Keeping track of a great number of projects is easy with Kanban Tool - Interview with the Director of Operational Solutions at Playworks16 May 2013

Today we present an interview with Dave Gilmore, Director of Operational Solutions at Playworks, where they envision that one day every child will have an opportunity for safe and healthy play every single day. We asked him about his work and his experience with using Kanban Tool.

KT: What do you do at work?

D.G.: My job touches on a lot of areas, but generally I focus on business services and connecting our teams to the resources that they need to achieve our mission. This ranges from administering logistical systems to training folks on software.

KT: What do you use Kanban Tool for? Can you tell us how your board looks like?

D.G.: I use Kanban Tool to keep an overall projects board that we use to report out on in-process initiatives. I also have a very specific board for our facilities, as I am constantly juggling over 20 office leases at any time and it's been great at keeping track of what stages those leases are in.

KT: In your opinion, what is the most important benefit of using Kanban Tool?

D.G.: The most important benefit of Kanban Tool is that it takes what would normally be on a messy physical board with index cards or markers, and boils it down to something more agile.

KT: What do you value most in Kanban Tool? Do you have your favorite feature?

D.G.: My favorite feature is customization and simplicity. There's nothing in Kanban Tool that you can't tailor to your exact processes, yet no matter how complex you make it, it always looks clean and simple.

KT: Thank you, Dave!

And what do you use Kanban Tool for? Please share your story with our growing Kanban community.

Kanban Tool Team is proudly supporting non-profit and educational organizations but providing discounts. Contact us, to get more details.

Goal-Setting Tips That Work!10 May 2013

Goal setting is crucial for getting what you want. They help you move in the right direction. Obviously, goals will not automatically make your life better or make you rich. It’s up to you to set goals that make you happy and that are right for you. Today, we would like to show you some powerful tips that will help you to set inspiring and realistic goals.

One of the most effective ways to set goals is to utilize the S.M.A.R.T criteria. The acronym SMART has a number of slightly different variations, which can be used to provide a more comprehensive definition for goal setting:

• S - specific, significant, stretching
• M - measurable, meaningful, motivational
• A - agreed upon, attainable, achievable, acceptable, action-oriented
• R - realistic, relevant, reasonable, rewarding, results-oriented
• T - time-based, timely, tangible, trackable

The idea behind the SMART technique is to evaluate each of your goals in terms of five criteria. Let's have a look at them:

 

• Specific - goals must be clear and unambiguous. Vagaries and platitudes have no place in goal setting.
• Measurable - making your goals measurable will help you know when you’re making progress, when you’re on the right track, and will motivate you to take action.
• Achievable - you should set a goal that is attainable. Based on the present restrictions such as your schedule, workload, and knowledge, do you believe you can attain the objective you set?
• Realistic - set a goal you have a realistic chance of achieving. If you set a highly unrealistic goal, it will discourage you from taking action and even taking the first step.
• Time-based - goals must have a deadline. Setting a deadline reinforces the seriousness of the goal in your mind. It motivates you to take action.

There is also an extended version of the SMART Method. It is called the SMARTEST goal setting technique that I use to fire up one’s commitment to a higher level of successful goal setting. It includes three additional criteria:

• Engaging - a goal should be stimulating and challenging enough, and should be able to rouse you from your slumber, so that you begin working towards it.
• Shifting - remember that the only thing constant in this world is change. Be flexible. Adjust your goals to changing circumstances.
• Team Effort - goals are best realized with team effort! Use the Law of Synergy to to achieve your goals faster and accelerate the results.

Goals are what keep us focused on the present. Remember to plan regular goal check-ins to gauge your progress, review your next steps and celebrate your successes.

How do you establish your goals? What is your experience with SMART and SMARTEST formula? Let us know in the comments.

 

How to prioritize tasks29 Apr 2013

Do you feel like you have so much to do that you don’t know where to start? Everything that requires your attention seems like a priority? We are going to show you how to prioritize your tasks and eliminate the ensuing chaos.

First, list everything that needs to be done. Then, decide about three aspects of each task.

Importance

Consider the value of each completed task in terms of the impact on the other tasks on your list. Answer a question: “If I do not complete these tasks, what will happen?” Take into account the positive results of accomplishing certain tasks on your list. What kind of benefit will it bring you?

Effort required

Mark the effort required for each task. Consider the time and resources needed to complete each task.

Urgency

Consider an upcoming deadline. Decide which of the items on your list must be done today, this week, this month or even this year.

Create a table (as you can see in the picture below). Rate each task in terms of importance, effort and urgency. Group the tasks with the highest importance and least amount of effort. Decide which ones need to be done first based upon upcoming deadlines. Tasks of low importance and urgency can be deferred.

How do you deal with prioritizing? Do you know any other methods you would like to share with us?

Interactive to-do-list and "project manager" privileges 24 Apr 2013

Over the weekend we have successfully released new interactive to-do-lists. Now you can view and check off listed items without opening the card itself by simply moving the mouse over the to-do-list progress bar. We hope it will enhance your experience with using KanbanTool to-do-lists.

We have added "Project manager" as a new type of account access privileges. Project managers can create new boards, share them and invite others. They can only manage the boards they have created and cannot see or access other boards unless they have been shared with them. They can invite new users, but cannot access the 'People' tab to modify their details.

Please tell us what you think about the new features and feel free to send us your comments and suggestions. Your feedback is always appreciated.

How to finally overcome procrastination?16 Apr 2013

"You may delay, but time will not." ~ Benjamin Franklin

If you’ve found yourself putting off important tasks over and over again, you’re not alone. We’ve all suffered from procrastination from time to time. Probably the worst part about procrastination is its uncanny ability to rob us of time. When it comes to work, procrastination definitely costs us dearly. In order to stop procrastinating now consider the following procrastination tips.

