Analytics

Find out what workflow analytics and Kanban metrics are available in Kanban Tool and learn how to read them. Use the automated graphs in order to learn about your team performance and use this as a base for future process improvements. All of these Kanban metrics are accessible under Settings - Analytics.

What metrics does Kanban Tool offer?

To access your Analytics - please go to the Tools menu in top right corner of a board view - and open Analytics.
If you are an Enterprise plan user, you will also find a Time Report under Tools. Please watch the video to learn more about Kanban Tool metrics.

How to use the Breakdown Chart?

These charts will show you various breakdowns of data gathered on the board.
Great, when looking for information on task distribution among the team, or information about task types, priorities, assignments, or size ratios within the workflow.

Analysis can be done for an entire board or particular swimlanes, columns, task types (colors) alone.
Breakdown Chart

What are time reports?

The time report is a metric closely connected to the time tracking feature since all information in it is based on the times your team members have logged in while working on their tasks.

The benefits of using it, are:

  • gaining knowledge about how fast certain types of tasks can get done
    How? - by filtering by task type
  • learning how much time the team spends on doing what specifically
    How? - by filtering by user
  • finding out in what stage does the team spend most of the time - which process stage takes the longest
    How? - by grouping by stage

The time report is also an indispensable tool for work items, that need to be charged for based on the amount of time, that completing them took. Find out more details about using the report here.

Please note, that time tracking and reporting is only available in the Enterprise service plan.

What is a Lead and Cycle Time Diagram for?

The Lead and Cycle Time diagram of Kanban Tool can be used for measuring the average cycle time of tasks. To best understand it, simply take note of the heading that allows a choice of options for the graph - it says:

Show how long it takes chosen tasks with chosen parameters to get from chosen column on a Kanban board to another column within a set time frame.

Once you’ve chosen the parameters that interest you, a graph will be generated. You can click on the blue points to get more details about the tasks worked on in that period.
This will give you information about the time passed from the task’s creation to its completion: the cycle time.

Lead and Cycle Time Diagram

It’s also possible to get more comprehensive information about the lead and cycle times. To do so, you simply need to change the values for chosen columns (“from” and “to”) - rather than seeing the time value for tasks to travel from “Backlog” to “Done”, you’d be checking the time they spend in between “Doing” and “Done”.

This is what gives you the information on the actual time spent on tasks (cycle time) which can be compared to the time tasks spent on the board in general (lead time), which is, in its core, information about your team and process throughput.

Learn more about the Lead and Cycle Time diagrams or What is the Lead Time in Your Process?

What does the Cumulative Flow graph tell me?

This graph presents the build-up of tasks on your board over time.
The horizontal line shows the time passed, while the vertical line indicates the number of tasks in different columns/workflow stages.
Each column is signaled by a different color.

Naturally, the bottom band, representing the rightmost column - which usually is for done work, will always be growing higher, for as long as completed work keeps building up.
That’s why the diagram usually takes shape of a rising slope. Cumulative Flow - a General View

What is more interesting, from an analytical point of view, are the top bands of the graph - those that represent the tasks in progress or waiting to be worked on.
Ideally, you should be looking for the team to achieve an evenly looking in progress band, as that would suggest work being completed at a constant pace.
As soon as you begin noticing that the in progress bar displays jumps, ditches, and general unevenness - that’s a sign, that work is not being completed, tasks get stuck and pile up in preceding columns as a result, with top bands getting wider.

The CFD is also a great tool for finding out when any extra help can be of use - if you notice that bands representing to do types of columns are getting wider, despite the doing bands progressing evenly - you may need to consider hiring extra team members to help with the workload.

Note, that you can switch particular bands of workflow stages on and off, by clicking their names at the bottom of the graph. Great for when you want to focus on particular workflow stages only: Cumulative Flow - a Custom View

You can also zoom in on a particular time frame by simply highlighting it with the mouse cursor.

What can I learn from the Changelog?

To access a record of all changes made on a board, please go to Tools - Changelog.

The Changelog is the place to go to find what kinds of changes have been applied to the board, and by whom. This information can be displayed for chosen time-frames, limited by people making the changes and by the type of change.

You can be viewing all recorded changes, just the task moves, additions of comments only, or task changes alone.
Great if you need to know who suddenly shortened the due dates for all your tasks ;) The Changelog

How to quickly analyze board content for specific criteria?

This is best done via the search option and filter box, both located in the top right corner of a board view. The always-open box is for filtering the current board view, and you can search through all boards by opening a search with the magnifying glass icon.

For filters, you can either type text into the filter field to look for specific items on the board, or you can use the built-in filters: Filter for Tasks Updated Today

Time estimates: How to manage your team's working time?

If you want your team to only be starting work on tasks, that they can finish within a given time, a good way to do it is by use of the Estimated Time field, and limiting the Work in Progress by these estimated values.

Estimated time on a card

There is a specific WIP limit setting available for this purpose - it limits the number of tasks in the Working column by the amount of time, that has been estimated for these tasks.
So, if you have an 8-hours workday, and tasks on your boards have been estimated time-wise with the Estimated Time field, you can apply this setting to make sure you’re only getting started on as many tasks as you will be able to handle in these 8 hours.

To configure it, please make sure that you have the Estimated Time field enabled for your cards, this can be done from the board’s Settings - Card Template.
After that, simply go to your Board Editor and set the WIP limit to the needed number of estimated hours per lane. Work in progress limits edit

You can learn more about the benefits of using the Estimated Time field here.

How do I track my productivity?

There are a few different ways in which to track individual productivity within Kanban Tool.
The easiest one is to simply review the Done column, while possibly having the board filtered by assignments. How do I track my productivity - View Done

A more systematic approach to productivity tracking would base on the automatically generated metrics, which build up as work is being done on a board.
The Breakdown Chart can show current workload per person or per type, the Time Report gives the amount of time worked on tasks per each person, Lead and Cycle Time presents the time tasks spent in each stage, and Cumulative Flow visualises all work completed over time. How do I track my productivity - Time Report

Furthermore, a lot can be read from the boards themselves, using global search functionality - with it, you can locate tasks related to virtually any given parameter. How do I track my productivity - Filter - Search Using the same search syntax, it is also possible to generate own, custom reports, and have them sent to specific users via process automation.

Also, let’s not forget the My work part of Time Tracking. My work is designed specifically for individual productivity. All tasks assigned to you across all boards get listed here and can be sorted, activated, timed, and worked on directly from it. How do I track my productivity - My Work

Do keep in mind, that you can also review and update your work progress from a smartphone, wherever you are, via a mobile app.