The Workflows board: see every print, item and order in its stage

The Workflows board in SimplyPrint shows every running workflow in your account as a card, in columns by stage, so you can see what is waiting, what is stuck and what has sat too long. This guide covers reading the board and its cards, filtering it, opening a card, and using the board on a phone.

The board answers "what is the floor doing right now?" Open it from Workflows in the sidebar (/panel/workflows). This article is part of the Workflows guide.

Table of contents

• What the board shows
• Reading a card
• The header and filters
• Opening a card
• The board on a phone
• What the board does not do

What the board shows

Columns are stage roles, in pipeline order: Queued, Printing, In production, Post-processing, Quality check, Ready to pack, Packed and Shipped. Each workflow's stages land in the column for their role, so two workflows with different stage names still line up. A stage with no role goes to Other.

• A column with nothing in it shrinks to a labelled strip, so the board still shows where work goes next without wasting width.
• Each column lists blocked cards first, then whatever has waited longest.
• When a column's tasks have time estimates, it shows the hands-on time left, such as "~45 min of work". That is people's time, not printer time.
• Finished and cancelled runs leave the board.

The board refreshes itself every 30 seconds, and Refresh reloads it at once. It can stay open on a screen on the wall.

Reading a card

A card says what it is and what it is waiting for:

• Its name, such as the print's filename or the item's product.
• What it is: Print, Item, Order, Project and so on, with context such as "Order #1057 · ×2". A card never shows the customer's name.
• How long it has been in this stage. Past a day, this shows in the warning colour. Hover it for the exact time.
• Its stage, when the stage's name differs from the column's, and its workflow, when the column holds more than one workflow.
• A status line, only when a person can act:
• • Blocked, with the reason;
  • Next: (task), with who it is assigned to, or You;
  • Ready for (stage), when it can move on.

A card with no status line has nothing for a person to do: it moves on by itself, for example when the last item of an order is made. Item and Order cards come from the Shop.

See: Workflows in the Shop: order and item workflows, accepted pieces and moving on by itself

The header and filters

The header counts what is running, how many are blocked and how many have waited over a day. Edit workflows opens Settings > Workflows; it is shown to people with Manage workflows.

The toolbar narrows the board:

• Search matches a card's name, its context, its next task and its stage.
• Show: All, Mine (cards with a task assigned to you), Blocked, or Over a day (in the same stage for a day or more).
• Workflow: shows one workflow's cards. Appears when more than one workflow is on the board.

Clear filters resets them. If more is running than fits, the board says "Showing the most recent runs only."

Opening a card

Click a card to open its run in a side sheet over the board. The board, your filters and your place stay put, and a task ticked in the sheet moves the card behind it. The sheet has its own address, so the browser's Back button closes it and a copied link opens it.

Open as a page opens the same run on a page of its own, /panel/workflow/<run>. Ctrl-click or Cmd-click a card to open that page in a new tab.

See: Working through a workflow: ticking tasks, notes, waiving, blocking and moving on

The board on a phone

On a phone the columns stack top to bottom and empty ones are left out. Tapping a card opens the run's own page instead of a side sheet.

What the board does not do

• You can't drag cards between columns. Moving a stage can add work to the print queue or email someone, and a drag is too easy to do by accident. Open the card and use Move to (stage), which asks first when it matters and explains a refusal.
• A card doesn't flag work nobody has touched, other than the stage age. A run waiting for a person to tick its tasks stays in its column until someone does. Use Over a day to find these.

Who can see the board is set by the See workflows in progress permission.

See: Workflow permissions, group-only steps and the activity history

Related articles

Workflows

• Workflows: the stages and tasks work follows after it prints
• How a workflow works: stages, tasks, conditions and checks
• Working through a workflow: ticking tasks, notes, waiving, blocking and moving on
• Workflow permissions, group-only steps and the activity history

Shop

• Workflows in the Shop: order and item workflows, accepted pieces and moving on by itself
• Shop production work: the Work page, clearing plates, trays and finishing steps
• Shop orders: store orders, manual orders, review and release

Watching the floor

• The print queue: manage, schedule and automate your prints
• The print queue timeline: see your whole farm on a Gantt chart
• The Hub: a shared printer screen for makerspaces, schools and farms

Updated on: 06/11/2026