Beginners guide
Kaiten is an online teamwork platform that allows you to visualize all processes in one space by having multiple whiteboards at the same time + modules such as Help Desk, Documents and User Story Map. The system is based on a lean approach adapted for intelligent teams - marketing departments, IT and other teams where people are primarily engaged in intellectual labor.
👨💻How to organize your workspace?
✅ Space is an area where you place boards, and it's where you invite colleagues. You can create a new space by clicking the plus sign in the upper right corner and then selecting a name.
You can use same boards on different spaces.
✅ Board is an object with columns and lanes, designed to visualize the status of tasks. In order to create a board on a space, we just click the same purple plus sign and select "Create Board".
There can be as many boards on a space as you want. So on our space we have Backlog and Sprint boards.
Each board has columns, that is usually used to indicate the stages of a job.
Also the board has lanes, which allow you to enter categorization of tasks on the board, e.g. the name of the lane is the name of the priority, or the name of a specific performer.
🤗 How to invite a colleague to Kaiten?
To invite coworkers to your space, click on the "Users" button located directly below the purple plus sign on the top right of the work screen. If you are adding people who are not yet registered in Kaiten, then you need to send them an email invitation to activate their accounts in Kaiten:
The invitation will look like this:
‼️ Important note: If a user in your account has not been invited to a space, she has no access to that space or to the boards on it. Thus, if you have multiple teams/departments or departments that do not interact with each other, you can differentiate them by creating multiple spaces.
✅Now let's talk about the cards
To create a task/card, we click on the place where we want it to be located and write down the task.
Tasks can be created on any board and can be easily moved between boards, lanes, and columns.
The card is divided into two blocks: The comment block on the right and the card information block on the left.
🟣Type
By default, all created cards are of the type “Card”, but you can easily change it, for example, our card type is "Epic".
🟣Due date and ASAP
When the card should be completed.
🟣Size
Estimation of labor cost per task, it can be measured in hours or hundred points, money, etc.
🟣Tags
Any text you would like to categorize your card with.
🟣Custom properties
Custom properties do the same job as tags: they categorize your cards. You can create custom properties, such as "project" (categorizing tasks by project), "version" (the number of the release the task is planned or included in), "priority" (if you need to prioritize beyond the task's place in the column).
🟣Checklist is a list of items to be performed. The checklist allows you to generate a clear list of subtasks related to the card.
To create one, first click the purple + sign, and then click the "Checklist" button, and the system will prompt you to enter the first item on the checklist. Once you are finished, press "Enter" or the "Ok" button.
🟣 Relations between cards
Relations, like checklists, help you create subtasks. When checklists are not enough, you can create parent-child links between cards.
Child cards allow you to create the necessary nesting of projects
Click on the purple + sign in the card
Click "Parent card" if you want to add a parent task, or "Child card" for a child task
Type first letters of title of cards you want to link, then pick it from suggestion-list
Select the desired option
In addition, existing checklist items can be quickly converted into child cards.
Let's pay attention to the block of buttons, which are located above.
The “Start Timer” button allows you to keep track of the time for a particular task
“Move to the next column” button
Block card button
When you block a card, you are signaling to your colleagues that there is a problem that is preventing the task from moving forward.
Developer got ill
Client is not answering on phone calls
Required dependent work is not ready yet
You can enter a blocking reason or by clicking the "Add Blocker Card" button you can find and add a blocking card. You can do both and there is no limit to the number of blocking reasons.
👩💼Teamwork
How to see and control your load?
🚫 WIP limit is a guideline for the maximum number of cards in a column. As soon as the number of cards exceeds by one the set number, the column will be highlighted in red and will signal that the limit is exceeded.
Why?
You can use WIP Limits as a signals, that highlight overloaded stages of your processes. By setting appropriate limits for stages you can control process flow and gather better analytics for lead time.
📆 How do I create a scheduled task?
If you have a need to create cards on a regular basis, please use the following button on your workspace:
You will be prompted to create a scheduled task and select parameters for it. You can set up almost any frequency of card creation or schedule a one-time card creation in the future
💻Lists, table, timeline, reports
🗒Lists mode
🧮Table mode
The report can be downloaded for use in MS Office or Google Docs
You can also filter tasks by any parameters.
📆If you want to schedule projects and activities for them, Kaiten has a Timeline mode where you can visualize future processes by giving them a start and end date.
📊Reports
Reports provides various charts and reports for deep analysis of your processed.
Most charts come from Scrum and Kanban methodologies.
📬Kaiten allows you to stay on top of changes
You can set up Kaiten so that you receive notifications on changes, added cards, new comments. To do this, in your profile, go to "Notifications settings" and check what kind of notifications you want to receive and where.
It is important to add that in order to enable notifications in Telegram or Slack, you first need to set them up for your account. You can do this through the administrative section by selecting "Telegram Bot" or "Slack bot":
Still have questions?
Write to our chat - we'll be happy to answer them!
Or maybe the answer to your question is already in our FAQ.