• There’s always more to do than can be done. Then ask yourself if you’re getting the right things done to be sure that you're moving in the right direction.
• Create challenging goals! However, remember that they should be reasonable as to not discourage you. Set hard-and-fast deadlines for your goals.
• Tell your friends about your goals. If they know about your projects, they will probably ask you about them on a regular basis.
• Break down your goals into daily tasks and make a list of them. Create hard-and-fast deadlines for your tasks.
• At the end of each day put aside 15 minutes to write a to-do list for tomorrow.
• Get rid of the distractions around you. You can clean off your desk, log out from social media or simply close the door.
• Stop over-complicating! Are you waiting for a perfect time to do something? Now is not the best time because of various reasons? Face the truth: there’s never a perfect time. Do it now!
• Examine the consequences. One way to motivate yourself is to consider the negative effects of your inaction.
• Ask for help. There is always somebody who knows the solution. Don't waste your time on figuring it out.
• Reward yourself with a break, a movie or some kind of treat as you progress. Little rewards along the way can make it easier to accomplish a big goal.

Thank you for reading this short list of tips. What is your best way to crush procrastination?

8 Productive Tips to Work Faster08 Apr 2013

Being productive is a great advantage. So, today, we will give you some tips on how to work faster and be productive with great results.

1.Focus

Pareto rule says that 80% of your results will come from 20% of what you spend your time on. Now, ask yourself a question: Is what I am doing right now really contributing to the progress for me? And if the answer is “No”, maybe finish what you’ve been doing and then start re-structuring your work life to slowly focus on these 20% that really make a difference. This lets you work faster indirectly by removing tasks that barely contribute to your overall success.

2. Prioritize

Not all work tasks are of equal importance. When deciding which tasks require your immediate attention, focus on the consequences of not completing the task. Remember that even an urgent task with an extended deadline for completion can sometimes be put on hold while completing a job with an immediate deadline.

3. Delegate

If you can outsource some of your tasks that others can do better or you just don’t want to do and are slow getting results, then just do it. ‘Time is money’ is a just a phrase but it is true when it comes to your working power.

4. Avoid Interruptions

Interruptions kill your effectiveness. If you are constantly interrupted and lose focus on what you are doing, you have to adjust your working environment. Think back to your last workday, and consider for a minute the many interruptions that occurred. Try to find simple ways to avoid them.

5. Stop procrastination

We are all guilty of delaying what needs to be done at some time or another. We usually do it to avoid a task that’s unpleasant or daunting.  But when procrastinating starts to interfere with performance at work it's time to break the cycle of putting off important tasks.

6. Do instead of think

It can be amazing how much you can do when you stop questioning and just do what needs to be done. Put all your tasks on the board and... Just do it!

7. Daily checkout

At the end of a day find some time to analyze your results. Analyze your work flow and what you have learnt today.

8. Raise Your Own Expectations

Raising your own personal expectations can enable you to accomplish more than you’ve ever thought possible. Set courageous goals and you will achieve outstanding results.

Did we miss something? Share with us what strategies you use to work faster.

Kanban Tool integrates with JIRA. Meet Kanbanira.28 Mar 2013

Today we have something special for Kanban Tool and Atlassian JIRA® users! We have successfully launched a Google Chrome Extension called Kanbanira. Now you can connect tasks in Kanban Tool with issues in JIRA®. It's a simple but powerful integration allowing you to gain the most benefit from the both tools. All you need to start is visit Kanbanira page on Google Web Store and watch a video on how to integrate Kanban Tool with Atlassian JIRA® using Kanbanira. Then, add Kanbanira to Chrome and enjoy new possibilities.

We have also improved and refreshed the design of Kanban Tool charts. You can easily customize Cumulative Flow by clicking on items in the legend. Take pleasure form operating with nice-looking diagrams and graphs and simplify the workflow analysis by using new features.


That's not all! We have added a „take a screenshot” button to a board „tools” menu. This feature allows you to quickly save and print your entire board. Unfortunately, this option is not available for the users of Internet Explorer 8 (or lower editions).

If you have any suggestions how to make Kanban Tool better, please let us know in your feedback. All opinions are appreciated.

Kanban Tool On-Site is now available25 Mar 2013

Recently, we have received many requests from you to launch an on-premise version of Kanban Tool. It's finally here! After weeks of hard work, we're happy to announce the release of Kanban Tool On-Site. Now you can deploy Kanban Tool on your own server and keep all important data safe and secure inside your company.

On-premise Kanban boards are the perfect solution especially for large companies and international corporations that deal with sensitive data and cannot use cloud-based solutions. Kanban Tool On-Site can be easily customized to fit business of all types and sizes as well as integrated with your own IT infrastructure and existing systems.

Find our more about on-premise Kanban boards offer by visiting Kanban Tool On-Site page. Contact us to purchase Kanban Tool On-Site or to get more information.

5 Tips for Managing a Remote Team13 Mar 2013

Today, many of us work regularly with colleagues based in different buildings, cities, countries, and even continents. A remote team is a common occurrence. Here are five tips for remote team management to help you manage your team more effectively.

1. Set and share team goals

Working from home is appealing to relatively introverted people. Make sure the employees you hire enjoy working on their own but also thrive on stepping forward. Allow them to actively suggest new ideas, create their own projects, set and share personal goals, and recommend solutions.

The key to ensure the employees work effectively in a remote environment is to help them be self-motivated by providing clearly outlined goals, making them responsible for results, and generating individual accountability plans with a self-monitoring system. Employees working as team members need to know and understand what they are doing together. If they understand only their own role and their own work, they will always remain just individual contributors. Start with establishing SMARTER objectives for your team:
S- Specific, M- Measurable, A- Achievable, R- Relevant, T- Time bound, E- Engaging and R- Resourced.

