How to Use Kanban View in GoHighLevel — Manage Deals Efficiently

Managing a sales pipeline shouldn't feel like herding cats. If your team is scattered across spreadsheets, emails, and fragmented notes, you're losing deals and wasting time. That's where GoHighLevel's Kanban view comes in—it's the visual sales management tool that keeps your entire opportunity pipeline organized, transparent, and actionable in one place.

As a GoHighLevel expert who's helped hundreds of agencies scale their sales processes, I've seen firsthand how the right view transforms deal management. In this guide, I'll walk you through every feature that makes the Kanban view your competitive advantage—from collapsing stages to sorting opportunities by custom fields. And if you're ready to experience this yourself, start your free 30-day GoHighLevel trial here (that's double the standard offer).

What Is Kanban View in GoHighLevel?

The Kanban view in GoHighLevel's Opportunities module is a drag-and-drop pipeline board that visualizes every deal at every stage of your sales process. Instead of scrolling through lists or switching between tabs, you see your entire pipeline as columns—each representing a stage (Prospecting, Negotiation, Closing, Won, Lost)—with deal cards stacked vertically within each column.

This visual approach does three critical things: it eliminates bottlenecks by showing which stages are backlogged, it keeps your team aligned on pipeline health, and it makes deal movement as simple as dragging a card. For digital marketing agencies managing multiple client deals, this is a game-changer.

How to Collapse and Expand Pipeline Stages

One of the simplest but most powerful features in Kanban view is the ability to collapse and expand individual pipeline stages. Here's why this matters: when you're focused on closing deals in the "Final Negotiation" stage, seeing 30 cards in "Prospecting" is visual clutter that doesn't serve you right now.

To collapse a stage: Look for the minus icon (or arrow) at the top of any stage column. Click it, and that entire column collapses to a header bar showing the stage name and total opportunity count. This keeps your board clean and focused. When you need to revisit that stage, expand it again with a single click.

This feature is especially useful when managing multiple pipelines or when different team members own different stages. A sales director might collapse "Prospecting" to focus on higher-value opportunities, while a business development rep expands it to track their lead flow.

Resizing Stage Columns to Prioritize Deals

GoHighLevel lets you manually resize the width of each stage column—a feature most teams overlook but that can dramatically improve your workflow. If your "Closing" stage is where the real action happens, you can widen that column to see more card details and opportunities at a glance.

How to resize: Position your cursor at the right edge of any column header. You'll see a resize cursor (usually a double-sided arrow). Click and drag to the right to widen or to the left to narrow. Your preference is saved for your view only—other team members' displays won't change.

Widen high-priority stages so you can see deal names, values, and owner assignments without clicking into individual cards. Narrow lower-priority stages (like "Lost") to save screen real estate. This creates a natural visual hierarchy that reflects your business priorities.

This is built into GoHighLevel. Try it free for 30 days →

Sorting Opportunities with Default and Custom Fields

The Kanban board displays opportunities in a default order, but you have full control over how they're sorted. GoHighLevel allows you to sort by both default fields (like deal value, creation date, owner) and any custom fields you've created in your CRM.

To access sorting options: Look for a sort icon (usually three horizontal lines) near the top of your Kanban view. Click it to reveal sorting options. Select the field you want to sort by—for example, "Deal Value" to automatically stack your biggest opportunities at the top of each column, or "Due Date" to surface urgent deals first.

This is particularly valuable for agencies managing client acquisition pipelines. Sort by "Client Budget" to see high-revenue opportunities at a glance, or sort by "Next Follow-up Date" to ensure no warm lead falls through the cracks. Custom fields give you infinite flexibility—if you've built fields for "Industry," "Lead Source," or "Competition Level," you can sort by any of them.

Customizing Your View Without Affecting Team Members

Here's a critical point: every customization you make to your Kanban view—collapsed stages, resized columns, sorted fields—is personal to you. Your changes don't impact other team members' views. This is intentional design that lets each person optimize their workspace without creating conflicts or confusion across the team.

This is especially important in agencies where different roles interact with the pipeline differently. A sales manager might want their Kanban view sorted by deal value and with closing stages widened. A sales rep might prefer their view sorted by due date with prospecting stages expanded. Both can coexist without stepping on each other's toes.

If your team needs a standardized view, you can achieve this through communication and training—encouraging everyone to use the same sorting and layout—but GoHighLevel doesn't enforce it. This flexibility is a feature, not a limitation.

Using Bulk Actions in Kanban to Edit Multiple Opportunities

One of GoHighLevel's most powerful recent updates is the ability to perform bulk actions directly within the Kanban view. Traditionally, bulk edits (like changing pipeline stages for multiple deals, reassigning owners, or adding tags) required switching to List view. Not anymore.

How bulk actions work in Kanban: Select multiple opportunity cards by clicking the checkbox on each card (or use "Select All" if available). Once selected, you'll see bulk action options appear—typically allowing you to change the pipeline stage, reassign the owner, add or remove tags, or update custom field values. Execute the action, and all selected opportunities update instantly.

This is a massive time-saver. Imagine you close a major client contract and need to move 15 related opportunities from "Proposal Sent" to "Won." In the old workflow, this meant opening each deal individually or switching to List view. Now you select all 15 cards and drag them to "Won" as a group—or use bulk actions to change their status and assign them to your success team in seconds.

Best Practices for Pipeline Management in Kanban

Keep your pipeline clean: Archive or mark "Lost" opportunities as won or lost within 30 days of the decision. A cluttered pipeline filled with stale deals creates decision paralysis and gives you false confidence in your numbers.

Set stage-specific success metrics: Know exactly what it takes to move a deal from Prospecting to Qualified. Is it a discovery call? A proposal? This clarity accelerates your pipeline and prevents deals from getting stuck.

Review your Kanban board daily: Spend 10 minutes each morning looking at your pipeline. Which deals need attention? Are any cards sitting in the same stage too long? This daily ritual keeps you proactive instead of reactive.

Use custom fields strategically: Create fields that reflect your actual sales process. "Last Contact Date," "Next Action," "Competitor," and "Budget Confirmed" are examples that help you qualify deals on the board without clicking into each card.