Configure board settings

Owned by Yuri
Last updated: Apr 11, 2024
5 min read

(1) You can get to board configuration screen either via action menu from My Boards screen

or clicking on setting icon in top right corner of any board

(2) Board configuration screen has 2 tabs:

  • General and

  • Columns & Swimlanes

General tab

(3) on “General” Tab you can amend

  • Order by to select the field you would like to use for ordering (Rank is default option)

If you select any other field by Rank you can select ordering direction.

 

  • Statistics by to select whether to use Issue Count, Story Points or Hours for Columns and Swimlanes statistics (Read more).

If Story Points or Hours will be selected we will show also statistic on individual issue card.

  • Allow OR for Columns and Swimlanes with multiple values assigned.

The feature is mostly for visualization purposes. Turning on this feature might lead to duplicated issues on the board if Columns or Swimlanes contain overlapping values. While applying WIP limits we will consider only unique issues. While moving issue into specific Column or Swimlanes we will still assign all the values defined for the destination Column or Swimlanes.

Using OR configuration ones doors to a number of use cases. Please check out the functionality below when the App act very smart:)

https://releasemanagement.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/ASPT/pages/875692462/Board+dynamics#Columns/Swimlanes-with-multiple-values-assigned

Columns and Swimlanes

(4) on “Columns and Swimlanes“ tab you can change configuration of fields used respectively for Columns and Swimlanes. Swimlanes are optional. To remove them choose “-- none -- “ in popup.

Keep issues with parent

Automatically add existing values

By default after selecting any standard or custom field as Columns/Swimlanes you would need to go and manually create respective Columns/Swimlanes specifying the values you would like to map and outline.

By clicking on Automatically add existing values toggle you will get all the Columns/Swimlanes auto populated automatically based on distinct set of values extracted from Jira issues matching the JQL for the board.

Automatically remove empty columns or swimlanes

If you use the above configuration the App will auto create columns and swimlanes for you if there are issues to show.

As you progress with your tasks issue might disappear from the board - e.g. your filter might be set to avoid completed issue with last updated > 2 weeks. This might lead to empty columns or swimlanes that will take valuable space on the screen. You can always click on such column/swimlane and remove it from the board. Or you can turn on the configuration in the setting to remove it automatically.

Hide empty swimlanes

The App will automatically hide all swimlanes by Stories/Epics w/o child items. Meaning if there’re no sub-tasks for Story we won't create a swimlane for it . Same applies for Epic w/o child Stories.

Show swimlanes tasks

The toggle will force to create addition tickets for Stories/Epics in “Other“ swimlane even if respected swimlanes for Stories/Epics exist. This is very useful for parallel processing on child & parent items through workflow.

JQL based columns and swimlanes

In addition to mapping exercise when you map columns/swimlanes to standard or custom fields and by dragging drop issues re-assign the values … you can now define columns and/or swimlanes as JQLs.

Once you define it as JQL drag and drop will obviously won’t be allowed bu could be used as great visualization technique as well as other complementory features.

You can also combine the 2 aproaches. E.g. Columns maped to properties while swimlanes defined as JQLs. Thus you can drag and drop between columns to re-assign values and gain great visibility with custom swimlanes.

To configure JQL-based columns/swimlanes go to Board Settings/Columns and Swimlanes and select JQL to either column or swimlane

Getting back to the board you would need to specify custom JQL for any Columns/Swimlanes you create

Card layout

You can change card layout in a number of ways.

What standard fields to show?

You can select what stanndard fields to show on the card, namely

One field requires additional explanation …

Days in column

You can configure to automatically show the age of issues in specific column. The following rules/pattern is applied:

What custom fields to add?

You can amend card layout to show extra information no top of our standard look at feel. All standard and custom fields are supported.

Color coding

You can bring a lot of colors to you board and define specific color coding to visually differentiate areas of concerns you like.

Cards

Cards color coding is JQL based. Just put a valid JQL, pick up the color from the palete and click Add.

Dependencies

Pick a dependecy type you want to color and select a color from the palette to click Add.

Statuses

We use the following defaults for Statuses color coding

  • GREY for statuses matching TO-DO status category

  • YELLOW for statuses matching IN-PROGRESS status category

  • GREEN for statuses matching DONE status category

But you can also change it. Just clikc on any of the statuses and select a color from the palete.