Vote certainty in release Sep 30 2018

Introduction

In the new release you can find nice new features like vote certainty level, guest mode, collaboration view for mobile users as well as significant improvements in the way how votes of disconnected users are displayed and few bugfixes.

Fixed bugs

Confluence add-on

Now the Confluence add-on is separated from the Jira add-on as required after the latest updates of Atlassian APIs. If you need to generate nice summary page after each refinement session ends automatically, please install the Confluence add-on located here (currently reviewed by Atlassian)

Story search box

When the vertical space was not enough to fit most of the stories retrieved using JQL query, the drop down search box was a bit off hiding the search field. This lead to inability to add new stories to the list of stories to refine.

New features

Vote certainty level

If enabled from the settings panel, the number of different votes that each participant gave will be displayed on the as badges. The idea is that if during a discussion people vote more than once with a different card this means that they are not certain enough. When the certainty level drops too much, it’s recommended to discuss again the task and re-vote.

Once the setting is enabled, the number of different votes for each participant and the calculated certainty level is displayed on the right pane as follows:

The calculation is as follows: If someone votes twice, this vote weights 0.5, if someone votes 3 times differently, this vote weighs 0.33 and so on. The certainty level is considered in info, warning and error level according to the following percentages:

Between 50% and 75%: info level
Between 25% and 50%: warning level
Below 25%: error level

For voting count, the levels are calculated as follows:

2 votes: info level
3 votes: warning level
4 votes: error level
6 votes is the maximum that is accounted

The voting certainty level is also displayed in the summary panel. The team’s scrum master can make a decision whether to re-vote the story or accept the current certainty level.

Guest mode

Recently we had a request to implement guest mode. The guest mode does not allow to participate in the vote, but the guest participant can still watch the voting process and be part of the discussion. The list of guests is separated from the list of regular participants in the right pane:

The guest mode can be enabled from a switch on the bottom of the planned stories.

The option is not available for the moderator. If the moderator is not allowed to vote, there is a separate setting about this in the settings panel.

Disconnected participants

Sometimes when using smartphones, participants get disconnected when they switch them off during a discussion. Now the disconnected users who voted are displayed in a separate section in the right pane so that their votes are visible:

Collaboration view for mobile users

Before the collaboration view was available for desktop users. Now the stories, the comments and attachments can be also viewed on smartphones. This removes the need to switch between tabs in the mobile browsers to read the story.

The collaboration view for the currently selected story can be open with the large round button on the bottom left corner:

Happy voting!

All those nice features (and fixed bugs) have been completed thanks to our users – they have requested and we have implemented them. Please help Scrumpy Planning Poker become even more convenient for you by submitting a feature request/bug to our Feature Requests page or up-vote an existing feature that you find useful. Thank you!

September 16, 2018September 16, 2018

Comments and attachments in release Sep 16 2018

Introduction

In the new release you can find great new enhancements like comments and attachments in the collaboration view, an option to disable voting auto-start as well a small number of bug-fixes.

New features

Show Jira comments and attachments in the Collaboration View

Sometimes the important information about a ticket is not only in the ticket’s description. Comments and attachments are important so now they are also displayed in expandable sections.

The comments section lists each comment in it’s own paragraph citing the author as follows:

The attachments are displayed each in their own paragraph and a thumbnail if the file format supports thumbnails (e.g. image)

Add an option to disable voting auto-start

For some teams it is natural that any participant can vote at any time, even before it is officially announced that voting is enabled. For other teams this sometimes breaks the concentration of participants or causes awkward questions why some people vote too early. To overcome this, there is a new option in the Settings box to disable voting auto-start by any participant. When enabled, only the moderator can start the vote.

Add preset to download and upload stories

Now it is possible to import/export the stories together with their voting presets. This means that each story can have its own voting style like T-Shirt for bugs, Fibonacci for normal stories, etc.

Card presets as shortcut under the stories list

Now it is possible to switch presets ad-hoc from a button just bellow the list of stories. Note that this resets the default voting preset for all stories that have no explicitly assigned a preset. If this is done by accident, the old setup can be restored from the Settings page. At least 2 presets are needed to make the button visible.

