This page gives you an overview on the features and most common use cases.
The board contains the Backlog (list of stories on the left). The Estimation Area, where we see all users in the room as well as the currently selected story (in the middle). Optionally the Settings menu or the Action Log on the right.
You can join a room in three different ways
- Visit the landing page and click the big button "Join new room". You will join a new room with a randomly assigned unique room id.
- Visit the landing page, extend the form and enter a custom room name, then hit Enter or click the join button. If the room with this custom name (the room id) already exists, you will join it. Otherwise a new room is created.
- Join a room directly by visiting the room url. (e.g. https://poinz.app/test or https://poinz.app/a-random-room-id-here). If the room with this name/id already exists, you will join it. Otherwise a new room is created.
Poinz will ask you for a username on your first visit. Afterwards your username is stored in the LocalStorage of your browser and reused on subsequent joins.
You can leave a room by clicking the leave button in the top right corner. If you close your browser window or tab while you are in a room, other users will see you as "disconnected".
You can remove ("kick") other users from the room:
- First click on the avatar of the user
- Click on the leave button on the right to kick the user.
(If you click outside of the avatar, the additional menu will be closed and the user stays in the room.)
The story backlog contains all stories added or imported to your room. The story currently selected for estimation is marked with a orange bar on the left.
Simply fill in the form on the top left. The Title is mandatory, the Description is optional. Any url in the description will be rendered as a clickable link.
You can also use markdown syntax in the story description. You can toggle between markdown and plaintext on the bottom right of the story description:
Poinz can import stories from files, so that you can transfer existing stories from other applications to Poinz.
Drag and Drop a csv file with stories (e.g. an export from Jira) on to the backlog. The csv file should contain column headers on the first line.
Example:
key,title,description
ISS-123,The Title, some Description
ISS-554,Another Story, With a description
Poinz will also parse a default Jira issue export, where column headers are named: "Issue Key", "Summary", "Description".
( Poinz uses papaparse to parse the given csv file.)
Note: If you want to link to your Issue Tracking System, check out Issue Tracking URL.
Drag and Drop a json file with stories on to the backlog. Poinz expects the json file to have the same format as its own exported files
Hover a story in the backlog (or tap the story on your mobile device), in order to see a button with a pencil icon on the top right. Click on the pencil to enter the edit mode. You can edit the title and the description of the story and save or discard your changes.
Hover a story in the backlog (or tap the story on your mobile device), in order to see a button with a trash can icon on the top right. Click on the trash can to move the story to the trash. Switch to the list of trashed stories by clicking on Trash (N) on the top of the Backlog. You can restore a trashed story or delete it permanently!
Only a single story can be estimated at a given time.
- Click the story you want to estimate in the Backlog and click the blue Estimate button.
- The board now shows the selected story. All users see the same story selected on the board. In the backlog, the selected story is marked with an orange border on the left.
- Estimate the story by clicking one of the colored cards. By default the cards have the values ?, 1/2, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, BIG.
- By default, the given estimates are revealed as soon as all active users did estimate. This behaviour can be changed in the settings (Auto Reveal).
In many cases, your team does not "agree" on a value in the first round. It is recommended that you discuss and share opinions before you start a new estimation round. You can start a new estimation round by clicking the blue new Round button.
All previously given estimates on the currently selected story are erased, and your team can start voting again.
If you do not want to estimate until everybody voted for the same card, you can manually "settle" the estimation: Click on one of the cards in the Estimation Summary to store that value on the story.
If all users estimated the same value, consensus is achieved, and the story will display a colored badge.
You can reveal the story at any time by clicking the blue Reveal button. Even if not all users in the room did estimate. Poinz then displays all given estimates for this story (visible for all users).
After the estimations are revealed, Poinz will display the numerical average (the sum of all estimated card values, divided by number of estimations) as well as a recommendation.
The recommendation is chosen as follows:
- The numerical average will always fall between two cards (except if consensus is achieved)
- The recommendation is either the higher of these two cards, or the lower one.
