Using Sprints in Projects (Scrum Board)

Forecast's Sprint board is a Scrum board which help teams that work in Sprints to track their work. In the Sprint board there are two key elements - the product (or project) backlog, and the Sprint backlog. The product backlog contains all the tasks associated with the project, while the Sprint backlog contains only the tasks that were agreed and planned for that particular Sprint. If you are new to working in Sprints, check out Why do you work in sprints.

If you do not use Sprints but Kanban board, check out Viewing your Project's Workflow (Kanban Board) instead.

This article covers:

• Enabling Sprint planning
• Viewing the project' sprints
• Creating sprints
• Downloading the Sprint Planning
• Closing a sprint

Enabling Sprint planning

In order to work on a particular project with Sprints, the Project Owner needs to enable the Sprints functionality within the Project Admin settings.

To enable Sprint planning

1. Click on Projects from the top bar.
2. Select All Projects from the dropdown.
3. Select your project.
4. In the left side panel, select Settings.
5. Click on the Tasks.
6. Toggle 'Sprint Planning' at the top of the page. 
7. Select the default length for the Sprints.

Viewing the project' sprints

All team members within a project can access the Sprint board to see the work agreed on for each sprint. 

To view the project' sprints

1. Click on Projects from the top bar.
2. Select All Projects from the dropdown.
3. Select your project.
4. If enabled, click on Sprints within the left side panel.

Overview of the Sprint details

In the Sprints board several details are displayed to indicate the status and progress of the sprint and the tasks included.

• Name: Either automatically generated name (Sprint + number) or given name
• Dates: Start- and end date, correspond to sprint length
• Total Availability: How much time or story points do you have available for the sprint across the project team? This number depends on your Resource Management Preference:
  • Project allocation: Sum of all hours allocated to the project in the time frame of the sprint (converted into story points)
  • Task assignment: Sum of working hours of the project team in the time frame of the sprint (converted into story points)
• Remaining Work: How much time or story points is left to do for the sprint?
  Calculation: Sum of all hours / story points remaining on the tasks in the sprint
• Remaining Availability: How much time or story points do you have left in the sprint across the project team? This number changes when processing in the sprint and it depends on your Resource Management Preference:
  • Project allocation: Sum of hours allocated to the project on the remaining days of the sprint - Remaining Work
  • Task assignment: Total Availability - Remaining Work of the project team in all projects during the remaining days of the sprint
• Progress: Proportion of total working hours (estimated time) already completed (time entries)
• Three Dot Icon: Delete the sprint, all tasks will be placed in the Backlog column when a task is deleted.

Managing your Sprint board view

Within the Sprint board you can customise the tasks displayed, the way that they are grouped and show/hide information depending on your needs. 

• View all, done or active sprints: Click on the dropdown on the top-left of the page to view sprints that are either done or active, or all of them.
• Show/Hide details within the Sprint: Click on the Eye icon to select or unselect the details visible within each Sprint.
• Expand/Collapse Sprints: Sprints can be automatically collapsed or expanded in one click.
• Search for tasks within Sprints:  Click on the Magnifying glass to easily search for tasks either by name, label or other identifiers.
• Filter: Click on the Filter button to filter sprints and tasks by any given information. 
• Grouping: Click on the three-dot icon on the top right to group tasks in the sprints by person, to show empty persons, group by role
• Keep Backlog to the side: Click on the three-dot icon on the top right to display the Backlog on the left side of the page. The backlog can then be opened or closed at any time.
  
  

Creating sprints

To work with Sprints it is required to create individual Sprints for project planning. The default Sprint length depends on the amount of days selected within the Project Admin settings, while toggling on Sprint planning. When creating a Sprint it automatically selects the Start and End date based on when the Sprint was created and if there are other Sprints already filed for the project. 

To create a sprint

1. Click on Projects from the top bar.
2. Select All Projects from the dropdown.
3. Select your project.
4. Once enabled, click on Sprints within the left side panel.
5. Click on New Sprint.
6. Now it is possible to customize the dates or add tasks to the Sprint.

Closing a sprint

Once your sprint is over (i.e. the last day of the sprint date range has passed) and you still have incomplete tasks in your sprint, Forecast nudges you to close your sprint.

If you are working with story points you can update your story point performance based on the sprint data of the closed sprint. See Overview of the Story Points System for more information.

To close a sprint

1. Click on Projects from the top bar.
2. Select All Projects from the dropdown.
3. Select your project.
4. Once enabled, click on Sprints within the left side panel.
5. Within the Sprint, click on the Close Sprint button.
6. A pop-up appears to help manage the unfinished work:
   1. Move all unfinished tasks to the next sprint: this option will create a new sprint if there is none yet.
   2. Set all unfinished tasks to done: this option can be used if the tasks were actually completed but not moved to the done column of your workflow yet.
   3. Move unfinished tasks to backlog: use this option if the task still has to be completed but not in the upcoming sprint.
   4. Click on Confirm

Downloading the Sprint planning

Download a copy of your sprint planning for your Scrum meetings, presentation or for review it on your device. Make sure to use the Show/Hide function to display or remove the necessary details within the export, alternatively you can always edit your CSV file manually. 

To download the Sprint planning

1. Click on Projects from the top bar.
2. Select All Projects from the dropdown.
3. Select your project.
4. Once enabled, click on Sprints within the left side panel.
5. Click on Export as CSV button on the top right of the page.