263 lines
13 KiB
Markdown
263 lines
13 KiB
Markdown
# Issue Board
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>**Note:**
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[Introduced][ce-5554] in [GitLab 8.11](https://about.gitlab.com/2016/08/22/gitlab-8-11-released/#issue-board).
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The GitLab Issue Board is a software project management tool used to plan,
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organize, and visualize a workflow for a feature or product release.
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It can be seen like a light version of a [Kanban] or a [Scrum] board.
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Other interesting links:
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- [GitLab Issue Board landing page on about.gitlab.com][landing]
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- [YouTube video introduction to Issue Boards][youtube]
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## Overview
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The Issue Board builds on GitLab's existing
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[issue tracking functionality](issues/index.md#issue-tracker) and
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leverages the power of [labels] by utilizing them as lists of the scrum board.
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With the Issue Board you can have a different view of your issues while
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maintaining the same filtering and sorting abilities you see across the
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issue tracker. An Issue Board is based on its project's label structure, therefore, it
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applies the same descriptive labels to indicate placement on the board, keeping
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consistency throughout the entire development lifecycle.
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An Issue Board shows you what issues your team is working on, who is assigned to each,
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and where in the workflow those issues are.
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You create issues, host code, perform reviews, build, test,
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and deploy from one single platform. Issue Boards help you to visualize
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and manage the entire process _in_ GitLab.
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With [Multiple Issue Boards](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/issue_board.html#multiple-issue-boards), available
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only in [GitLab Ultimate](https://about.gitlab.com/products/),
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you go even further, as you can not only keep yourself and your project
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organized from a broader perspective with one Issue Board per project,
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but also allow your team members to organize their own workflow by creating
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multiple Issue Boards within the same project.
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## Use cases
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GitLab Workflow allows you to discuss proposals in issues, categorize them
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with labels, and from there organize and prioritize them with Issue Boards.
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For example, let's consider this simplified development workflow:
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1. You have a repository hosting your app's codebase
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and your team actively contributing to code
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1. Your **backend** team starts working a new
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implementation, gathers feedback and approval, and pass it over to **frontend**
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1. When frontend is complete, the new feature is deployed to **staging** to be tested
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1. When successful, it is deployed to **production**
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If we have the labels "**backend**", "**frontend**", "**staging**", and
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"**production**", and an Issue Board with a list for each, we can:
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- Visualize the entire flow of implementations since the
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beginning of the development lifecycle until deployed to production
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- Prioritize the issues in a list by moving them vertically
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- Move issues between lists to organize them according to the labels you've set
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- Add multiple issues to lists in the board by selecting one or more existing issues
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> **Notes:**
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>
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>- For a broader use case, please check the blog post
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[GitLab Workflow, an Overview](https://about.gitlab.com/2016/10/25/gitlab-workflow-an-overview/#gitlab-workflow-use-case-scenario).
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>
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>- For a real use case, please check why
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[Codepen decided to adopt Issue Boards](https://about.gitlab.com/2017/01/27/codepen-welcome-to-gitlab/#project-management-everything-in-one-place)
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to improve their workflow with [multiple boards](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/issue_board.html#multiple-issue-boards).
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## Issue Board terminology
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Below is a table of the definitions used for GitLab's Issue Board.
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| What we call it | What it means |
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| -------------- | ------------- |
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| **Issue Board** | It represents a different view for your issues. It can have multiple lists with each list consisting of issues represented by cards. |
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| **List** | Each label that exists in the issue tracker can have its own dedicated list. Every list is named after the label it is based on and is represented by a column which contains all the issues associated with that label. You can think of a list like the results you get when you filter the issues by a label in your issue tracker. |
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| **Card** | Every card represents an issue and it is shown under the list for which it has a label. The information you can see on a card consists of the issue number, the issue title, the assignee and the labels associated with it. You can drag cards around from one list to another. You can re-order cards within a list. |
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There are two types of lists, the ones you create based on your labels, and
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two defaults:
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- Label list: a list based on a label. It shows all opened issues with that label.
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- **Backlog** (default): shows all open issues that does not belong to one of lists. Always appears on the very left.
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- **Closed** (default): shows all closed issues. Always appears on the very right.
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In short, here's a list of actions you can take in an Issue Board:
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- [Create a new list](#creating-a-new-list).
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- [Delete an existing list](#deleting-a-list).
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- Drag issues between lists.
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- Re-order issues in lists.
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- Drag and reorder the lists themselves.
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- Change issue labels on-the-fly while dragging issues between lists.
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- Close an issue if you drag it to the **Done** list.
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- Create a new list from a non-existing label by [creating the label on-the-fly](#creating-a-new-list)
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within the Issue Board.
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- [Filter issues](#filtering-issues) that appear across your Issue Board.
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If you are not able to perform one or more of the things above, make sure you
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have the right [permissions](#permissions).
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## First time using the Issue Board
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The first time you navigate to your Issue Board, you will be presented with
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a default list (**Done**) and a welcoming message that gives
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you two options. You can either create a predefined set of labels and create
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their corresponding lists to the Issue Board or opt-out and use your own lists.
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If you choose to use and create the predefined lists, they will appear as empty
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because the labels associated to them will not exist up until that moment,
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which means the system has no way of populating them automatically. That's of
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course if the predefined labels don't already exist. If any of them does exist,
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the list will be created and filled with the issues that have that label.
