1. Custom Fields Global Management
Note: This feature will be rolled out gradually throughout October. If you want to be an early adopter and get advantage of it as soon as possible, contact us at support@kanbanize.com
With Product Update 7.5, custom fields become manageable at a Global account level.
We are introducing various new custom field settings that help you control your process on an even more detailed level. You can use the combination of these settings for a multitude of use cases.
Creating and managing Custom Fields is now performed from the dedicated "Custom Fields" panel in the Administration. All existing custom fields get stored in a table format that displays information for each field.
Use the "New Custom Field" link to create and configure your new custom field.
Additionally, users with the necessary permissions could enable, disable, and edit certain characteristics of the custom fields on a Board level. The respective dedicated panel is available in the Board Sidebar.
To learn all about the new creation process, please check out our dedicated article.
IMPORTANT:
1. You can no longer create custom fields from Workspace and Boards Settings on the Dashboard.
2. With product Version 7.5, the current custom fields in your cards might get re-ordered.
The reason for this behavior is that the arrangement of custom fields is now managed on a Board level and applies across all cards. The "Reorder Board Custom Fields" setting is available in the dedicated "Custom Fields" panel of the Board Sidebar.
3. The fields “Created at”, “Last modified”, “Reporter” are now considered system fields and can be made available either on all cards on the board or be hidden at all.
In addition to this improvement, we added new types of custom fields. Kanbanize currently supports 7 types of custom fields, so you can collect different types of information with almost no limitations.
To learn more about the new custom fields, please check out the dedicated article. All new custom field types are described here.
2. Enhanced Forecast feature
With this Release, the Forecast feature is available for both Team and Management boards to project the duration of your Initiatives.
Moreover, the feature is now scaled across multiple hierarchical levels.
When the simulation starts, it will take into consideration all child cards in the existing breakdown structure of the Initiative. It will then find similar cards that were completed in the past and run numerous comparison samples to calculate reliable predictions.
To learn how does forecasting work, please check the dedicated article here.
3. Built-in Rules in the Initiatives Workflow
The new addition to the Initiatives Workflow allows more fine-grained control over the Initiatives' behavior in the respective workflow.
Now you have full control to configure the automated movement of Initiatives in accordance with your use cases and preferences. The configuration panel is available in the “Edit Workflow” view.
Note: By default, all rules are enabled, which preserves the current initiative behavior.
Examples:
- If you switch off the first rule, the Initiative will not automatically move to "In progress", when their first child card is started.
- If you switch off the second rule, the Initiatives will not move to “Done”, when all their child cards are completed.
If you deselect all checkboxes, you will stop the Initiative automated movement completely and you have to move them manually.
4. Excel Import Improvements
We are continuously improving the Excel import operations to cover even more scenarios.
Here are the latest changes in that product area.
- Link multiple cards with a single operation and create all types of links
With this release, the system allows users to create all types of links: parent, child, successor, predecessor, relative, using the import.
If you wish to link multiple cards using the Excel spreadsheet, you need to add a column Header "Links".
Input the ID values in the following format, where xxxxxx can be either an internal Card ID or a Custom ID:
- Parent: xxxxxx, xxxxxx, xxxxxx;
- Children: xxxxxx, xxxxxx;
- Successor: xxxxxx, xxxxxx, xxxxxx;
- Predecessor: xxxxxx, xxxxxx, xxxxxx, xxxxxx;
- Relative: xxxxxx;
- Parent: xxxxxx; Children: xxxxxx; Successor: xxxxxx; Predecessor: xxxxxx; Relative: xxxxxx;
When the import is executed, the cards in Kanbanize will be linked accordingly.
Note that you cannot change the existing relations using this functionality. You can only create new ones. To get more details on this topic, please follow this link.
- Import of new Timeline Initiatives
Currently, the system allows import operations with Timeline initiatives. Using an Excel spreadsheet, you can now create new Timeline Initiatives. When formatting the Excel sheet, you need to add column headers that correspond to the Timeline Initiatives properties and position, such as:
Time - related properties: ‘Start date’; ‘End Date’, ‘Planned Start’, ‘Planned End’.
Position: ‘Board Name’(mandatory), ‘Workflow name’(mandatory), ‘Column Name’ (mandatory), ‘Track’(optional).
To get more details, please check out this article.
5. Ignore Cycle time configuration in Analytics
The "Ignore Cycle time" configuration has been added to the new Analytics modules in Kanbanize.
If you checkmark the box, the system ignores the current Cycle time configuration.
Respectively, the selected Analytics module accounts and visualizes the time cards spend in each of the process stages. This allows having an in-depth analysis of both value-adding activities and “queues”, when it is necessary.
You can checkmark this option only if a single workflow is selected.
6. Mobile Improvements
This month we updated our mobile apps, so they are compatible with the new versions of iOS and Android.
We also added a much-wanted new feature - Board filter!
Now you can easily filter cards shown on the board. Just tap the filter button in the top right corner and enter your filter text. The app will show only the cards that contain this string in their ID, assignee, title, description or tags.
