1. First generation of widgets in Kanbanize
Widgets are simple, easy to use and provide you with updated information about your account in a synthesized format. In Kanbanize 5.0, the first widgets make their debut to make planning your workday and prioritizing a lot simpler. They can help visualize the tasks assigned to you directly from the main dashboard, check if there are any cards with missed deadlines for which you or any other members of your team are responsible, or see the blocked cards you’ve yet to deal with in the system. The widgets can be added using the retractable menu on the bottom right corner of the main dashboard, appear in the bottom right quadrant of the same view and the information they contain can easily be exported at any time.
2. Shared board and filter (public boards), read only view.
The ability to share a unique link of a read only view from Kanbanize with users outside of the account is a valuable asset when you want to share information from Kanbanize with external stakeholders. By using the advanced search, create filters that configure the information generated in the search panel and then make the link live and available to the relevant parties. External users won’t be able to interact with the information contained in the filtered search but will have access to the selection of the data to which you have referred them with the shareable url as is.
3. Subtask Related Updates in the Runtime Policies and Search Filter
We understand better than anyone how important it is to organize your cards and keep track of the tasks that go through your boards. This is why we are introducing new options to automate the way you create and update your subtasks. “Create a Subtask” and “Update Subtask” runtime policies as well as the “Subtask Status” trigger will help you spend less time updating your cards and more time actually completing them.
We believe subtasks can actually be a very powerful thing when used optimally and can help move your process forward. That’s why we added the flexible Subtask Count filter in the Kanbanize search to enable you to configure the results of your search based on the number of subtasks in a given state.
4. Send custom notification email
The new custom notification mail can be set up with many of our runtime policies. It allows you to automate the notification process, by sending customized messages to any user or external party to whom the occurring trigger is relevant. You can select to send the custom notification email to every user assigned to the project, reporter, or contributor. There are no constraints about the number of internal or external recipients. In the runtime policy set up, define the message and choose what information you want to be sent automatically.
5. Integrate Kanbanize with Slack in 3 Minutes.
In a couple of simple steps, your activity in Kanbanize can be sent to the desired channel or recipient in Slack, fully automated and in real time. Integrate Slack with our runtime policies, which will send automated updates when pre-assigned conditions are met.
Integration is easy and takes less than a minute to be set up.
6. New Visualization of Links
The visualization of links is back with a snazzy redesign. You will still have the table and map visualizations to choose from in you card menu but the redesign will allow you to see the complexity of relations in an even more simple and easy to track manner. The information will be available for export in xls. format.
7. Usability Enhancements
When a board has a number of swimlanes, scrolling down to the one you need sometimes takes longer than it should. Kanbanize 5.0 tweaks the layout of your board and improves the pace of switching back and forth between swimlanes. Any swimlane, except for the bottommost swimlane, will now retract and expand accordingly, based on the number of cards that are placed there after every refresh.
In addition, the cards themselves get an enhancement to allow the subtask and comments input fields to be resized for length.
8. Block/Unblock cards from your Android device and receive push notifications for mentions from both Android and iOS.
Release 5.0 also bring a boost in our mobile apps as well.
In Android, cards can be blocked and unblocked directly from the app. In order to do so, you just have to click on a given card and a popup window will appear with the available interactions. Use the pop up panel in Android to carry out the relevant blocking actions, such as to block a card, chronicle a block reason or unblock.
Another great addition to both our Android and iOS applications are the push notifications for mentions. If you are mentioned by a user in the account, the mobile app will be able to push the notification of the mention to the home screen of your phone or tablet.
9. Directly Import Cards as Children of Existing Cards in the System
By adding two additional columns, one called Parent after the column Title, and one called Comment after the column Board, in the excel table you are preparing to import, you are able to transfer more information than ever before into Kanbanize. Under Parent, list the ids of the existing cards in Kanbanize of which you would like the new cards to become children once the import is complete. Under Comments, add text you would like to appear as a comment in the card once it is imported.
10. Updates in the Search Panel and API
The advanced search panel has been updated twofold in release 5.0.
Kanbanize users now have the opportunity to search through the cards on their boards based on criteria related to the cards’ subtask progress status and count. These criteria include searching by Total Subtasks Count, Finished Subtasks Count and Unfinished Subtasks Count.
In addition, when you add the search criteria “Deadline”, you have a new option, called “not set”. This way you can limit your search parameters to generate a search only for cards without deadline.
Last but not least, the field “updated at” has been added to our API. This will allow Kanbanize to return when you last updated the cards in your account as information to another system.
The invaluable feedback from our community of Kanbanize users has been a key factor in the choice of new additions and improvements in our new release of Version 5.0. The synthesis of our team’s determination and your helpful comments make sharing one of our most significant releases yet such an absolute pleasure.
We sincerely hope that these enhancements will enhance the way you approach your projects and boost your success in achieving your goals, on the team and on the personal level.
We can’t wait to hear more of your suggestions and use them to make Kanbanize an even more powerful tool of optimizing efficiency.
Happy Kanbanizing!