Hi everybody!

The iceScrum development team is glad to announce the immediate availability of iceScrum R2#15.1 version.
Get it now in the download section!

Changes overview

This is a minor release that includes some new stories and fixes defects discovered in the previous release. Get the complete list of changes in the release notes (in english or in french).

Release Plan and Sprint report PDF generation

In the previous version, there was an action to print the Release Plan, but it was very simple and it was difficult to get something workable when one wanted to get everything (sprints, all stories) at one time. Now, we’ve added a new feature to generate a PDF of the complete Release Plan. An icon has been added in the toolbar, and has replaced the old « Printer » icon.

The new icon in the toolbar

The resulting document lists every sprint of the release with their associated stories. It looks like the Release Plan view in iceScrum.

An exemple of the generated (pdf) release plan

We also added a new generated document in the Sprint Backlog: the Sprint report. This feature will generate a document containing a textual report including all the stories planned in the Sprint Backlog with all their functional test details.

An example of generated (pdf) sprint report

A short overview of bug fixes and other minor evolutions

• The annoying bug affecting the product backlog has been fixed (a new story wouldn’t show up in the backlog unless the user close it and reopen it).
• The Fibonacci suite is now using the real suite (and not the one used by some planning poker cards) and stops at 34.
• It is now possible to create, edit, and delete stories from the table view mode of the product backlog.
• And more… (check the release notes).

We hope that you’ll appreciate this new version. Try it!
On our side, we are working for offering you the best services for your agile projets; you can already take a look on the first ones: http://www.icescrum.com.

Cheers,

The iceScrum team.

A Product Owner and a Scrum Master can ajust a few settings on the projects they are working on. This article will explain what is possible and how to change the default configuration on a project.

Let’s consider the project myProject. To change the project settings, locate the link called « Project : myProject » on the top of the page, next to the illustration of your role :

Opening the project panel (click to enlarge)

Clicking on this link will open the project panel. Here you have a recap of the project characteristics, you can also get the list of the members and access all the global charts.

Then, on the right part of the main window, you can find a few expandable panels, click on their header to see their contents. While the « Project Information » panel will only display a short text, the options available in the next panels depends on your role, which is detailled below.

As a Scrum Master I can …

The Scrum Master is the only one who can change the Members management settings. Note that all these options are cumulative. An indicator is display next to your role label when one of these options is enabled (see illustration).

A project with the « Disable role changes » and « Mask project » options enabled

Refuse new members

If the Scrum Master enables this option, then a new user won’t be able to join your project as an active member. New users can still join as Stakeholders – and Stakeholders only – and won’t be able to change their role even if the « Disable role changes » option is not enabled. While a Stakeholder field of actions is very restricted (see the article on the users rights), you may want to completely forbid anyone to join your project, in this case consider the « Mask project » option.

Note that any active members of the project (Member, Scrum Master, Product Owner) can still change their role at any time.

Disable role changes

Since the R2#15 version, this option has merely the same effect as the « Refuse new members » option, meaning that new users will be restricted in the role choice (they can choose Stakeholder or Member), but in addition, all roles are blocked, may it be an active Member, the Product Owner or even the Scrum Master, no one will be able to change its own role.

Mask project

When this option is enabled, the project will only be listed in the projects list (in the main menu) to the members of the project. Any new user will not see the project, so you can use this option to make a private-only project and prevent anyone to join.

As a Product Owner I can…

The Product Owner is the only one who can change the project characteristics or even decide to delete the entire project. Note that the « Activate End of Sprint Mail notification » action is currently not fully functionnal, so I won’t talk about it for now.

Auto-Reset Tests state each sprint

With this option enabled, when you start a new sprint, all the tests are reset to their initial state (Waiting). So you have to revalidate them in the following sprint.

Autochange story state to « Done » when all its tasks are done

When this option is enabled, a story will automatically be declared as « Done » when every tasks associated to it are done (in the Sprint Backlog). The Product Owner then won’t have to validate the story by himself, but use this option carefully, since a « Done » story cannot be « undone » !