- Most of the time, the higher card is chosen as recommendation except, if the average is "really close" to the lower card (within 10% of the card value).
In the example shown, the lower card would be 13 the higher card is 21. 21 is chosen as recommendation, since the numerical average of 19.5 is not within 10% of 13 ((19.5 - 13) > 0.1*13). See getEstimationSummary.js; for the implementation.
You can enable the "Confidence" setting in your room to allow your colleagues to specify a confidence when estimating a story.
If the feature is enabled, users will be able to select "Unsure" / "Default" / "Very sure" when estimating a story:
After the story is revealed, the played cards are marked accordingly. In this example, Sergio did not specify his confidence (i.e. selected "Default"), user ChromeU was very unsure about the story being "2", whereas Foxy was very sure, this story is "13"!
The Estimation Matrix displays a table with all estimated stories (all stories with consensus), ordered by estimation value. This allows you and your team members to estimate the current story in relation to other stories which improves your estimation results.
You can toggle between the Matrix and the Story via the small toggle bottom on the right, just below the users.
These settings will affect your user.
Choose an avatar to be displayed in the Estimation Area, visible for all users in the room. If you set an email address that is registered with https://gravatar.com, the gravatar "Icon" will be used. This overrides any selected Poinz avatar.
If you mark yourself as "spectator", you exclude yourself from estimations and can no longer take part in estimating stories. If auto reveal is enabled, Poinz will "ignore you" and reveal the story as soon as all other users did estimate the current story. You can still modify the backlog and settle. This is helpful for Scrum Masters / moderators.
You can also mark others as "spectator" by clicking on their avatar and then clicking the eye icon.
These settings will affect the room and thus all users in the same room.
By default, Poinz will reveal the current story automatically (all given estimation values are shown) as soon as all users in the room did estimate the current story. Excluded (spectators) and Disconnected users are ignored.
If this flag is removed, Poinz will not auto reveal and you can manually reveal the story.
By default, everybody can join your room. You can optionally set a password in order to protect unauthorized access to your room.
Setting a room password in an existing Room
For an existing room without password protection, the room settings allow you to set a new password. You can of course also override or remove an existing password.
On all subsequent joins to a password protected room, the user is prompted with a password form:
If activated, users can specify whether they are unsure (not confident) or very sure (very confident) when estimating a story. See Estimating with "Confidence Levels".
If the default set of cards does not meet your needs, you can change it.
- Label (first column) can be any string
- Value (second column) must be a number. Make sure that the values are unique
- Color (thrid column) can be any css valid color string (hex, rgb, named)
You can also use the text editor and edit the json array directly.
If you click on "Default", you immediately restore the default card configuration.
If you want to link your imported stories to your Issue Tracking (e.g. Jira), you can set a URL here. E.g. https://my.jira.com/browse/{ISSUE}. The placeholder {ISSUE} will be replaced with the issue key.
If you import stories (via csv) Poinz will add a deeplink to the respective issue description.
You can export all stories in the current room as a json file. The json file will have the following format:
{
"roomId": "the-room-id",
"exportedAt": 1688220364329,
"stories": [
{
"title": "Test Story",
"consensus": 21,
"estimations": [
{
"username": "Sergio",
"value": 21,
"userId": "xnq_h8cbzs3btgcr8z15t"
},
{
"username": "Fritz",
"value": 21,
"userId": "rpdt-4943-_xy8l35k988"
}
]
}
]
}As of #358, the export also contains trashed stories.
{
"roomId": "the-room-id",
"exportedAt": 1688220703294,
"stories": [
{
"title": "Trashed Story",
"estimations": [],
"trashed": true
}
]
}By default, everybody that knows the name/ID of your room can join your room, without further authorization.
❗ This means, anonymous people can read, modify and delete your stories as soon as they know the room ID. ❗
This is by design. When we created Poinz, we wanted a most simple solution, without the hassle of registration and user management.
However, you might want to protect your data in some way. See "Password Protection" for more information.