# Boards, lists and cards > How boards, lists and cards work in Contals – creating, moving with drag and drop or without dragging, archiving, favorites, “since your last visit”, stale cards, the activity and real-time updates. Source: https://contals.com/docs/en/boards/basics/ Last updated: 2026-10-20 A board holds lists, and lists hold cards. Each card is one task; you move it from list to list as work progresses – by drag and drop, or without dragging with **Move to list** in the card details. ## Boards - **Create a board:** on the home page (**Boards**), choose **New board** and enter a title – or **From a template** to start with lists, cards and due dates ([templates](/docs/en/boards/templates-copy-move/)). - **One board per project:** a board per event, project, ministry or client keeps things calm. Search and **My cards** work across all boards. - **Favorites and recent:** star a board to pin it to **Favorites**; **Recently opened** shows where you were last. - **Private by default:** a new board is visible only to you until you share it. See [board settings](/docs/en/settings/board/). - **Background:** pick a color in the board settings to tell boards apart. ## Lists - **Add a list:** choose **Add list** at the right end of the board. - **Rename a list:** click its title, type, press Enter. - **Reorder lists:** drag a list by its header, or use the list menu → **Move list left** / **Move list right**. - **Copy or move a list to another board:** list menu → **Copy list…** or **Move list to board…** ([copy and move](/docs/en/boards/templates-copy-move/)). - **Archive a list:** list menu → **Archive list**. Archived lists can be restored. ## Cards - **Add a card:** **Add a card** at the bottom of a list, type the title, press Enter; Escape closes the field. - **Move a card:** drag it to another list or position. Without dragging – on touch screens or with the keyboard – open the card and use **Move to list** and **Position**. - **Card number:** each card gets a short reference like `GEM-4` – the board key and a number that never changes – handy in conversations. Board admins can rename the key or hide the numbers ([board settings](/docs/en/settings/board/#card-numbers)). - **Mark as done:** in the card details, **Mark as done**. Volunteers and guests can do this for cards assigned to them. - **Archive a card:** card details → **Archive card**. ## Since your last visit When you open a board after a while, a strip above the lists sums up what others changed since your last visit: new cards, moves, completed cards, comments and due dates – and who did it. Changed cards carry a small blue dot. **Show cards** lists them (a click opens the card), **Mark as seen** clears the strip and the dots, **×** hides the strip for now. Comment texts are never repeated there, only how many comments a card got. A new status update gets a line of its own – "Status: At risk – board" with its text and a link to the status page. Your own changes never count. If your organization uses [its own AI model](/docs/en/ai/own-model/) and allows the feature, **Summarize** in the strip writes two or three sentences about these changes – only when you click it, from titles and counts (status texts and names only if the organization's data policy allows them), never from comment texts and never for a confidential board. ## Stale cards Board admins can mark open cards that had no activity for a while: board settings → **Stale cards** (for example after 14 days; off by default). Such cards show an hourglass with the number of days. The marker archives nothing – close a card when it is done, or archive it when it is no longer needed. Done cards can be archived or deleted automatically with a [retention rule](/docs/en/settings/board/#retention-of-done-cards). ## Activity Every change is on record – who did what, and when, written in your language: - **On a card:** the card details end with the card's **Activity**: every change to that card, newest first, comments with their current text. - **On a board:** **Activity** in the board header – on narrow screens in the board menu – opens the board's activity in a sidebar beside the lists: its latest 100 changes. - **On all your boards:** **Activity** in the main navigation lists the newest changes of every board you can open, each with its board's name. The list refreshes itself every few seconds; **Pause updates** holds it while you read. An undone change is marked "undone", a deleted comment shows that it was deleted, and a card that a [retention rule](/docs/en/settings/board/#retention-of-done-cards) deleted keeps its lines without its title. How far back the activity reaches depends on the plan (**Activity history** in [plans and billing](/docs/en/settings/billing/)); a guest invited to a single board sees its activity from the day they joined. ## Status updates Editors and admins tell everyone how a board is doing: board header → **Status** → **On track**, **At risk** or **Off track**, with a short text. The newest status shows in the board header and on the [workspace dashboard](/docs/en/views/across-boards/#status-updates). ## Live for everyone Everyone who has the board open sees changes within a moment – new cards, moves, renames, comments. Your own changes appear immediately; the small status badge shows **Live**, **Reconnecting…** or **Offline – read-only**. More in [offline and sync](/docs/en/data/offline-sync/). > **Tip:** > > If a change cannot be saved – for example because someone archived the card at the same moment – Contals undoes it on your screen and tells you why.