Share goals with you team members. Discuss the objectives with your team and allow each member to suggest changes. Require week reports from your team members or use KanbanTool Analytics tool to track the workflow.

2. Focus on results

Let your team members manage their own time. This sends the message that you trust your employees. However, require them to show up on time for important meetings and to be available during the team's general working hours. Provide them with the tools to access their work remotely. Remember, remote employees should focus on accomplishing objectives as quickly and efficiently as possible. Great remote employees finish tasks ahead of time—on and ask for more.

3. Give people shorter assignments

This is not the time to give people long assignments and hope that they are completed by the deadline. Instead of assigning a three-week activity, for instance, assign the work in three one-week activities. Shorter-term due dates and Work In Progress limits help avoid multitasking and improve the workflow.

4. Communicate effectively and frequently

With working remotely, communication becomes even harder to maintain and manage. Regularly check in with members to monitor progress and provide necessary feedback. Keep members apprised of crucial information and decisions. People can start to feel isolated if they do not receive regular communications. It is hard enough to keep everyone informed on a “regular” project.

The communication lines on a virtual team must be opened up especially wide. Schedule a conference or video conference calls often. Send out group emails addressing particular projects. Encourage your team members to use comments on KanbanTool cards to ask question or share ideas with attachments. Be sure to choose the most effective method of communication that fits your remote team’s needs. Discuss other ways to ensure your team members are communicating frequently enough with each other to prevent mistakes, unnecessary progress on cancelled projects, or to announce breaking news and emergencies. If you choose the most effective means of communicating for your team, you will ensure your remote employees are up to speed on all important matters.

5. Create Team Spirit

Remote workers often feel detached from the “mother ship”. The manager must endeavor to create a sense of bond with the team and company. Here are some ways to create the sense of community among team members that they are missing by not being in a co-located office environment: monthly team meetings (teleconferences or video conferences), rotating responsibility for chairing the monthly meetings, celebrating birthdays or outstanding personal and team achievements, allowing employees to use instant messaging to communicate informally, and creating opportunities for team members to collaborate on improvements.

Kanban board for managing online store sales process07 Mar 2013

Kanban boards bring continuous improvements in workflow management to many different organizations. They help to successfully conducting all kinds of projects as well as to manage complex processes.

Today we would like to present you an example on how to use KanbanTool for managing an online store sales process.


As you can see on the picture, we divided our board into 3 main columns: “Order received”, “Payment received”. “Order prepared and sent” and 8 subcolumns: “Order checked”, “Order confirmation sent”, “Payment checked”, “Payment confirmation sent”, “Order picking”, “Order dispatched, “Dispatch confirmation sent”, “Feedback form sent”. We also decided to add two swimlanes that will separate orders from our returning customers and new clients. We did it for two reasons. First of all, we wanted to reward returning customers and offer them a special treatment. We will send our loyal customers (along with the order confirmation) a special thanks for continuing purchases in our store as well as a small gift (together with a product dispatch). Secondly, the information about returning customers should be in our data base and we know that some actions can be done faster.

Cards on our Kanban board represent orders. The color of a card helps to identify a category of online store products covered by the order. Icons on a card inform us about the high priority task (red arrow) and about the number of days left to send the dispatch because each order has to be sent up to 14 days after we received an order from a customer. When we point the date in the “Due date” field on card when the dispatch should be send, the icon with the number of days remaining will show up on a card. Attachments help us to keep all documents concerning the particular order in one place.

More advanced users can use Zapier to integrate KanbanTool with Shopify. To learn how to do it, please visit KanbanTool integrations page on Zapier.

Kanban board is a perfect tool for managing online sales. It can significantly improve sales process management by organizing orders from customers into tasks. This way you can see all orders in one central place.

Share with us your story on how you designed your Kanban board and how do you use KanbanTool to achieve better results.

KanbanTool has integrated with Zapier!27 Feb 2013

We’re excited to announce that KanbanTool is now integrated with Zapier. This is the easiest way to sync KanbanTool with other web services you and your team already use on a daily basis.

Zapier hooks KanbanTool up with over 170 applications. There are so many possibilities waiting for you to try them out!

Take a look at some ideas you might like to use:

• create a new KanbanTool card via: Gmail Email, Google Tasks, Evernote Note, Basecamp Todo, Zendesk Ticket, Wufoo Entry, GitHub Issue or... SMS
• set new orders in Shopify to create new cards in KanbanTool
• automatically create new Google Calendar Event from new KanbanTool task
.

Just visit the KanbanTool integrations page on Zapier. Select an application you want to sync KanbanTool with and create your first Zap. Setting this up is easy! Follow instructions from Zapier to get started.

Have fun!
KanbanTool Team

Card blocking and other goodies from KanbanTool21 Feb 2013

Does it often happen to you that you can't finish your work due to circumstances that are beyond your control? Do you face the lack of information, equipment or decision making power that makes it impossible to move forward? Now you can inform other team members about your problem by simply blocking a card on a Kanban board. Click left mouse button on a card, choose "Block task", describe why you want to block it and confirm the action. You will not be able to move the card until you unlock it.


Secondly, we have improved the search box. Search result for card titles, card types, tags etc. also include tasks located in collapsed columns. If collapsed column contains the task that matches search query, information about it will be displayed in the form of blue box.

Finally, it is very common that people use card "Description" field as a place where they can write down ideas and important information. They copy and paste pieces of text from multiple documents, web sites or emails to keep everything in one place. As a result, a mixture of styles and sizes of text is blended together and information on the card becomes unreadable. To make the text look equal you can select text area and click on "Remove Formatting" button.



