How To Use The Task Board

Owned by Jeff Mitchell
Jun 06, 2014

Introduction

Welcome to the section for the Ikasan Greenhopper Task Board!

What is the Task Board?

The Task Board is powered by GreenHopper (an Atlassian product) which in turn uses the information entered in the Issue Tracking System (JIRA) to offer a flexible view on the work that the Ikasan community is currently involved with. The Task Board also provides an excellent view for our users who want to know what stage their projects are at or what priorities the Ikasan team is currently working on.

Where is the Task Board?

This Task Board for Ikasan is located at http://open.jira.com/secure/TaskBoard.jspa. You can also get there via JIRA by selecting the Task Board option from the Agile dropdown.

How do I use the Task Board?

When you arrive at the Task Board it may seem a little strange at first, so we'll take you through a few steps to make the Task Board easier to interpret, firstly you'll want to do the following:

  1. Go to the Views dropdown (on the Right Hand Side) and select Compact (Kanban) and Summaries. These are recommended ways to view the board, but you can try others in that list if you like.
  2. Go to the Tools dropdown (on the Right Hand Side) and select Context and Legend to bring up those helpful tool bars (again these are optional).
  3. Go to the Context dropdown (at the top) and select Default*. This will show the default "All tasks for Ikasan view", we'll explore later how you can filter this view for your needs.
  4. Go to the View Version dropdown and select the version you are interested in.

What do the Columns mean?

You now should have a Task Board that is providing a fairly useful default view for you. In the head of each column you'll see a total number of task cards and some optional paging (there can be more than one page worth of task cards per column). You should see 3 columns worth of cards:

  • TO DO - Means that we are actively planning this task
  • IN PROGRESS - Means that we are currently working on this task
  • DONE - Means that the task is in UAT/PRD or is otherwise considered done. Once the work is signed off we formally close the task off in JIRA, which then removes it from this column.

What's the priority of these tasks?

The ones at the top of the column are our highest priority.

I just want to see the tasks assigned to me

You tick the My Issues check box to filter out the other tasks

I want to create an ad-hoc view

You can create new a new Context by clicking on the New link next to the Context dropdown. You can then create your own customised view and even share it with others.

Any questions, please don't hesitate to contact any member of the Ikasan Team.