How cards are ordered on a board

Inside a column, cards are in the order they arrived. A card that moves into a column goes to the bottom of it. A card you drag stays where you drop it, until it leaves the column.

This holds for columns and swimlanes of a select, people, checkbox or relation field. Date, text and lookup fields work differently, as the section about them explains.

Three things decide the order

A board looks at three things for each card, in this order:

The place you dragged it to. A drag saves the card’s position in that one cell.
When the card entered the cell. A card that entered later sits lower.
The order a list shows by default. Cards that never moved keep that order.

Board tabs of the same view share dragged places when they use the same fields. Boards inside an item share them the same way with every board of that item. Other boards keep their own.

A card placed by the third rule moves on the board when you drag its row in a list.

A cell is where a column meets a swimlane. On a board with swimlanes, a card enters a cell when it takes the column value or the swimlane value. The later of the two decides when it entered.

What moves a card into a column

A card enters a column when its value for the board’s column field changes to that column’s value. It does not matter where the change came from:

a drag on this board or on another board;
a drag or an edit in a list;
an edit in the item panel or in the selection bar;
a field automation, or a value inherited from a parent;
the public API.

Writing the value a card already has is not a move. The card stays where it is.

A card can show a value rolled down from an ancestor. Clearing the card’s own value moves it to the bottom of the column for that value. When the ancestor’s value changes, the card moves with it but does not go to the bottom. A dragged place under such a value lasts even when the ancestor’s value leaves and comes back.

Only the changed field moves the card

A card moves only on boards grouped by the field that changed. A value change never changes the order a list shows by default. A list grouped or sorted by the changed field still shows the row in its new group or place.

For example, you add a tag to a card. On a board grouped by tags, the card goes to the bottom of the new tag’s column. On a board grouped by status, the card stays where it was.

A dragged place lasts until the card leaves

Your board has the columns To do, Doing and Done. You drag task A to the top of Done.

Later, someone sets A back to Doing in the item panel, and then to Done again. A is now at the bottom of Done, because it entered the column again. The place you dragged it to belonged to its earlier visit.

Fields that never send a card to the bottom

Date, text and lookup fields never send a card to the bottom of a column.

When the columns use such a field, and the swimlanes do too or the board has none, cards follow the order a list shows by default.
A dragged place there lasts when an edit moves the card out and back. A drag out of the cell ends it.
When only one of the two is such a field, the other one decides when the card entered the cell.

More rules about the order

A card with several tags appears once for each tag. Adding a tag moves the card only in the new tag’s column.
A new card starts at the bottom of every cell it appears in.
A card restored from the trash goes back to where it was.
Undo puts a card back where it was.
On a board grouped by watchers, a watcher added by an @-mention or through the public API does not send the card to the bottom.
A deleted user has no column or swimlane. A card that moves to No value because its only person was deleted does not go to the bottom, since deleting a user edits no card.
A copy made from a card’s right-click menu starts right after the original in that cell. A copy made any other way carries the original’s entry times, so it starts where the rules above put it.