1. Set Custom Exit Criteria For Work Items Across Process Stages
To enrich the process policies in our system, we give you the ability to create “exit criteria” for the columns (work stages) inside your boards. You can think of them as acceptance criteria which a given card/work item needs to meet before it leaves the current state in the process.
You can access the new feature from a given column’s details in the workflow editor or the “Board policies” function. There, you can create a list of criteria that will appear on the cards as soon as the card or initiative enters a specific column.
Unless you mark the criteria as completed, the system won’t allow you to move the card out of the current column.
It’s important to mention that you can have different exit criteria for a column and its subcolumns. In this case, they will be visualized in a tree-like structure both in the card’s details and the closed card view (depending on your chosen card settings).
Learn more about this feature in our dedicated article.
2. Save Chart Settings in Dashboards
So far, whenever a dashboard with analytics widgets was shared with other users, each one of them could apply and see their own custom configurations. This created inconsistency between the different users of a dashboard.
To allow you to standardize the widget configurations across all dashboard members, we’re adding a new “Save Changes” button. It will appear once you’ve modified the controls for a given analytics widget. Clicking it will give you the option to apply the new chart settings for all users (unless you’re the only user of a dashboard).
Note that only dashboard managers can save chart settings!
Other than that, it’s important to mention that if you’ve made some changes on an analytics widget and you save it with its control sidebar closed, other users won’t see the sidebar. Therefore, they won’t be able to apply configurations to it (unless they’re dashboard managers).
In case you save the widget with its control sidebar open, it will be visible to all users. They will be able to make local modifications without having permission to save them for all members (unless some of them are dashboard managers).
3. Card Component Redesign
In this release, our UI/UX improvement initiative continues with a redesign of the card component. Here is the new look of the cards:
The visual improvements apply to the icons (card fields, links, attachments, etc.) in a closed card view. A more significant visual change is the brand new design of the different priority levels on cards, so you can better distinguish them.
4. Exceeded SLEs Scatter Plot
To help you analyze the cards/work items in your process that have exceeded their SLEs, we introduce a brand new chart to our Analytics module - the Exceeded Service Level Expectations Scatter Plot. You can access it from a new SLEs tab in the Analytics.
Inside the graph, the y-axis visualizes the exceeded time of an SLE on a given card in different time units (depending on the SLE’s time configuration). The x-axis shows the date when a card has exited a particular SLE area on your board (column, lane, or cell).
When you click on the chart’s plotted dots, the system will display the following information:
- Exit date
- Exceeded SLE time
- SLE’s name
- Max SLE time
The different percentiles (50%, 70%, 85%, 95%) help you analyze the probability of a work item exceeding its target SLE by a certain time unit. From the chart’s controls, you can also choose which SLEs to visualize and use trend lines to examine whether your exceeded SLE time is increasing or decreasing.
To learn more about this chart, check out our dedicated article.
5. Execution Order in the Business Rules
Recently, we’ve been working on rendering order in the execution of the business rules. The functionality is now live. An example is when you have multiple rules of the same type with identical filters, and you want to prioritize their execution.
You should know that the rules are executed in ascending order (1,2,3...).
You can reorder a business rule in two ways (note that only account owners are permitted to do that):
- Using the “drag and drop” function in the business rule’s menu;
- Manually, inside the rule’s details where you will see a dedicated field for the execution order.
For more in-depth information on the functionality, examples, and specifications, check out our dedicated article.
6. Show Remaining Tokens
A few months ago, we released the token-based WIP limits functionality in the software. To make its use easier, the system will now display how many remaining tokens of a certain type you can apply.
7. New Security Settings
Moving forward, inside the Security & Audit section of the Administration panel, you will notice two new security controls. They are the following:
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- Only internal users can access public filters - this allows you to control whether only logged users can access a public filter or anybody on the internet who has a link can retrieve data from it.
- Allow inline images - you can specify whether users can place inline images inside the cards. This setting works independently from the “Card Attachments” configuration. If you want to completely disable uploading files, deselect both options.
8. Other Improvements
- Board Policies Redesign
In our last release, we introduced the “Board Policies” feature. After gathering your feedback, we’ve made several design changes to improve its UX. You will also notice a new “Workflow” field there. It allows you to pick a workflow and display only the relevant policies.
- Highlight Last Opened Business Rule
To make it easier to edit multiple business rules one after another, the system will now highlight the rule that was last opened.
- Expand Workflow Button
Moving forward, for better visualization of collapsed workflows, you will find a dedicated “expand workflow” button on the right.
- “Blocked Time” Improvement in Analytics
So far in the Analytics module, the total blocked time of cards was calculated regardless of your cycle time configuration. From now on, the system will consider the cycle time configuration when calculating the blocked time. This means that the block time for columns outside the cycle time configuration will be ignored.
- Save Configurations in Links Hierarchy
Finally, when configuring results in the detailed links hierarchy panel, they will be saved, so you don’t have to set them every single time.
Happy Kanbanizing with version 8.9!