Backlog workarounds?

[BeckyDa]

I'm very frustrated with the Backlog and considering switching to Jira for my team. Has anyone found a solution to these obstacles?

• Can't move tasks when they're grouped (this means you only have one sorting feature - difficult when trying to prioritize tasks from amount of work.
• Story points:
  • Can't add iteration points to tasks already assigned to our team.
  • Also, "points" equals hours, which isn't Agile at all. (They're supposed to indicate double the work/effort of previous task)
  • These are uneditable in the Backlog view.
• I can't group by Portfolio, which is how my shared team manages different brands.
• I can't add tags to task (bugs, technical debt, features, etc.) and then sort in the Backlog by them.
• Every task has a due date. Sometimes I'm not ready to assign a due date until I'm adding it to an iteration, so my team is constantly "moving out" dates for tasks in the backlog (we have hundreds of tasks in the backlog -- and we're about get hundreds more because of annual marketing planning).
• Tasks can only be seen in one Kanban/Scrum board. This is frustrating because I have a developer team using their own Kanban board, Writers who will start using their own Kanban board, and my marketing technology team (7 people that do landing pages, webpages, forms, emails, post blog articles and social media) who have to create duplicate tasks to keep track of.

Any suggestions?

[MelissaPi1]

Hi Becky, we want to help! I'm gathering answers to your questions, which I'll post here. But we'd love to arrange a call too - will reach out.

[BeckyDa]

Thanks, @Melissa Pickering‚! I appreciate it. If you email me, we can set up a call (I don't generally pick up my phone for unknown numbers) - thank you again!

[MelissaPi1]

Hi @Becky Daniel‚ - I just sent an email, and I copied Jaron and Russ, part of your account team, and they will set up a demo/discussion meeting. I look forward to talking more!

[Former Community Member]

Hi Becky,

For the Portfolio grouping - You can create a group using text mode to group by Portfolio in the team backlog:

Create a new grouping and then select text mode and paste the below text in to the text mode window and save, then name the group whatever you want "Portfolio Name" for example.

textmode=true

group.0.linkedname=portfolio

group.0.namekey=view.relatedcolumn

group.0.valuefield=project:portfolio:name

group.0.namekeyargkey.0=project

group.0.namekeyargkey.1=portfolio

group.0.namekeyargkey.2=name

group.0.valueformat=string

A few quick questions / Clarifications:

When you mention Iteration points is that equal to story points?

Understand your feeling around the story points to hours conversion, currently you can adjust the multiplier to convert hours to story points. By default 8 Hours = 1 story point. You can edit this is the team setting.

When you mention tags is that a reference to custom fields?

Thank you so much for reaching out - We are excited to help! I am working on some additional options for you!