the Find stakeholders search field at the top of the panel to quickly locate a specific person.
Select the team members you want to assign by clicking on their names. A green checkmark appears next to each selected person. In this example, three team members are selected: Alexander Murphy, Kavya Ward, and Vikram Bennett.
Step 3: Confirm the Assignment
Click the Update button at the bottom of the panel to apply the assignment to all selected tasks. Click Cancel if you want to discard the changes. After clicking Update, a green success notification appears at the bottom of the screen confirming that the assignment has been applied: “Assigned users updated for all tasks successfully”.