Update project characteristics

This action allows the Product Owner to changes the project characteristics : name, description, starting date, and the planning poker numeric suite (Fibonacci or Naturals).

Delete project

Well, the title is explicit enough, it will delete the entire project. Don’t play with this action, you may regret it later

As a Member or a Stakeholder, I can…

Members and Stakeholders cannot change any project-level settings.

Leave project

The user can decide to leave the project, he will be removed from the project’s members list. If the Scrum Master had enabled the « Mask project » option, he will no longer be able to see the project the next time he logs on the server !

Hi everybody!

The IceScrum development team is glad to announce the immediate availability of IceScrum R2#15 version.
Get it now in the download section!

Note: If you were using a nighty build that already included the Sprint Burnup Chart prior to January 10, 2010, please make sure to export your projects before upgrading, otherwise you will lose all your Sprint Burnup measures.

Changes overview

Here is a short overview of the changes in this version. Please, see the corresponding release note (english, french) to get the complete list of changes.

Korean and German localization

IceScrum² R2#15 now introduces the German and Korean language, thanks to two contributors: Romain Chartier (German localization) and Yong-hee Lee (Korean localization).

Korean and German interface (click to enlarge)

Please note that in order to fully support the Korean localization, the database used with IceScrum² must support and use the UTF-8 encoding character. If you are using IceScrum with its embedded database, you have nothing to do. If you are using your own database, you have to make sure that the encoding characters used to store data is indeed UTF-8.

If you are already using an existing database not configured with UTF-8, and that you don’t plan to use non latin-based characters in your project (you don’t plan to store data using Asian or Russian characters for example), you can still use your old database without changes, but please note that if you insert non latin-based characters in a database that isn’t configured to support the encoding, they may be replaced by question marks (« ? ») or others random characters.

If you were using MySQL, when creating the database, set the default encoding to « utf8_general_ci ». There is also a small change to do in the configuration.properties file, described in the about Configuration FAQ entry.

Sprint Burnup Chart & Burndown improvement

IceScrum² now offers a new chart in the Sprint Backlog : The Burnup Chart. It compares the total number of tasks in a sprint to the number of tasks done every days. You can remove the week-ends from the chart by clicking on the calendar icon next to the « Previous » button on the upper right of the window.

The Sprint Burnup Chart

The Sprint Burndown Chart has also been improved to display every days of the sprint on its X axis instead of gradually updating the axis every days.

The Sprint Burndown Chart

Context Menu alternative

Most of the context menus available in previous version of IceScrum² have been replaced with a new kind of menu, embedded in every post-it notes. The menu is displayed when moving the mouse over its icon, or when right clicking on a post-it note.

Note that the context menu in the release plan still remain the same (when right clicking on a column), for the moment, at least.

The new embedded menu on the post-it notes

ScrumMaster actions on a project

A ScrumMaster can now mask/unmask a project. When a project is masked, it will no longer show up in the projects list to users that are not members of the project.

When a project is masked, closed to new members, or has disabled the « change roles » feature, an icon representing the setting will now be displayed next to the user role on the upper part of the window.

The Scrum Master actions

Search in the Product Backlog

IceScrum R2#15 introduces a search feature in the Product Backlog. The search feature will apply a filter on the visible stories depending on the keyword(s) you will type in the search input box. To cancel the search filter, just change the activated filter, or leave the search box empty.

IceScrum will search the keywords (separated with blankspaces) in the stories attributes: title, description, note, and associated feature. The results in upper case that are suggested when typing characters represents the features corresponding to the keyword(s).

The search feature in the Product Backlog

We wish you a good Scrum experience with IceScrum !

The IceScrum development team.

Please note that in order to fully support the Korean localization, the database used with IceScrum² must support the UTF-8 encoding character. If you are using IceScrum with its embedded database, you have nothing else to do. If you are using your own database, you have to make sure that the encoding characters used to store data is indeed UTF-8.