Flow

The Flow Report shows the relative amount of work in progress for each lane (or section of the board) over time. With it you can see how smoothly the work is flowing through your process. Variations in the width of the colored bands in the chart indicate more or less work in that lane on a given date. Widening bands represent an increase in the number of cards (or size) in a particular lane, which could indicate a bottleneck or constraint in your workflow process. The amount of work in process is also a good predictor of the remaining cycle time.

Here you'll learn how to:

Access the Flow Report

To access a board's Flow report, click the charts icon in the upper right of a board, and choose Flow from the menu.

           

flow_report2.png

           

Understand the Flow Report

The Flow report has two viewing options:

The default options present the Flow report with all lanes included and covering the last 30 days of history. Hovering over the diagram will display each of the included sections/lanes, as well as the queue size for that section/lane for the aligned date.

           

flow_hover_pane_june_2019_3.png

           

The Key Takeaways at the top of the chart provide information on the rates at which you are adding, creating, and moving cards on your board during the selected date range:
  • Adding Work: The rate (per day) at which you are adding cards (or sizes) to the selected Not Started lanes.
  • Starting Work: The rate (per day) at which you are creating cards in started lanes, or moving cards into Started lanes.
  • Finishing Work: The rate (per day) at which you are moving cards into Finished lanes.
  • Simplified Cycle Time: The average amount of time it takes cards to move from the selected Not Started to Finished lanes.

           

key_takeaways_july_2019_3.png

           

 

Configure the Flow Report

The Flow report provides multiple options that allow you to view the data from different perspectives and with different criteria. After changing an option, the chart will automatically update.

Here you'll learn how to: 

Categorize Lanes by Card Status

In the simplified Card Status view, lanes are categorized into Started, Not Started, and Finished sections:

  • Not Started: The first overall lane of your board, and any lanes created within that first overall lane. Cards will be considered not started until they move out of this first overall lane.
  • Started: Any lanes on your board other than the first overall (Not Started) lane, and the last overall (Finished) lane.
  • Finished: The last overall lane on your board.

           

card_status_view_july_2019_3.png

           

Exclude or Include Lanes

In the Lanes view, you can select specific lanes to include in the report. Click Select lanes to include above the Flow report to open a simplified representation of the lane structure on the board.

  • To exclude a lane from the diagram, click on the lane title. Deselected lanes will turn grey and will be excluded from the diagram.

  • To include a lane, click on the lane title of an excluded lane. Included lanes appear as blue.

  • To exclude or include all lanes within a parent lane, click the parent lane's title.

           

flow_include_exclude_lanes_june_2019_2.png

           

Roll Up Lanes

The work in progress calculations for child lanes can be aggregated into their parent lane by "rolling" up lanes in the Flow report.

  • To roll up lanes into their parent lane, click on the "-" in the parent lane header.

  • To un-roll lanes, click the "+" at the lane title.

Any of the child lanes can be rolled up into their parent lane at any level of the hierarchy.

           

roll_up_lanes_july_2019_2.gif

           

Set the Date Range

You may focus on a specific date range using the date fields to the right of the the Flow report.

  • To set the start date of the Flow report, click in the left-most date box. Enter the desired start date in the box, or use the calendar that pops up to click on the desired date.

  • To set the stop date, click in the right-most date box. Enter the desired stop date in the box, or use the calendar that pops up to click on the desired date.

           

flow_set_date_range_june_2019_2.png

           

Calculate Work In Progress Based on Card Size

AgilePlace allows you to specify the size value within a card. These size values may represent any metric that your team uses to specify relative size of the work item. Size may mean hours, days, story points, complexity points, or whatever unit of measurement that your team finds useful.

If your team is using the size values to specify the relative size of each card, this metric may be more useful than the number of work items within a lane. For these situations, AgilePlace allows you to generate the Flow report based on the total size of the cards rather than the number of cards in the lane.

  • To calculate work in progress based on card size, check the box Calculate based on Card Size.

           

NOTE

Any work items that do not have a size specified or have a size of 0 (zero) will be considered as a size of 1 (one) when calculating queue size.

           

           

flow_calc_based_on_card_size_jun_2019_2.png

           

Filter the Flow Report

Here you'll learn how to filter the flow report by: 

Filter by Card Tag

  • To filter the Flow report by card tags, enter a comma-separated list of tags in the Tags box to the right of the diagram. 

           

flow_filter_by_tag_june_2019_2.png

           

Filter by Card Type

To filter the Flow report by card type, click Card Type in the configuration panel to the right of the diagram. Select from the list of card types which ones to include in the diagram by clicking on them.

           

flow_filter_by_card_type_june_2019_2.png

           

Filter by Custom Icon  

To filter the Flow report by custom icon, click Custom Icon (or whatever custom label has been configured for the icons on this board) in the configuration panel to the right of the diagram. Select from the list which ones to include in the diagram by clicking on them.

           

flow_filter_by_custom_icon_june_2019_2.png

           

Export the Flow Report

To export the Flow report to PDF or CSV format, click the Export button and select the desired format.

           

export_flow_july_2019_2.png