Obsolete iceScrum documention (R6#14+) This documentation applies only to old iceScrum R6. For new iceScrum v7, click here.
The Task Board feature brings the benefits of physical task boards to iceScrum. They are great and efficient visual facilitators but often lack the benefits of using a virtual tool like iceScrum (traceability, history, indicators, remote collaboration…).
The iceScrum Task Board is intended to be displayed on a big screen / projector (even better, an interactive one) so the whole team can see it, everyday or on meetings. You can switch user in a breeze and interact with your tasks as easily as you would do on a physical board.
Principles
Open the task board
The task board can be reached through the sprint plan toolbar. It is available only for the Scrum Master and for the current sprint. Such limitations prevent misuses that can be done with the great powers of this feature.
The task board puts your browser in HTML5 feature mode (you have to use a browser that supports this feature). The first time iceScrum attempts to go fullscreen, your browser may ask you if you want to allow that (if you refuse, you won’t be able to use the task board).
Interact with tasks
The left pane resembles the regular sprint plan except that it doesn’t provide a toolbar nor task menus. As in the sprint plan, you can move tasks to change their state and evaluate them by clicking on the “?”.
The right pane brings more interesting features. First, it displays the information of the selected task and allows to interact with it thanks to dedicated buttons. To select a task, just click on it. This is great to show task details without leaving the sprint plan (the quicklook provides similar information but it is modal so its display prevents interaction with tasks).
Switch user
The most important change brought by the task board is the ability to switch user temporarily. Just click on an avatar of a team member and everything that you will do in the task board will be credited to this user.
Please note that the right pane will display only actions that are available on the selected task to the user you switched to whereas the left pane will still allow moving and estimating all tasks as the Scrum Master can.
This is particularly handy for meetings, so you can update tasks immediately for all the team members on one computer, without the hassle of logging in / out.
Remember that task board is accessible only for the Scrum Master and that switching user is temporary and limited to the task board.
Known limitations and future developments
The Task Board prefigures upcoming changes to the iceScrum UI. It is intended to be user-friendly, touch-device friendly and to help you save time. Feel free to send us your comments about this feature. Your feedback may impact the way we develop the future UI.
Touch and interactive devices
The Task Board interface doesn’t use hidden menus / dropdowns and favors buttons and click on big elements over links. This is intended to help using it from a touch device or even an interactive projector. However, estimation still requires a keyboard for the moment. More generally, only interactions that don’t require user input data are available.
Internationalization
When you switch user, iceScrum actually acts like you were the new user, taking into account its user preferences such as its language. Consequently, if you switch between users that have different languages, the Task Board texts may quickly look like a melting pot.