Add temporary maintenance page

We’re working towards disabling any maintenance issues at all with smooth zero down-time deployment. Until this is implemented, we’ve added a maintenance page which will show that there is an undergoing maintenance which usually lasts between 15 and 25 seconds.

Happy voting!

September 10, 2018September 10, 2018

Card presets in release Sep 08 2018

Introduction

The new release includes a bit more bug fixes than usual and few new features including card presets which help to use different cards per planned story.

New Features

Card presets

The card presets introduce different set of cards (a combination of card types and enabled cards) per each planned story. The presets can be defined from the Settings dialog box in the Cards tab as follows:

Pressing the (x) button in the preset chip deletes it. Pressing the (x) button in the preset combo box switches to the default voting cards.

Changing card types and enabled cards while a preset is active will change only the selected preset. The default voting cards will be left as is.

Each preset must start with a unique letter so that this letter is used as a badge for planned stories that have presets defined. By clicking on the story avatar, a menu appears from which a preset can be selected. The menu is available only if there is at least one preset defined.

The selected preset can be removed with the Clear preset menu entry. Once a preset is defined for a story, the voting cards will switch as soon as this story is selected.

The early voting for stories with an assigned preset will also show the set of cards that are allowed to be used.

Improved drag & drop

The drag & drop now shows empty space for the item that is being dragged. This makes drag & drop more intuitive and shows exactly where the item will be dropped.

Add an option to switch adding new stories to bottom or top

Sometimes it is more convenient to append stories to the end of the planned stories list instead of placing it always at the top. There is now an option that allows placing stories at the bottom of the list:

Invite via e-mail

Sometimes it is more convenient to directly send invitation to a list of users via e-mail. This is now possible from the share button:

A dialog box pops up where a list of e-mail addresses can be entered. All e-mail addresses must be valid to be able to send the invitation:

Disabling moderator vote

Now the disable moderator vote is more intuitive and is more clear that the moderator cannot vote. A question mark in grayed out state appears as the vote of the moderator to indicate that this will be the default vote if no other participant voted at all:

If there are participants voted or there are early votes, the There be dragons vote of the moderator will disappear.

There is also a +1 suffix to the total number of participants to indicate that the moderator cannot vote and is added passively on top of the other participants.

Happy voting!

September 2, 2018September 2, 2018

Import/Export CSV in release Sep 01 2018

Introduction

The new release includes a big new feature assisting users that have no Jira integration (CSV Import/Export) and also some minor improvements on how to reach out for help or ask ad-hoc questions.

New Features

Import and Export CSV

When using Scrumpy Planning Poker as estimation tool for which we don’t have direct integration, our users have to write each story by hand or copy-paste the title and optionally the summary and description.

Now it is possible to import a CSV (comma-separated value plain text content file). The encoding of the file must be UTF-8 to be able to keep the special characters inside. The import/export shortcuts are available just below the cards:

When you click on the upload button (the leftmost one), a dialog box will appear where you can either select files directly by clicking on the outlined area or drag & drop files from a folder:

The format of the CSV file is as follows:

Comma-separated values
Quoted string entries and unquoted number entries (e.g. current story points)
UTF-8 encoding

The header is the following:

assignee: The assignee of the ticket
avatar: The icon for the ticket indicating if this is a bug, story, epic, etc. (32x32px or vector image)
description: A more detailed explanation of the ticket
key(*): An obligatory ticket ID, for example AB-1234
link: A URL to the system where the ticket is located
status: The current ticket status (in progress, to refine, etc.)
statusAvatar: The icon for the current ticket status (16x16px or vector image)
storyPoints: The currently assigned story points
summary: A short description of the ticket

The easiest way to check the format is to export an existing list of stories with the export button.

More shortcuts to interactive help and support

We’ve seen that some customers ask ad-hoc questions via the feedback form so we decided to add shortcuts for sending e-mail to our info address and an invitation shortcut to our #Slack discussion board. This way we’ll be able to immediately respond to questions on how to use certain feature.