If you encounter any problems with the new features or have suggestions how to improve KanbanTool, please feel free to send us your feedback. It is always appreciated.

How to organize business meeting using online Kanban board?11 Feb 2013

Meetings are an important part of the business world. Make them a positive part of your business operations by organizing them well and fast. Start with developing a concise checklist for preparing a meeting and transfer it to a Kanban board. This is how we did it.

First of all, we created a new board using the Basic Kanban Board Template. Secondly, we decided to use swimlanes in order to distinguish areas of actions related to the preparation of the meeting. We named our swimlanes as follows: "Invite people", "Arrange venue", "Arrange catering" and "Run event". To facilitate the distribution of tasks, make it clear and visible for everyone, we assigned team members to swimlanes. However, you can use a different option, and assign tasks directly to people.

Next, we customized the card template. We decided that the only pieces of information we really need to see on the cards are description, due-date and task number (to specify the sequence of actions). Using colors we highlighted key initial tasks (blue) and key final tasks (red). To keep everything in one place and not forget about anything, we added necessary attachments to the cards and created detailed to-do lists.

The best thing about our Kanban board when it comes to meetings is that it is absolutely reusable. We can clone tasks as well as board template. After each meeting we will evaluate our work and try to find ways to improve. Kanban board will help us develop simple routines for preparing successful business meetings.

Time wasters – What kills our productivity at work? 31 Jan 2013

These days no one can afford to waste time at work. We need to speed up and improve our productivity at work in order to achieve better results, beat the competitors and survive. Productivity experts have come up with many effective ways to accomplish more in less time. However, even the best time management practices will not be able to help you, if you are still wasting time on pointless actions.

• Emails
  There is no doubt emails are a convenient way to communicate. However, sometimes it is much simpler just to have a short face to face or telephone conversation instead of sending back and forth emails. Plan a short meeting to explain the problem and answer all questions.
• Ineffective Multi-Tasking
  There’s a limit to how many things you can do at once without taking away from the quality of your work and, ultimately, slowing down the process. Use priorities and set work in progress limits to avoid bad consequences of multi-tasking.
• Meetings
  It is estimated that 50% of all time spent in meetings is wasted. What can you do make your meetings more productive? First of all, make sure you really need a meeting: if what you have to say can be easily shared in an email to the group, why get people away from their work? If you definitely need to meet you team, remember that the meeting should have a goal. Put the purpose of the meeting into an agenda and distribute it to attendees before the meeting starts. Finally, choose the meeting moderator who will ensure that the participants remain focused on important problems.
• Non-work related Internet Surfing
  Surfing the Internet is a common way to have a quick break from work. It is much better to leave this type of search for your lunch break or the end of the work day.

The awareness of our bad habits can help us improve the productivity at work. Here, we've presented only some of the most common time wasters. Let us know what is your and what you do to combat it.

Top 7 Changes in Kanban Tool09 Jan 2013

We have been working working really hard to provide the best Kanban application for teams and businesses and last year was really busy for us. During that time we have released a bunch of new features and improvements. To help you get to know the best of them, we have created a list of top 7 changes in Kanban Tool in 2012.

• Kanban Boards Redesign
  We have changed the look and feel of Kanban Tool. New design has lighter and more delicate colors to let you focus on what is most important.
• File Attachments
  You can now easily attach and share images, videos, documents and whatever you want with your team members. File attachments are available on the Unlimited plan only.
• Adding Tasks From Email
  This feature is perfect if you use many devices and want to quickly add new tasks to your board.
• Moving Tasks Between Boards
  Monitoring large process on single board can be hard. But since Kanban Tool allows you to move tasks between boards you can use as many boards as you need and just move tasks between them. You can also copy and move tasks within one board using the "Move to" option from card dropdown menu.
• Kanban Library
  We gathered and carefully selected links to the best Kanban and Scrum resources from leaders, experts and brightest minds in the Kanban sphere. It is definitely the first place to visit if you want to develop knowledge on visual project management, Kanban and Scrum.
• Keyboard Shortcuts
  Keyboard shortcuts makes working with Kanban Tool even faster. Just hit "N" to create a new task or Ctrl+Enter to save and close opened card. Check out the full list of keyboard shortcuts for even more.
• Column and Swimlane Policies
  With column and swimlane policies you do not need to train people before they start working with Kanban board. You can write a column or swimlane policy that describes the rules and how to use it.

We have also made many improvements to make Kanban Tool even better. Boards work much faster and support mobile devices. You can fully customize them with collapsible columns, subcolumns and swimlanes. Each card has a separate URL for easier sharing. You can also get more insight into the process with improved reports and charts on Analytics page.

Kanban Tool was doing also very well in terms of security and reliability. Our uptime for 2012 was 99,98%. Only 2 times during this year our tool was down for longer than 15 minutes. As always, all major updates were made during the weekends only, to let you work without any interruptions.

We want to thank you very, very much for all your love and support. We received tons of emails from you with really valuable feedback and suggestions on how to make Kanban Tool even better. We are really proud to have far the best customers and users in the world! We promise to work even harder in 2013 to provide the very best service possible! We hope that you share our vision of Kanban Tool and like the changes we have made. As always, feel free to send us your feedback. We really love to hear your comments and suggestions.

You might expect important changes in Kanban Tool in the first and second quarter of 2013.
Subscribe to our blog, not to miss the next big thing!

Truly yours,
Kanban Tool Team

New Kanban Board design02 Jan 2013

Since kanbantool.com launch in late 2009, we have been making only small and gradual improvements to the kanban board design. This was good, but over time the technology has advanced and it was a high time to make bigger change to keep our boards pretty and appealing. The update is now live on all accounts, and I hope you will like it as much as we do!

