We are redesigning comments to make them more usable. Redesign includes clear formatting and some functional improvements. Current comments list has several problems as you see:

Here is the list of ideas:

• Currently to add a comment user should click add link and the form appears on the bottom of the list. The add link will be removed and comment form will be always visible.
• Currently when user clicks Edit, the comment content loaded into rich editor in the bottom of the list (frustrating!). In new design it will be almost like inline edit with no focus loss.
• It will be impossible to use custom styles in comments. In some cases comments list becomes a mess, so just clean HTML messages will be saved and all other stuff removed.
• Edit and Delete links should be there, but these actions are quite rare. To reduce quantity of visual elements, these links will be hidden by default and visible on mouse hover only.
• It is definitely better to see something like "comment added 2 days ago" than "comment added 12-12-2009"
• Comments from customers will be highlighted in the list to make them quickly identifiable.
• More space will be added between comments.

How much time we spent on a particular release? Quite interesting question that can be answered using Custom Reports functionality. For example, last release of TargetProcess v.2.12 took about 5,500 hours. That is MUCH more than any of the previous releases. OK, let's try to create the report.

Step 1

Navigate to Custom Reports and click Create New report button. Select Release entity.

Step 2

Add Start Date and End Date fields to the report in Fields tab.

Step 3

Click to Summary Fields tab and specify new summary field as shown on the picture below

Step 4

Click Settings tab, specify report name and Run it.

Lists in v.3.0 was a hot topic during today's meeting. It seems we will replace all lists in v.3.0 (such as User Stories, Bugs, Requests, etc) with lists based on the Custom Reports functionality. It will be possible to create custom lists (same way as a custom report) and to include these lists into the Main menu. For example, you may create Current Iteration Stories list or Open Stories list and include them into Planning section of the Project menu.

The other interesting idea discussed, was to provide List and Grid modes. You will be able to group by Iteration in the user stories list and see items as a grid, where each iteration is a column. It may be possible to change iteration using drag and drop. It can potentially replace Iteration Plan section completely. There are many useful applications of such Grid.

Current Custom Reports should be improved to provide great user experience.

• Filters. It should be easy to add and change filters in the list, so filters should be accessible in one click.
• Renderers and Colors. People should be able to set custom colors and maybe even styles to list items. For example, I want to mark all rows red for blocking bugs or gray for completed user stories. These will be a custom settings.
• Batch actions. It will be possible to change all properties for selected stories in several clicks. For example, I may select 10 stories, click Batch action, select new Iteration, new Priority, new Assignment and save all these changes.

Today we've discussed navigation problems in TargetProcess and all agreed that we have four major issues:

1. Similar labels in menu (for example, Reports inside a project area and Custom Reports in top menu).
2. Too many links in the header (for example, in Project -> Planning area there are 31 links to click).
3. Menu structure and how to get into required place (why Tags Board is in the Dashboard section?).
4. It is not clear whether we are inside a project or outside.

We've come up to several improvements that may resolve the problems.

First, we agreed that there were two major different areas: inside and outside of a project. If a user is inside the project, he focuses on project's tasks and will likely not go to Admin or Projects list. So we decided to separate global menu and project menu. It means that inside the project user will not see the top level menu, but just Back to Home link. Also there is no company logo and company name in the project area. It may look like that (just a mockup, not sure about final design):

Benefits? Sure, there are plenty!

1. 17 links instead of 31 and more air in the menu.
2. No frustration where to click.
3. Clear sign that we are in the project area (large gray project name).

There is only one downside - one extra click if you need to change settings in Admin, check custom reports, etc. if you are inside a project. Quite rare operations to sacrifice simplicity.

Report Engine in TargetProcess is quite interesting beast. It allows you to extract data in different ways. For example, you may to create stories quality report that shows number of total bugs, open bugs, failed and passed test cases for each user story. Let's try to create the report in TargetProcess v.2.12.

First click to Custom Reports link on the top and then push New Report button. You will see a report wizard. Select user story entity, then click Fields tab. On this step you should select required columns for the report.

Then we need to configure Summary Columns as shown on the image below:

To apply new filter to summary column, click Filter button. In the popup window specify required filter parameters.

Click Settings tab, specify report name and push Run and Save button. And here is the final report:

We get emails from people who are just starting out with TargetProcess, and they go: where do we begin? What is an Iteration? What is a User Story? How do I plan Release? How to I create a Requirements Backlog? How can I learn fast? Our universal answer to these questions is a cute Getting Started page (Home - Getting Started). You could use it as a quick visual introduction to TargetProcess and as a glossary of agile definitions and methodology. We really did our best to come up with this page, and occasionally people who are not able to find it right away are just so glad as they're told that this page exists! :)

What's more, there's one very helpful button at this page - it's called Generate Sample Project - and it's at the bottom left of Getting Started page. It might take you a while to find this button, as it's really hidden at the bottom - but well the efforts will pay off for sure! :)

This is a joke but actually we're going to increase visibility of Generate Sample Project button in the next versions of TargetProcess. This button produces a canned sample project called Private Universe so you could rather spend your time learning the product, and not inventing some test project. The sample project does have requirements backlog in place, planned iterations, releases, time records, all the reports, burn-down charts etc. — in a nutshell, the complete set of TargetProcess functional features.