Assigning tasks over chat or email feels fine at first — until three people are working on the same thing, nobody remembers what's already done, and someone's task quietly falls through the cracks. Most teams eventually try to fix this with a spreadsheet, but a flat list of tasks with a "status" column still means manually scrolling and sorting every time you want to see what's actually in progress.

In this tutorial, we'll build an Employee Task Board — a table where tasks are linked to the people assigned to them, and a saved view groups everything by status automatically, just like a kanban board.

Why this matters

A task list only becomes useful once it's organized by what matters right now — who it's assigned to, and what stage it's in. Instead of manually sorting a spreadsheet every morning, we'll set up a view once and let it stay organized on its own.

Step 1: Create the Employee Table

Start with a table called Employee. Add the fields Name, Role, and Email.

Employee table with Name, Role, and Email columns

Add a few employees to work with:

Alex Turner — Designer
Nina Alvarez — Developer
Jordan Wu — Copywriter

Employee table showing three records for Alex Turner, Nina Alvarez, and Jordan Wu

Step 2: Create the Task Table

Create a new table called Task. Add the fields Task Name (Text), Due Date (Date), and Status (Single Select, with options To Do, In Progress, and Done).

Task table with Task Name, Due Date, and Status columns, Status set as a single select field

Add a set of sample tasks with varying statuses:

Design new homepage banner — Due 2026-08-26 — In Progress
Fix login bug on mobile app — Due 2026-08-25 — To Do
Write copy for product launch email — Due 2026-08-27 — To Do
Update pricing page layout — Due 2026-08-23 — Done
Set up analytics tracking — Due 2026-08-28 — In Progress

Task table listing five task records with different due dates and status values

Step 3: Link Tasks to Employees

Now let's connect tasks to the people responsible for them. On the Task table, add a new column, set its data type to One-to-Many, and link it to the Employee table.

Adding a One-to-Many column on the Task table linked to the Employee table

Assign each task to the employee responsible:

Design new homepage banner → Alex Turner
Fix login bug on mobile app → Nina Alvarez
Write copy for product launch email → Jordan Wu
Update pricing page layout → Alex Turner
Set up analytics tracking → Nina Alvarez

Task table showing each task assigned to an employee via the linked Employee column

Step 4: Build a Grouped View by Status

Right now, all five tasks sit in one flat list. Let's turn it into something that actually reads like a board.

Create a new view on the Task table, and set it to group by Status.

Creating a new view on the Task table and setting the group by field to Status

The tasks now organize themselves into three clusters — To Do, In Progress, and Done — without you touching a single row.

Task board grouped into To Do, In Progress, and Done columns showing tasks sorted automatically by status

Save this view as "Team Board."

Saved view named Team Board displaying tasks grouped by status

Step 5: Add a Filter for Personal Views

A shared board is useful for managers, but each employee usually just wants to see their own tasks. Let's build that.

Create another view on the Task table, and add a filter where Employee equals a specific person — for example, Alex Turner.

Creating a filtered view on the Task table where Employee equals Alex Turner

Save it as "Alex's Tasks."

Saved view named Alex's Tasks showing only the tasks assigned to Alex Turner

Repeat this for each employee, or better yet, keep the grouped Team Board as the shared view and let each person filter it themselves when they open it.

The wow moment

Move a task's status from In Progress to Done, and it instantly jumps to the correct column in the Team Board view — no dragging required, no manual re-sorting, just an updated field.

Task board updated after changing a task's status, showing it moved into the Done column automatically

Step 6: Keep the Board Current

As new tasks come in, add them the same way — assign an employee, set a due date, and leave the status as To Do. As work progresses, just update the Status field, and every saved view reflects the change immediately.

What this replaces

This replaces manually re-sorting a spreadsheet every time a task changes stage, and cross-checking a separate list to figure out who's responsible for what — both easy habits to fall behind on once the team grows past a couple of people.

Recap

What you had before	What you have now
A flat task list sorted by hand	A board that groups itself by status automatically
No easy way to see one person's workload	A filtered view showing exactly what each employee owns
Re-checking who's assigned to what	Tasks linked directly to the responsible employee

What you built:

An Employee table and a Task table
A One-to-Many link connecting each task to the employee responsible
A grouped view organizing tasks by status like a kanban board
A filtered view showing tasks for a single employee at a time

This same pattern — linking records and grouping by a status field — works well beyond task boards. Support tickets, hiring pipelines, or order fulfillment stages can all be organized the exact same way.

Try it yourself

This Employee Task Board setup is available as a ready-made template. Duplicate it, add your own team and tasks, and watch it organize itself into a board from the very first task.