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## Creating a new list
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Create a new list by clicking on the **Add list** button at the upper
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right corner of the Issue Board.
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Simply choose the label to create the list from. The new list will be inserted
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at the end of the lists, before **Done**. Moving and reordering lists is as
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easy as dragging them around.
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To create a list for a label that doesn't yet exist, simply create the label by
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choosing **Create new label**. The label will be created on-the-fly and it will
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be immediately added to the dropdown. You can now choose it to create a list.
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## Deleting a list
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To delete a list from the Issue Board use the small trash icon that is present
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in the list's heading. A confirmation dialog will appear for you to confirm.
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Deleting a list doesn't have any effect in issues and labels, it's just the
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list view that is removed. You can always add it back later if you need.
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## Adding issues to a list
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You can add issues to a list by clicking the **Add issues** button that is
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present in the upper right corner of the Issue Board. This will open up a modal
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window where you can see all the issues that do not belong to any list.
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Select one or more issues by clicking on the cards and then click **Add issues**
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to add them to the selected list. You can limit the issues you want to add to
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the list by filtering by author, assignee, milestone and label.
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## Removing an issue from a list
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Removing an issue from a list can be done by clicking on the issue card and then
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clicking the **Remove from board** button in the sidebar. Under the hood, the
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respective label is removed, and as such it's also removed from the list and the
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board itself.
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## Issue ordering in a list
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When visiting a board, issues appear ordered in any list. You are able to change
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that order simply by dragging and dropping the issues. The changed order will be saved
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to the system so that anybody who visits the same board later will see the reordering,
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with some exceptions.
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The first time a given issue appears in any board (i.e. the first time a user
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loads a board containing that issue), it will be ordered with
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respect to other issues in that list according to [Priority order][label-priority].
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At that point, that issue will be assigned a relative order value by the system
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representing its relative order with respect to the other issues in the list. Any time
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you drag-and-drop reorder that issue, its relative order value will change accordingly.
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Also, any time that issue appears in any board when it is loaded by a user,
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the updated relative order value will be used for the ordering. (It's only the first
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time an issue appears that it takes from the Priority order mentioned above.) This means that
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if issue `A` is drag-and-drop reordered to be above issue `B` by any user in
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a given board inside your GitLab instance, any time those two issues are subsequently
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loaded in any board in the same instance (could be a different project board or a different group board, for example),
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that ordering will be maintained.
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## Filtering issues
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You should be able to use the filters on top of your Issue Board to show only
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the results you want. This is similar to the filtering used in the issue tracker
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since the metadata from the issues and labels are re-used in the Issue Board.
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You can filter by author, assignee, milestone and label.
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## Creating workflows
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By reordering your lists, you can create workflows. As lists in Issue Boards are
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based on labels, it works out of the box with your existing issues. So if you've
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already labeled things with 'Backend' and 'Frontend', the issue will appear in
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the lists as you create them. In addition, this means you can easily move
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something between lists by changing a label.
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A typical workflow of using the Issue Board would be:
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1. You have [created][create-labels] and [prioritized][label-priority] labels
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so that you can easily categorize your issues.
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1. You have a bunch of issues (ideally labeled).
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1. You visit the Issue Board and start [creating lists](#creating-a-new-list) to
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create a workflow.
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1. You move issues around in lists so that your team knows who should be working
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on what issue.
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1. When the work by one team is done, the issue can be dragged to the next list
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so someone else can pick up.
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1. When the issue is finally resolved, the issue is moved to the **Done** list
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and gets automatically closed.
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For instance you can create a list based on the label of 'Frontend' and one for
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'Backend'. A designer can start working on an issue by adding it to the
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'Frontend' list. That way, everyone knows that this issue is now being
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worked on by the designers. Then, once they're done, all they have to do is
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drag it over to the next list, 'Backend', where a backend developer can
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eventually pick it up. Once they’re done, they move it to **Done**, to close the
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issue.
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This process can be seen clearly when visiting an issue since with every move
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to another list the label changes and a system not is recorded.
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## Permissions
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[Developers and up](../permissions.md) can use all the functionality of the
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Issue Board, that is create/delete lists and drag issues around.
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## Tips
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A few things to remember:
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- The label that corresponds to a list is hidden for issues under that list.
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- Moving an issue between lists removes the label from the list it came from
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and adds the label from the list it goes to.
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- When moving a card to **Done**, the label of the list it came from is removed
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and the issue gets closed.
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- An issue can exist in multiple lists if it has more than one label.
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- Lists are populated with issues automatically if the issues are labeled.
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- Clicking on the issue title inside a card will take you to that issue.
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- Clicking on a label inside a card will quickly filter the entire Issue Board
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and show only the issues from all lists that have that label.
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- For performance and visibility reasons, each list shows the first 20 issues
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by default. If you have more than 20 issues start scrolling down and the next
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20 will appear.
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[ce-5554]: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/merge_requests/5554
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[labels]: ./labels.md
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[scrum]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrum_(software_development)
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[kanban]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanban_(development)
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[create-labels]: ./labels.md#create-new-labels
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[label-priority]: ./labels.md#prioritize-labels
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[landing]: https://about.gitlab.com/solutions/issueboard
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[youtube]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWsJ8tkHAa8
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