This article applies to a Board 1.0 which will be replaced by Board 2.0 starting with BigPicture version 7.11.
All your date will be automatically migrated to the new Board when the app is updated.
Let's start from the cleanest view possible:
The vertical columns represent your Sprints, and horizontal rows (swim lanes) are your teams. It is possible to display between 1 to 7 columns at a time. You can drag and drop tasks around to change both their Sprint, and assigned team. To read more about the latter, check out this page: Global (whole plugin)#Boardconfiguration
Inside each team's section you will find avatars of the members, a short summary of Remaining Estimate on all their tasks, icons representing how many tasks in each status they have in the current Sprints and a shortcut to their Agile Board (if configured in Teams). Every column can aggregate time values, but also Story Points and Epics - this in turn can be changed in Program-specific#specific-Board.
Backlogs
There are 2 backlogs total, each serves a different purpose.
Program backlog is the standard definition of a backlog. It contains all tasks that are not yet done and were not scheduled for any Sprint yet. You can drag and drop tasks to and from this backlog, and catching its border will allow you to resize it however you please. A search bar is available for your convenience - clicking the ABC icon will switch it to JQL.
Cadence backlog is separate for every column and contains tasks that were scheduled for this particular Sprint, but were not assigned to any resource nor team just yet. Tasks inside it are still a part of the mapped Sprint.
Timeline
One of the major features of this module is the visual timeline at the top. You can hide and show it on demand using the big timeline button in the navigation panel:
This view shows all of your Gantt Markers, Cadences and Program Increments. Drag and drop to position it, zoom in and out using the mouse scroll wheel. A Program Increment is basically a level in hierarchy above Cadences, a visual way to group them. It does not affect anything in JIRA. You can add them under the same menu where Cadences are added:
Double-clicking a Program Increment or Cadence on the timeline allows you to edit its details.
A single click will scroll the Board and center the view on the clicked element.
Dependencies
Another major point of the Board is having the ability to see, create and edit dependencies between tasks. To do so, click the Links button at the top and select All:
Looking familiar? Here's a standard template that many companies actually make on their walls using sticky notes and strings. Time to go digital!
You might have noticed that some links are displayed in red, and the Links menu allows you to show or hide selected types of links. Red are invalid links, ie ones that are not logically possible with the current plan. For instance, if a task linked with and end-start dependency starts AFTER the task it supposed to start before, the link will be in red unless these tasks are swapped in order.
To edit or create links, simply use drag and drop starting from the corner of a task:
Live sync
The 3rd crucial part of the Board is the live sync mode. Unfortunately, it's impossible to show it on a static image in this documentation. It's this small, unassuming icon in the menu bar:
When active (animated in blue), changes will be synced instantly. No waiting, no refreshing, no sync going on - a bit similar to how Google Docs works. Great for planning sessions and remote work!
Smart features
You will notice that some tasks above have a red calendar icon on them. This means that the task is scheduled on our Gantt in such a way, that it exceeds its Sprint. Clicking this icon will fix this (align the task to Sprint):
Likewise, if a problem with the assignee of a task is detected, the avatar will have a red exclamation mark and be clickable. There are 4 types of conflicts:
1) The assignee of this task belongs to multiple Teams different from this one. Please move this task to a different Team, or change the assignee.
2) The current assignee of this task is not in any Team. You might want to re-assign this task or add the assignee to this Team.
3) This team has no members, but the assignee of this task belongs to other Teams. You may want to move this task to this assignee's Team.
4) This team has no members, and the task has no assignee. The plugin cannot deal with this without you adding members to the Team or setting the assignee.
Once the avatar is clicked, a small fix dialog will pop up:
14 Comments
Anonymous
Hi
is it possible to change the order of the tasks in the cadence?
Marek Lewandowski
Hi,
At this moment, no, but it is coming soon! Sorting as well a ranking of tasks in Roadmap.
Please contact us through support@softwareplant.com, so that we can link your request to our backlog!
Anonymous
Hi! How do we set a default story points cadence for the team? Or is it only per person?
Is there a page that describes this? I'm at the configuration screen Teams → Cadence planning
Marek Lewandowski
Hi,
You can do that in the Story points row - please see the attached screenshot.
In the latest version - 6.2.5 there is a bug causing the header to stop loading and the save option is not available. We are working on a fix currently.
We apologize for the inconvenience. Fix will be available tomorrow.
Anonymous
We lack the possibility to have the sync of assigned team in roadmap to custom field in Enterprise / large team mode. Will you add this feature?
Marek Lewandowski
Hi,
Please check if the description in the link below, matches your requirement:
BIGPICTURE-2860 - Getting issue details... STATUS
Anonymous
We are interested in using Big Picture for our portfolio level planning at Epic level. If we have Epics that only have Epic estimates with some or none of the stories, can use BigPicture to do pre-PI planning? That is, assign Epics to teams, allocate Epics to a PI and level the resources to see which Epics we can fit in a certain PI and which team will work on which Epics?
Anonymous
Hi,
In my department planning work for teams is easier on a roadmap than on Gantt. Is there possibility to automatically set Start Date and End Date of issue, equal to Cadence dates?
Anonymous
You mentioned in the Smart Features section that when a task is scheduled in Gantt so that it exceeds its Sprint end date, it can be fixed (by 'it' you mean the task's end date in Gantt) by clicking the red calendar icon. It works the other way round - clicking the icon tries to move the task to this Sprint where the task end date happens earlier than the Sprint end date.
I think there should be a popup window asking:
Option 1: Do you want to change task's end date to equal Sprint end date? (default)
Option 2: Do you want to move the task to another Sprint with earlier or equal end-date? (as is now)
What do you think?
Anonymous
Is is possible to present more data from the tasks? (More than just the "Name" & "ID")
Anonymous
What happens if a story starts during one cadence but ends one or more cadences later? How is it displayed on the roadmap?
Piotrek Romanczyk [SoftwarePlant]
Hello there,
It is not possible to assign the Task to more than one Cadence in our Roadmap. Of course the task itself can technically occupy time of two or more cadences, though it can only be displayed on the one at the time.
Kind Regards,
Piotr
Anonymous
When is this going to be available?
Marek Lewandowski
New Roadmap will be available on Cloud next month and on server end of this year.