The design update brings a fresh new look to Kanban Boards. They are much lighter and more friendly than before. To keep things simple, we've decided to leave most of the navigation where it was before, making only small modifications.

Starting from the top left, we have replaced the 'Dashboard' text with small home icon which takes you back to the dashboard. Next to it, you will find the current board name. Clicking on it will open the board switcher which you can use to switch between recently used boards.

The main menu was mostly left unchanged. It has following links:
Board link taking you back to your board
Analytics section with Breakdown chart, Lead & Cycle Time, Cumulative Flow Diagrams and Changelog
Archive page listing all archived tasks
Settings page where you can customize your board layout, card types and card template
Exit taking you back to Dashboard.

On the right, you will find links to feedback, tools menu and the searchbox. Tools menu has some goodies inside. From it you can: subscribe to RSS to stay posted about any changes on the board, import or export cards to Excel or CSV, send tasks with due dates to calendars (Outlook / iCal / Google or other) or even generate email address which you can use to add tasks from email. There is also a link to our express Kanban board tutorial. Search box allows you to search for card titles, card types, tags, assignees, task ID and custom fields.

With Kanban Tool, you can now fully focus on getting things done instead of managing your work. As well as the above highlights, we have added a small but useful feature: You can enter numeric values (like revenue, cost, age etc.) in custom fields and generate reports basing on that.

We hope you like our new design!
Please feel free to send us your comments and suggestions. We are happy to receive your feedback.

Moving tasks between boards and other improvements09 Oct 2012

For those who manage multiple projects, we have added an option to move tasks between boards. To access this feature, open popup menu for card you want to move and choose „Move to” from the list. Then, specify where the card should be moved, choosing target board, workflow stage and swimlane:

After the grace period, support for attachments is now enabled by default for all Unlimited plan subscribers. As a bonus, we have added image attachments preview:

Another feature we have added is the new keyboard shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+F enables you to quickly toggle between normal and full-screen card description view.

And that's not all - we have managed to significantly shorten the board loading time, so even large boards should load fast now.

We hope that all these improvements will positively affect your work. Should you have any questions or suggestions about them, please let us know by sending feedback.

Support for attachments and better tags19 Sep 2012

We have been recently receiving many suggestions about adding support for attachments, and we are proud to announce that this has been now implemented and released as an experimental feature for all Unlimited plan subscribers.

If you are Unlimited plan subscriber, you can enable attachments on board "Settings" > "Card Template Editor" page. With task attachments you can store all relevant information together and easily share it with your team.

We have also made visual improvements to the task tags field. It's auto-completing and much easier to use now.

Maintenance release02 Sep 2012

Today we have released a maintenance update of Kanban Tool. Along with fixing some minor bugs, it has addressed the discrepancy between user and task identifiers as seen on the website and in the API.

Because of this, the task IDs as seen in Excel and CSV export had to be shifted by 20 positions, and you may need to adjust spreadsheet formulas to account for that.

If you encounter any problems with this update or have suggestions how to make Kanban Tool better, please let us know by sending feedback.

Comment about recent connectivity issues affecting some accounts31 Aug 2012

Today a power issue has affected the datacenter where part of our infrastructure is hosted, making some accounts and our homepage inaccessible for about an hour. This issue should be fully resolved at this time.

If your account was affected we sincerely apologize for the trouble and thank you for your patience and understanding. We work hard to provide the highest uptime possible, and aim for 99.95% service availability.
If you are still experiencing any connectivity issues please contact us with the feedback form or email support@kanbantool.com.

We have received the following Incident Report from datacenter facility:

Subsequent to the utility power failure at our Cedar Knolls facility the generator that powers systems A and D did not start automatically. Manual intervention was required to get generator power running. Unfortunately before the generator was manually engaged customers on these systems experienced a complete power loss. We are still investigating why the generator did not engage automatically. Utility power has been restored, and transfer back to utility was successful.

Keyboard shortcuts and improvements in Kanban analytics22 Aug 2012

Over the weekend we have successfully released some new features. Now you can work faster and save your time by using keyboard shortcuts on Kanban Board view.

Try out following shortcuts:
N for adding new tasks
Ctrl + Enter for saving and closing existing task or for creating and closing new tasks
Ctrl + Shift + Enter for saving changes to the existing Kanban card or for creating and adding next new task
Esc for closing card without saving
Ctrl or Shift + arrow (up or down) for navigating between swimlanes
Ctrl + number (from 1 to 9) for navigating between swimlanes, eg. Ctrl + 2 scrolls to the second swimlane

Understanding the meaning of Kanban metrics is a key for analyzing your workflow and improving your performance. To make Kanban charts and diagrams easier to understand we have added short help for each of them with a link to more resources directing to the Kanban Library. Furthermore, you can now mark a column as Backlog/Inventory, In Progress, Waiting or Done to generate even more insightful reports.

Another enhancement is easier way of collapsing columns when you are working with large boards. You can now always collapse or expand column by clicking on it's label. Additionally, you can now move cards to collapsed columns by dragging them over and holding until the column expands.

Finally, we have added description field to workflow stages and swimlanes which you can use to describe the lane policy or just to put some notes in.

If you encounter any problems with the new features or have suggestions how to make Kanban Tool better, please let us know by sending feedback.

New features: Kanban Tool Support section and user import06 Aug 2012

Recently our web development team has expanded and has speed up the development of new features in Kanban Tool. This week we have released a bunch of new features:

We have released Kanban Tool Support section with collection of answers to frequently asked questions, and other useful information about Kanban Tool. We plan to gradually expand this section with new questions and answers.

You can add new users to Kanban Tool by importing their details from CSV / excel. If you have a CSV file with people you would like to add to your account, you can import them at once instead of adding each person individually.

