1. Add Links in Card Templates
Kanbanize 8.3 comes with a major improvement in the way you create Card Templates. Thus far, when editing existing card templates or creating new ones, you were able to add subtasks, tags, custom fields, etc.
From now on, we give you the flexibility to include linked cards in your templates too. This comes in handy for initiatives/projects that have a predefined work breakdown which you won’t have to manually create every single time.
So, once you are setting up a template from the “Manage Card Templates” option and you get to the card view, you will now see that the “Links Overview” area is available there.
In the image above, for example, we’ve added 2 child and 2 successor links to a sample template (ex. "Sample Project") and we are ready to update it. This will save the above structure as part of the template so you can use it when necessary.
Then, when applying the template to a card in your workflow, you will notice that there is a new “Links” property under “Regular Fields” of the “Apply Card Template” option. Just like the other fields, you can either select or deselect it based on whether you wish the link structure to be applied to the card.
Note: This functionality only works when adding new cards to the workflow.
2. Easily Save Cards As Templates
Another useful functionality that we’ve added this month is the ability to quickly save your Kanban cards as templates. You can now hop over to the “Options” section of any card in your workflow and save it as a template for future use.
This can prove extremely useful when you have projects with the same structure or important individual work items which you’d like to store and reuse when necessary. Once you choose the “Save as Template” option, you will be able to select which boards the template will apply to and what other properties or links you’d like to include.
Note: All card fields such as custom fields, tags, etc., will be included by default. Also, it’s important to mention that the template will save only the first-level links of parent and child cards.
3. “Date” Custom Fields Will Now Include Time
Our newest version brings an important enhancement in the custom fields of type “date” too. You are now able to configure those fields to show time instead of just date values.
You can choose whether to apply this option by editing or creating new “date” fields from the “Card Management” section of your “Administration panel”.
It’s important to keep in mind here that this is a global configuration that cannot be set separately per board.
4. Extract More Thorough Cycle Time Data from Heatmaps
With our most recent version, you also get additional measures to your cycle time heatmaps. Up until now, you were only able to view the total cycle time which a given work stage from your process accumulated over time. However, this was not very effective for identifying bottlenecks.
That’s why we’ve decided to introduce different criteria by which to aggregate your cycle time data. Now you can configure the heatmap to display values for average completion times or specific percentiles (95%; 85%; 75%; 50%).
In case you tick the “Average” field, for example, you will see what was the average cycle time that your work items accumulated in a given stage of the process.
For more information on what data the percentiles show you, you can check out our dedicated article.
5. Forecast Only Child Cards Option
Kanbanize 8.3 also provides you with an additional option in the way you forecast your projects/initiatives. From now on, in the forecasting tab of a given initiative/project, you can choose whether to forecast only its child cards. This will ignore all other cards that the system usually takes into account.
A common scenario here is when a project needs to be expedited and thus your team members’ full capacity is dedicated to it. Selecting the option assumes that no other work blocks the child cards which will allow you to derive a more precise forecast for the project.
6. Automatically Populate Queueing Stages
Another useful functionality that we bring you this month is related to your flow efficiency chart. There, you will now see that the queueing stages are automatically selected based on the columns which you’ve identified as “queues” on your board.
This is useful when you have a lot of stages in your workflow as you won’t have to select the queueing ones manually. Because the queueing stages are now automatically selected, you will also be able to see your average flow efficiency right off the bat.
7. Other Improvements
The latest version of our system comes with a few other smaller but important and useful improvements. Let’s summarize them below:
- Ignore Cycle Time Configuration Option in Widgets
From now on, when configuring your widgets, you will be able to select the “Ignore Cycle Time Configuration” option. Doing it will allow you to extract the overall cycle time data from your process including columns/work stages which have not been set up to track cycle time.
- New “Deadline” Filter in Board Flow Metrics and Timeline Report Widgets
Other than that, version 8.3 comes with a new deadline filter that can be applied to the board flow metrics widget including the timeline report.
- Easily assign cards to “myself”
Furthermore, you can now more easily assign cards to yourself. When you hop over to the dropdown menu of a card in order to assign/reassign a user, you will see that “None” and your name pop up first instead of “Recent Users”. This way you can more quickly assign cards that you know will be done by yourself.
- Show tag colors
Last but not least, there is another small UX improvement that comes in the system related to the tag colors. From now on, when setting up a color on your tags, you will be able to see them directly from your Kanban board.
Happy Kanbanizing with Kanbanize 8.3!