A backlog that only lists work cannot tell you what matters most, where each item stands, or what is in its way. Those are the questions behind every planning meeting, status update, and prioritization debate, and without answers in the tool they get answered in spreadsheets and side conversations.
Three capabilities answer them in Craft.io, without changing your core backlog structure:
What matters most? Custom fields capture the context you use to evaluate and prioritize work
Where does it stand? Statuses show where each item is in its lifecycle, and progress updates from them automatically
What is in the way? Dependencies show what has to happen first, and what a delay would affect
Where do I find it? Your navigation panel organizes views around your team's workflow, so everyone opens the right view without hunting for it
Set up together, they make Craft.io reflect not just what work exists, but how it moves through your organization, in the language your team already uses.
Before you begin
You will need:
A backlog that is already structured and easy to organize. See Understand your product hierarchy & terminology and Build your backlog in Craft.io if you have not set this up yet
Prioritize with the context that matters
Default fields tell you what an item is. Custom fields tell you why it matters. When your team captures the same criteria on every item, prioritization rests on shared, comparable information instead of opinion, and the same fields power your planning, scoring, and reporting.
Teams commonly use custom fields to:
Capture Priority, Value, Risk, or Confidence
Indicate ownership or accountability
Categorize work by Theme, Segment, or Region
Support scoring or prioritization frameworks
Define custom timeframes outside of the default Release and Sprint fields
Use a range of field types, including numeric, selection, and formula fields rather than relying on a single generic priority field.
Fields earn their place when they support a decision, so capture what you will use, not everything you can. Aligning fields to the right level keeps backlog refinement fast while still giving structure where it matters most.
For example, apply high-level criteria such as Value or Risk only to Epics, and align planning or delivery fields to only Features and/or Stories.
Working in a Portfolio? Use Portfolio-level fields for information that needs to be comparable across product areas, and Workspace-level fields for team-specific context. This balances governance with team flexibility.
See where work really stands
A status is only useful if everyone reads it the same way. The Status field in Craft.io is workspace-wide and item-based, so all Epics, Features, and Stories follow one workflow. That gives every team the same, consistent view of progress, and means nobody has to translate between teams before a review.
Because progress is calculated from statuses, it updates as work moves. There is no status report to build by hand.
Make the workflow your own
Craft.io provides a default workflow, but a status only works when it matches how your team actually works. You can:
Rename statuses to match your internal language
Reorder statuses to reflect your workflow
Adjust colors for visual clarity
Statuses are grouped into status categories, which represent broader phases of work. By default, Craft.io uses:
Open
In progress
Done
Closed
Statuses are defined per Workspace and managed in Workspace Settings → Statuses → Workflow & statuses. See Configuring your workflow and statuses for the full setup.
Let progress update itself
Statuses are visible and editable across all Craft.io views, including Table, Kanban, Swimlanes, and Timeline. By default, completed items are hidden from most views to keep the focus on active work, and you can include them at any time by amending your Status filter.
Statuses also calculate progress automatically:
An item's progress is driven by the completion percentage of its status and rolls up from its child items, whether they live only in Craft.io or are linked to a development tool
Grouped progress, such as by Quarter or Timeframe, is calculated from the completion of the items in each group
The result is consistent progress tracking without manual reporting. See Using the Progress Dashboard.
Connected to Jira, Azure DevOps, or Linear? With status mapping set up, Craft.io statuses update as your engineers move work, so your product view stays current without anyone updating items twice.
See what is in the way
Plans slip when work depends on other work and nobody can see it. Dependencies make those relationships visible, so you can spot sequencing and delivery risk early and understand the impact of a change or delay without duplicating work or keeping a separate tracking system.
They are commonly used to:
Indicate that one item cannot start until another is completed
Highlight sequencing or delivery risk
Support cross-team coordination
Dependencies are most effective when used intentionally. Focus on dependencies that affect planning, delivery, or prioritization decisions, rather than capturing every possible relationship.
Organize your workspace around your process
The left navigation is where everyone finds their views, so it works best when it mirrors your team's workflow. Admins can shape it:
Categories: views are grouped into Backlog, Planning, Roadmap, and Delivery by default. Click + Category to add your own, such as one for OKRs, and rename or reorder any of them
Views: click + next to a category to add a view, or open a view's three-dot menu and select Edit View to rename it or move it to another category
Icons: open a category's three-dot menu, click Change icon, and pick a preset. Icons make categories easy to spot when the menu is collapsed
Everyone can drag the edge of the menu to widen it, so longer view names show in full, or collapse it to give their content more room.
What comes next?
Custom field management - create and manage the fields your team needs
Configuring your workflow and statuses - set up the statuses and categories that drive progress
A deep dive into Craft.io dependencies - map sequencing and delivery risk between items
Using Craft.io's custom timeframes - plan against timeframes beyond Release and Sprint
Need more guidance? 🙋 Our LIVE support team (at the bottom right corner of your screen) replies to ANY question!