Sub-task visible (via swimlanes) on board for new lightweight projects?

[sheabn]

For software development, we use a Kanban board.

We are doing a big documentation project right now. I would like to use something lighter weight, as we don't need sprints, releases, etc. Each feature to document has a few articles that need writing. I would like to create a task for each feature, and sub-task for each article. 

I love how lightweight and fast the Agility and Task Tracking projects are. The Agility projects do not appear to support sub-tasks, or groupings of tasks, so that is out. The Task Tracking template seems like it would work by just adding a In Progress and In Review column.

But I would like each article to move through the flow on its own, exactly how it would work on the Kanban board. As each article will be written and reviewed separately, but I would like them grouped by feature for assignment. It seems that the board has no way of dealing with subtasks at all, you have to mine into them from the parent task card.

Is my only option to create a Kanban project for this? Or are there better suggestions?

[Jack Brickey · Accepted solution]

@sheabn, you are not restricted by what the template provides. It is a starting point that you can modify. I haven't used the Agility project but you should simply be able to add sub-task issue type once the project is created from the template. Unsure what you mean by grouping of tasks unless you mean the task to sub-task relationship.

[Jack Brickey]

...well I take that back. I just created an Agility project for the first time to see what it was like. It is very limited for sure. So scrap my previous suggestion. :-)

I would suggest you create a Business project and use Kanban.

[sheabn]

Jack, thanks for the reply. The agility project does not even have a the settings screen for configuring the issue types. I suspect it is Atlassian porting over Trello maybe.

I think you are right for the other project types, they are basically just pre-configured templates for either Software or Business projects. The Business Projects use the lighter weight boards which is what I am after.

By using the Task Tracking template (Business Project) I was able to customize it as you say, to add the In Progress and In Review Templates as I mentioned. However there does not seem to be a 'board settings' for these projects which is where I would normally configure subtasks to be shown as swimlanes. Or configure the board query to show subtasks.

[Jack Brickey]

Trello would be another good option for a document project maybe.

[sheabn]

On a business project there does not seem to be a way to have sub-tasks appear on the board like in a software project... unless I am missing something.

[sheabn]

Looks like I am not the only one with this issue:

https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRACLOUD-62667

I guess I'll try just using the Software/Kanban beast.

[Jack Brickey]

actually it will BUT only if the board is associated with your profile as the Location rather than the project. The project Kanban board is very basic for arguably good reasons. If you create a board and associate to your profile then you have full control of the board settings. LMK, if you have your board set up that way and still aren't seeing sub-tasks.

[sheabn]

This did work. I attached the new board to my existing Software (named Engineering) project. Kind of weird, I choose Engineering for the project, and now I can select the Engineering board or the Documentation board, event thought the Documentation board is attached to the Documentation project.

But it accomplishes what I was trying to do. If I want to use the lightweight board, I have to switch to the Doc project, which allows me to quickly add new tasks, and I just have the team use the Kanban Documentation board which shows up under my Engineering project, then they can see the subtask swimlanes.

Certainly not ideal, but accomplishes enough of what I wanted for now.

[Jack Brickey]

great! Yep if your project is a Software project you can create many boards and associate to the project. If it is a business project you have to associate to your profile. If you don't want the Documentation board associated to the Engineering project just delete it. you can keep it associated w/ Documentation project.

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