Advanced JQL search in release Nov 28 2020

Introduction

This release contains only usability features and small bugfixes.

New features

Advanced JQL search

The search box might be a bit difficult to handle when there is no preview for the JQL queries. To overcome this problem, the default Jira JQL search dialog can be now launched from a button right to the search box or in the stories drop down list.

The JQL search provided by Jira gives a native preview for the searched tickets. The query can be optimized and verified and then sent directly to the Scrumpy Poker search box so that the stories can be added.

The feature is only available in Jira Cloud.

Bugfixes

JQL error missing

Before it was not clear if empty result was returned or there was an error in the JQL. Now when there is a problem with the JQL a reasonable error message is displayed.

Links now clickable in chat and room description

Now links in the chat messages and room descriptions are clickable. It is more useful when sending link with instructions or external documentation.

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!

Averaging technique in release 01 Nov 2020

Introduction

The new release of Scrumpy Poker contains few features based on customer feedback and a lot of small bugfixes that were recently found. Additionally there are a lot of internal changes in the application as a preparation to the upcoming on-premises installation bundle.

New Features

Averaging technique

Until now Scrumpy Poker was only able to pick up the average estimate using plain arithmetic mean value. While this was useful in most of the cases, there voting applications where median or mode value matter more. That’s why now we have several averaging techniques

  • Average. This is the default, plain old arithmetic average that was used so far in Scrumpy Poker.
  • Median. This picks up the median value.
  • Most common. This picks up the value that occurs most of the time in the result set, e.g. mode value.
  • Minimum. This picks up the minimum value in the results set.
  • Maximum. this picks up the maximum value in the result set.

The averaging technique chosen also reflects in the comment messages in Jira/Slack/GitLab/GitHub. For example if Median is chosen for averaging, the message is ‘… the median vote was 2‘.

You can change the averaging technique from the main settings page as follows:

The averaging method is now appended as a badge to the story point or time result both in the planning section and in the result section to indicate the method in case it is changed often between voting sessions.

Dutch translation

Thanks to our friends in the translation community, we have a new translation from the nl_NL locale!

Anyone who wants can translate Scrumpy Poker in his/her own language. There is a test environment setup which can help with validating the translated strings. You can check our GitHub repository for more information.

Bugfixes

Disconnected voters

During long voting sessions sometimes participants may lose connection to our systems for a couple of seconds. There are many factors that can affect a long running keep-alive connection. This is not visible during the preparation for voting. When voting starts though, especially when the option to complete voting when everybody pointed a card caused some unwanted story flips since with less connected users the system thought that everybody has already voted.

Now when the voting starts, the system remembers who was in at that time and waits until all those people vote. If a participant is temporarily disconnected, it appears in the right pane as offline. The counter is not reset, the story does not flip. You can wait until this participant reconnects, or if the participant has permanently left the room with a reason, you can decide not to wait and press the (X) button on this participant.

Certainly, as before when voting completes and someone leaves the room, the vote is not lost and displayed on the place of the hourglass.

Wrong card in asynchronous voting comment dialog

Before when voting asynchronously and adding a comment on a story with a preset assigned, the card hint was wrong. Now the correct card is displayed when presets are used.

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!