Another useful feature is a random password generator. If you do not want to think of new password each time you invite people to your account, password generator will help you create strong random passwords.

Last new feature is automatic link detection in Kanban task comments, which makes such links clickable.

We hope you enjoy the latest changes and, as always, feel free to send us feedback.

New features: Kanban board switcher & improvements to analytics 30 Jul 2012

Over the weekend we have released some new features.
Kanban board switcher allows you to save more time and easily switch between boards:



Extended set of filters for Kanban board analytics gives you more information when working with different sized tasks.



If you encounter any problems with the new features or have suggestions how to make Kanban Tool better, please let us know by sending feedback.

Kanban Library - a collection of resources on Kanban 05 Jun 2012

Understanding the basic elements of Kanban is a vital step in boosting your productivity with KanbanTool. Until now resources on Kanban have been scattered across many websites, and to help you with research, learning and sharing knowledge, we have decided to separate the wheat from the chaff and created a robust collection of links to the best resources from Kanban leaders and experts.

Take a look at the brand new library section to learn from the best.

We also wish to engage everyone in making Kanban Library the best place to look for high-quality Kanban articles, videos and presentations. You are welcome to make your own contribution to the base, suggest interesting materials and share your experience on Kanban.

KanbanTool - Start-up Winner08 May 2012

We are happy to announce that the KanbanTool Team has been awarded by the jury of ”Start-up Boot Camp” The First Price For The Best Start-up With Global Potential. The contest „Start-up Boot Camp” has been organized for a second time by the Polish American Council of Cooperation during the „II New Economy Forum”.

We would like to sincerely thank the organizers and the jury of “Start-up Boot Camp” for the award. In addition, we would like to express our gratitude to all our customers for encouraging the development of the KanbanTool.

Email integration and CSV export for cumulative flow26 Mar 2012

New time-saving features are now ready for use! In the latest update we have focused on two cool improvements.
From now on, you can add tasks and comments via email. It is a simple way of managing your work anytime and from anywhere.

Secondly, we have improved analytics. Your are now able to export data from cumulative flow chart to CSV file, download and save it on your computer.

The missing menu12 Mar 2012

Over the weekend we have released an update which adds popup menu to individual cells on Kanban board. This allows you to easily move, archive and sort tasks on boards with multiple swimlanes. To open it, just right-click or ctrl-click on some empty space around your tasks:

Kanban Board performance improvements and tweaks05 Mar 2012

We are happy to announce that over the past weekend we have released few tweaks and performance improvements to online Kanban boards:

• The major improvement is in the speed of most common operations. You should see cards opening faster, and the service being even more responsive than before.
• We have also added more fields to the CSV import feature, making it easy to import tasks with multiple attributes in one go.
• Another, quite substantial tweak, is in the user's naming scheme.
  Until now, all usernames in the system had to be unique. Since we have over 12.000 users registered, most common names and variations were already taken. We have decided to remove this limitation. Now usernames need to be unique only inside given domain / account. This allows for greater flexibility and allows you to comply with any specific user account naming requirements you may have.

If you encounter any problems with the new features or have suggestions how to make Kanban Tool better, please let us know by sending feedback.

11 New Card Colors27 Feb 2012

Your kanban board can now be even more colorful: we have just added 11 new and fresh card colors. And our Kanban cards are now available in 22 colors! Visualizing your work with Kanban Tool has never been easier. Enjoy.

Custom Kanban Card Fields - New Features 23 Jan 2012

We have just released few, long awaited features.
Now you can customize Kanban cards even further with dropdowns and date picker as custom fields:

What's more, we have added some complementary improvements to "Analytics". You can now view a breakdown chart of custom fields:

Extra field to keep track of even more information about your team18 Jan 2012

We have recently added an extra field which you can use to keep track of even more information regarding your team members. To access this feature, go to the "People" tab and click on "edit" link for the team member you want to set the extra information for:



Next fill any extra information and save changes:

Kanban in 4 easy steps reached over 50.000 views16 Jan 2012

Our presentation "Kanban in 4 easy steps" has just reached over 50.000 views, 36 favorites and 260 downloads. It has been awarded a Top Presentation of the Day and featured on SlideShare homepage. A must see.

A gift for Christmas 24 Dec 2011

We have prepared a small Christmas gift for all. Starting from today you can enforce the use of secure connection (HTTPS) when working with KanbanTool. This is an account-level setting and will have effect for all users.
So if you store some state secrets, like current location of Santa Claus, you can enable this option to make sure all users are connecting with KanbanTool in the most secure way possible.

All communication is encrypted with 256-bit key length, which is even stronger than the one currently used by Google, and even Santa can't break it to sniff your data.

Have a great Christmas!

Merry Christmas! 23 Dec 2011

We would like to thank you for using our solutions and wish you a joyful, merry and relaxing Christmas time.

API Bindings & Kanban presentation18 Dec 2011

We have recently published API Bindings for jQuery, which should help developers to interact with KanbanTool from JavaScript. You can find them in our official GitHub repository on https://github.com/kanbantool/api.

We have also posted a short and (we hope) funny introduction to Kanban on SlideShare: http://www.slideshare.net/kanbantool/kanban-in-4-easy-steps

And finally, we have updated our API documentation with some examples of how to interact with KanbanTool API directly from your browser: http://kanbantool.com/about/api#wrappers

API Update11 Dec 2011

We have added some new methods to our API, which will allow you to read recent board activity and interact with Comments and ToDo lists. They are explained on the freshly redesigned API documentation page.

We are also finishing works on the new API bindings for JavaScript which will allow you to build custom online solutions on top of the KanbanTool platform.

