Hello there! This update combines the playful with the practical. A music player, connector arrows, and Jira integration are the highlights. Dive in to discover all the latest features!

Gadgets

First up, we bring you five fun gadgets to make your sessions even more interactive. Consisting of a Jukebox, Counter, Spinner, Timer, and a Buzzer, that can all be placed on the board:

The gadgets are simple to use, but see the Gadgets Help for full details. A quick summary:

Jukebox

Choose from 49 handpicked tracks across 7 genres to set the scene for your next workshop. Your team might argue over the song choice, but trust us - try the Space Jazz collection. 

Tip - volume control

Each person now has their own volume control, including mute, in the bottom-left corner. It controls all sound effects and music played on the board:

Counter

The counter is for… counting. Use it for tracking score in team games or to track how many times “it depends” is said in your estimation session.

Spinner

Take the hassle out of making a decision and let the spinner decide!  Simply add your options and spin the wheel. You could use it to choose who talks next, or perhaps which feature to release - just don’t tell your stakeholders.

Timer

Add a timer to your board as a draggable object. Position it, set the time, and press play.

Buzzer

Use the buzzer to play sound effects. You could use it to signal when time is up or celebrate when the team make a decision.

Connector Arrows (Beta)

We’re pretty excited about the new Connectors. Link your stickies and cards with connecting arrows to show relationships and build diagrams.

Connectors are found in the left toolbar:

You can add a label to Connectors and customize the color, width, and style:

See the Connectors help for full details. The arrows are smooth to use, but as this is the first version there may be some interesting edge cases we haven't found yet.

Jira Integration (Beta)

Connect to your Jira projects and import your backlog as cards. Or send issues to Jira directly from your sticky notes.

See the Jira Help for the full details, but here is a summary:

• Import your issues to discuss in your retrospective.
• Import your backlog to any board, to visualize and arrange it how you want.
• Plan upcoming sprints and gauge workload.
• Run estimation and planning poker sessions.
• Create Jira issues from sticky notes.
• Stamp reactions and draw on Jira cards (show how you really feel about that issue 2748...)
• Immediate 2-way sync is available as a further option for connecting to Jira. See how to setup 2-way sync with webhooks.

Functionality and Limitations

With this first version you can view and edit these Jira fields: the issue title, priority, status, assignee, sprint, story points, issue type.

This is a beta version, so not everything we want to deliver is in yet. In future updates you will be able to view and edit more fields, including the description and comments. And we want to do some cool stuff with Metro Retro's tools - we see Metro Retro becoming the "playground" for your Jira backlog.

New Planning Poker Template

There’s also a new interactive Planning Poker activity template to use with the Jira integration. It has a new interactive workflow for speeding through those estimation sessions. Contact us to get access and a quick demo.

Other Updates

Hide Other Users

This neat little setting in your Preferences will hide everyone else while they are moving around the board, making for a calmer visual experience. Useful in larger workshops!

Take Over a Meeting

If there is a Meeting running on a board and the Host is no longer present, after 10 minutes any team member on the board can add themselves as the meeting Host:

Remove Workspace Members

Workspace members can now be removed from inside the workspace:

Text Tool Improvement

And in perhaps the most boring way to end an exciting update, here’s a small change to the Text tool.  You can now drag the Text tool to create a Text box, with scaling text. The Text box behaviour can also be set with the “Toggle Auto Height” option: 

If you have any questions on anything we’ve shared in these updates, please contact us. We love a chat! 😊

Cheers,

Jamie and Steve