1. Calculate “Work Days” in Analytics
In our latest product release - 8.2, we have an important improvement in our Analytics module. From now on, you will be able to use a filter to specify whether you want to measure cycle time only for your working days. Applying it will exclude any non-working days (ex. weekends) from the calculation, which will help you extract cycle time data that better reflects the nature of your process.
All you have to do is tick the box “Calculate for work days” under the cycle time filter and define which days you want to see data for.
The filter applies to the following charts:
- All of the Cycle Time charts (Cycle Time Scatterplot, Histogram, and Heat Map)
- Aging WIP chart
- Cumulative Flow diagram
- Flow Efficiency
- Monte Carlo: How Many
Disclaimer: When using the filter, the non-working days still remain on the graphs, and the users will see the same set of data as before. However, the interpretation of the cycle time data changes based on the essence of every chart. To understand what specific changes occur, you can review the updated articles for each one of the graphs in the Analytics section of our knowledge base.
2. Enable Better Specification on “Relative Card is Moved” Business Rule
With our most recent product version, you also get an enhancement in the action of the “Relative Card is Moved” business rule. From now, you will be able to automatically specify where each relative card should go to if it matches certain criteria.
For example, a common issue is when a given card in your work process has multiple “relatives” which live on various boards. Previously, the rule allowed you to move all the “relatives” of that card but to the same position (ex. “Testing”) on a given board.
With this new functionality, however, you can now create a filter to specify which stage of the work process (or board) each of those “relatives” should be moved to separately. All you have to do in practice is add a new action for every relative card you want to move and define what criteria it should match.
3. Reorder Child Cards Across Initiatives
Another useful improvement that you will see this month is the ability to easily change the “parent” of “child” cards by merely dragging them across your initiatives. This comes in handy when you have multiple projects on your Kanban board, and you want to quickly restructure the way you’ve broken them down.
For example, let’s say that you want to move a child card from one of your projects (Project 1) to another (Project 2). Instead of manually unlinking it from the first and linking it to the second, you can now drag it from “Project 1” to “Project 2”.
As you can see, the system allows you to choose from 4 options. The first 2 (“Change parent” and “Change parent keep sync settings”) will completely change the “parent” of the card and allow you to retain its sync settings. Тhe following 2 (“Link as child” and “Link as child and keep sync settings”) will keep the card as part of “Project 1” but link it as “child” to “Project 2” as well.
4. New Board Role
In our newest release, we are also introducing a new board role: “Add users to board”. You can access it directly from the “Roles” tab under “User Management” in the Administration panel.
This will permit you to invite new board members from existing users. Previously, only workspace managers and account owners could do that. However, this new functionality will give more flexibility to board managers (who may not be workspace managers) to add other people from the account to their boards.
5. Improvement in Links Overview
Moving forward with release 8.2, you will now see the links that you are creating under “Links Overview” before adding a card to the workflow. Previously, this was available only after a new card was created.
In the example above, this will allow you to use the “sync” option before creating a child card to “Project 1”. Note that this functionality is available when you are creating all types of links in the system.
6. Other Improvements
Finally, there are some additional improvements in the system that will ease your work with Kanbanize.
- See block icons on all views.
From now on, you will be able to see the icons indicating that an initiative/project is blocked even if you are using the bird-eye view.
- Card elements will be arranged in alphabetical order.
Another improvement is that all the card elements (blockers, stickers, tags, types, and custom fields) are now arranged in alphabetical order. This will enable a better structure and save you time when looking to update your elements.
Note that if you have elements that start with symbols or numbers, they will appear before the letters.
Furthermore, when you create a new sticker, for example, it will not appear at the top of the panel (as it was before), but it will be alphabetically sorted within the other sticker elements. You shouldn’t worry about finding it because the system will indicate where it has been placed among the rest.
Disclaimer: Note that this change doesn’t fully apply to the custom fields. The standard ones will always appear first, and those that are enabled - second. The rest will be ordered alphabetically.
Happy Kanbanizing with Kanbanize 8.2!