New dashboard UI and updated system architecture11 Oct 2011

Over the weekend we have released a major update to our system architecture. This concludes over a month of work and preparations and creates a solid ground for future development and growth of KanbanTool. We are now running on a cutting edge platform which provides better support for new browsers, improved performance and allows for ease of future development

Apart from tech changes we have greatly improved dashboard look and feel, which has been re-designed to be more modern, friendly and easy to use. Adding new team members is now also much faster and simpler - you can invite them directly from the sharing page.

Other areas which have been improved include:
- faster board loading times,
- new board cloning feature,
- more distinctive way of moving boards between folders,
- drag&drop placeholder for tasks,
- full support for drag&drop on iPad,
- and many other small tweaks which will make your work more efficient.

We would love to hear what you think about latest changes.
Your feedback is really valuable for us and influences the future development of KanbanTool.

Enjoy!
the KanbanTool Team

Duplicating tasks and better iPad support14 Aug 2011

By a common request we have added a way to duplicate tasks. Duplication preserves all task attributes including subtasks, and creates an exact copy just below the original task. To try it, click on the new "Duplicate" entry in task context menu:

We have improved the experience for all iPad users. It's really amazing how intuitive dragging tasks with your finger is! We have also fixed few minor bugs with iPad version of Safari.

Another small tweak requested by many users was ability to move the opened card to see what's under it.
Just catch it at the top and drag anywhere you like:

As usual, if you encounter any problems with the new features or have suggestions how to make KanbanTool better, please let us know by sending feedback.

Toolbar button for Google Chrome10 Jul 2011

We are happy to announce another goodie for Google Chrome users - a toolbar button which lets you add tasks to multiple boards without losing the stream of consciousness. It can be installed from here.

Also, some people reported problems when importing tasks with external IDs. This issue should be fixed now.

We are constantly improving our service to better meet your needs. If you encounter any problems with the new features or have suggestions how to make KanbanTool better, please let us know by sending feedback.

External task IDs26 Jun 2011

By a common request, we have added an external identifier field for tasks. You can enable it on the "Board Settings" > "Card Template" page.

We are constantly improving our service to better meet your needs. If you encounter any problems with the new features or have suggestions how to make KanbanTool better, please let us know by sending feedback.

A bunch of new features and Chrome app12 Jun 2011

We have slightly extended board analytics section so you can now get breakdowns filtered by card type:

CSV import file format is now being remembered between imports. This should be helpful when doing regular imports from the same source.

You can now specify the default task size in the card template editor:

We have added a new API method, listing users and permissions for given board.

And finally, for those who are using Google Chrome, we have prepared a dedicated application which can be installed in your browser and will act as a shortcut to your account:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/lcbdfgcnokicageijdibcbjfljhmgdbo

We are constantly improving our service to better meet your needs. If you encounter any problems with the new features or have suggestions how to make KanbanTool better, please let us know by sending feedback.

Full screen task description editor, direct links and notifications15 May 2011

Basing on your feedback we have implemented the full screen editor for task descriptions. You can now easily view and edit long task descriptions. To open it, simply click on the screen icon in the editor:

As you might have noticed, from some time we also support direct task links. Once you open the task view, you can copy the URL and share it with others.

If you want to receive email notifications about tasks which are being assigned to you, you can now opt-in to them in the "My Info" » "Edit my details" section:

We are constantly improving our tool to better meet your needs. If you encounter any problems with the new features or have suggestions how to make Kanban Tool better, please let us know by sending feedback.

Tasks import and SSL support20 Feb 2011

Basing on your feedback we have implemented the tasks import feature. You can use it to easily add many tasks in one go or import them directly from CSV/Excel file. The link is available in board "tools" menu:

Secure connections using SSL protocol are now also fully supported.
Simply change the http:// to https:// in your browser's address bar to activate it:

We are constantly improving our online kanban boards to better meet your needs. If you encounter any problems with the new features or have suggestions how to make Kanban Tool better, please let us know by sending feedback. In next release we plan to focus on improvements to the email notifications and our systems architecture.

API and comment notifications13 Feb 2011

1. We are happy to announce first public beta of Kanban Tool API!
You can use it to push and pull information between Kanban Tool and your own applications, allowing to fully integrate it with your existing systems and workflow.
Preliminary API developer documentation is available on kanbantool.com/about/api. The full API will be rolled out in phases, basing on your feedback, with all changes being backward compatible.
For a limited time, the API is open to all users, but eventually any write access will be restricted to paid accounts only. Reading data from API will remain open for all account types.

So generate your unique API key on the "My Info" » "API access" page, and start tinkering :)

2. Email notifications for task comments
We have received a lot of suggestions about adding email notifications support to Kanban Tool.
So we have started with adding notifications for task comments:
and plan to add notifications for other events in short future.

We hope you like the new features. We are constantly improving our online kanban boards to better meet your needs. In next release we plan to focus on the import feature and possibly more notifications.

Read-only access and more sharing options30 Jan 2011

A long awaited feature has been implemented - you can now fine tune kanban board access permissions for individual users:

Kanban Tool is becoming a paid service2 Jan 2011

In recent months Kanban Tool has been growing very rapidly, becoming one of the largest and most commonly recommended online kanban solutions. We are happy we could keep it free for so long, but in order to keep up with fast pace, we had to make this big decision:

We are excited to announce introduction of paid plans. Money from them will be used to provide even better user experience and to implement new features. They will come back to you with improved efficiency of your work, which we are sure to provide. The plans range from free to enterprise level, and the pricing is really great comparing to other offers on the market. As promised, we are also giving discounts to all existing users who have contributed to making Kanban Tool better.

If you are existing customer, please login to your account as administrator to get more details and upgrade instructions. You need to subscribe to one of the offered plans within 30 days.

