Happy New Year — New Controls for Viewing Features and Capacity Planning
December 31, 2013

Happy New Year — New Controls for Viewing Features and Capacity Planning

by Brian de Haaff

We just got this one in before the end of the year (at least in California). It was close — but we slipped it in. And what a year it’s been. We have been humbled by your response to Aha! and the rapid growth of the business. It’s been an amazing few months and it’s clear that we have become the obvious choice for creating visual roadmaps and product management software in general. We are grateful to you.

It is also New Year’s Eve, so I am going to keep the post short before the party starts and the family gets angry that I am still working. So, here are the new goodies that were just released. Kudos to the engineering team that just keeps cranking out what matters.

This first new feature should make everyone just a little happier. We added the ability to pull the dividing line between the parking lot bins and scheduled releases on the Features - Board screen. It’s a subtle, but great addition as lots of folks have lots of bins in the parking lot and want to see more of them at one time. It also works really well if you are using more of a continuous development methodology and don’t have formal releases. You told us that you want to be able to control how much of the screen is devoted to each section. You now can.

When you pull and release the dividing line (between the white and gray areas), Aha! will remember where you left it. This will then stay fixed every time you visit the screen including if you look at this same Features - Board screen for other products. Of course, you can always reset its location by pulling the line as needed.

If you are using capacity planning and effort estimates you now can control whether you set the effort estimate at the feature or requirements level. This setting is per feature and is under Actions. Note that existing features that have requirements will need to be manually changed to use the feature level effort control if that is what you want.

New features will automatically use the feature level effort control by default (and need to be changed to set effort by requirements). Once again, you need to have capacity planning turned on for your product (under Account settings) if you want to take advantage of this new capability.

We hope that you have a happy and safe New Year’s Eve and Day. We will see you on the other side.

Brian de Haaff

Brian de Haaff

Brian seeks business and wilderness adventure. He is the co-founder and CEO of Aha! — the world’s #1 product development software — and the author of the bestseller Lovability and The Startup Adventure newsletter. Brian writes and speaks about product and company growth and the journey of pursuing a meaningful life.

Follow Aha!

Follow Brian