Dynamic labels and other Christmas goodies5 Dec 2010

We have released a bunch of cool new features today:

1. Export to calendar which allows you to view all tasks and due dates in your favorite organizer software
   (like Outlook, iCal, KOrganizer, Evolution and many other).
2. Dynamic floating labels which will help you to navigate across large boards.
   
3. Swimlane name, card type and progress in excel export.
   
4. New tools menu with export to calendar and subscribe to RSS feed links.
   

We have also finally fixed the issue with accented letters in excel export and made some other small improvements to make Kanban Tool even more friendly, reliable and easy to use.

New design of public pages29 Nov 2010

The new, updated look and feel of public pages is live. We hope you like it!

Organise your work using swimlanes4 Oct 2010

New release is live! You can now use horizontal swimlanes to organise your work:

As usual, we've also made some other small improvements to make Kanban Tool even more friendly, reliable and easy to use.

Better support for touchscreens (iPhone/iPad/Android), due dates and external links12 Sep 2010

New release is live!
We have improved support for touchscreen devices. When you tap extended context menu will appear:

Another improvement is addition of two card fields - "External link" and "Due date" - which can be enabled on "Settings"-> "Card Template" page.

If you encounter any problems with the new features or have suggestions how to make Kanban Tool better, please let us know by sending feedback.

Custom Card Fields30 Aug 2010

Another bunch of new features is live!
You can now customize your cards even further - hide any unneeded fields and define up to five custom ones. Those options are available on board "Settings" -> "Card Template" page:
We have also made some other minor changes:

• archived tasks are no longer counted towards last column's limit,
• improved usability of to-do lists,
• collapsed board columns now display card count and limits.

As usual, we've also made some other small improvements to make Kanban Tool even more friendly, reliable and easy to use.

Cycle and Lead Times22 Aug 2010

Over the past month we have received many inquiries regarding the measurement of cycle time with KanbanTool. It wasn't easy - you had to use Little's law to deduct it from Cumulative Flow chart.
But it's going to change now as we've added support for cycle/lead time calculations:

To-do lists for tasks9 Aug 2010

Ever missed the detailed to-do lists / subtasks for tasks? You will find them in the latest update!
From now on, you can easily define a to-do checklist for each of your tasks and track its progress:

Workflow templates and custom card types6 Jun 2010

In the latest update we have focused on two long awaited features.
From now on, you can choose from a set of workflow templates when creating new boards. What's more, you can duplicate the structure of any other boards you've created before:
A lot of people wanted to have more card types. Now you can create as many of them as you like! To make this even better, in the next week we will add a bit more card colors to choose from.

We've also made some other minor improvements to make Kanban Tool even more friendly, reliable and easy to use. If you encounter any problems with the new features or have suggestions how to make Kanban Tool better, please let us know by sending feedback..

Board tour and export to excel24 May 2010

The latest update adds a board tutorial and export to excel feature:

We have also fixed some bugs and did minor tweaks to other areas.

New release makes sharing even easier!8 May 2010

We have received a lot of questions about what are projects for and how to share Kanban Board with other people. Our initial idea was that you should group things by "projects" to which they belong and that you would only want to share "projects" and not the individual Kanban Boards.

This had caused a lot of confusion, so we've decided to simplify things a bit. To that end, we've dropped the notion of "projects" and replaced it with "folders". We hope this sounds more clear as the real purpose of projects was to group things up. What's more, you can now share any dashboard item, including Kanban Boards and Notes.

We've also made some other minor improvements to make Kanban Tool even more friendly, reliable and easy to use. If you encounter any problems with the new features or have suggestions how to make Kanban Tool better, please let us know by sending feedback.

Cool features in the latest release19 Apr 2010

An improved card view:

More filters for breakdown charts and cumulative flow:

And a new "size" field on kanban cards, which should help you get the most from kanban board analytics in case your tasks require different level of effort to complete.

Latest release - summary of features10 Apr 2010

In the latest release we have added "account" tab in main navigation. It is visible only to account owners and has lots of goodies inside:

• Account settings - view and modify your account settings (including name).
• Usage report - get quick insight into some statistics about your account.
• and probably the most exciting feature: CNAME domain alias support!
  Now you can access your Kanban Tool account directly from your own domain.

We hope you like the new features. We are constantly improving our free online Kanban tool to better meet your needs. In the next release we plan to focus on extending and improving kanban board analytics.

Latest release - summary of features28 Mar 2010

In the latest release made on Thursday we have added several useful features and improvements.
Below is a short summary of what has changed:

• You can prioritize tasks. Each card will be marked with icon to indicate it's status:
  
• You can click on a shortcut icon to get to the card comments tab, or hover mouse over it to see how many comments were made:
  
• You can track all changes with the detailed board changelog. What's more, you can subscribe to it by RSS and also view each individual task history. You can find it in kanban board Analytics.
• If you like working with Excel / Numbers, you will love the CSV export feature we have added to the archive and changelog pages.

We've also made some other minor improvements to make Kanban Tool even more friendly, reliable and easy to use. If you encounter any problems with the new features or have suggestions how to make Kanban Tool better, please let us know by sending feedback.

Welcome to Kanban Tool blog25 Mar 2010

Welcome to our brand new blog! This is a perfect moment to share some positive statistics we've gathered so far. We are very proud to say that:

• We have received tons of emails with suggestions and feedback
• 94% of our customers ideas have been accepted for implementation
• 72% of ideas and suggestions have already been implemented
• 64% of received emails started from positive words about Kanban Tool.
  (Thank you! We really appreciate it.)
• Every 2-3 weeks we try to update our online application to meet your needs.

Kanban Tool aims to be the easiest to use online tool for task and project management, both for team and personal use. We are going to use this blog to share with you the latest news, updates and tutorials. You can also find us on twitter and facebook.