The tree

In a tree project, the tree is where you shape the work: start from the vision and break it down, branch by branch, until every piece is a task.

The vision node

The Tree tab shows your project as an indented outline. The node at the top is the vision: the one sentence that describes what the project is for. Everything else hangs below it.

Each row has a triangle to Collapse or Expand its children, the node name, and on the right a progress counter. Click the triangle on a node to hide its branch, and again to show it. Click a node name to open its details; see Story points and Acceptance criteria.

Four small icons stand in front of the name. From left to right they are Add child, Add sibling, Split and Delete. The vision cannot have siblings and cannot be deleted, so it only offers Add child and Split.

Use Search tasks above the tree to filter it by name.

Splitting a node

Splitting turns a node into a group of smaller nodes. Use it when a task is too big.

1. Click the Split icon on the node.
2. Under New children, enter a Name for each child. Two children are offered; click Add another child for more, or Remove child to drop one. A Description is optional.
3. If the node has acceptance criteria, the dialog shows Assign acceptance criteria. Tick the children that should receive a copy of each criterion. A criterion with no tick stays on the parent.
4. Click Split. The children appear below the node, which now counts its children.

On a phone

The row icons are replaced by one Actions button with three dots. Tap it for a menu with Add child, Add sibling, Split and Delete.

Quick-adding a child

1. Click the Add child icon on the node. A field with the hint Add child... opens below it. (Add sibling does the same one level up, next to the node.)
2. Type the name and press Enter. The new node appears at the end of the node's children.
3. The field stays open so that you can type the next name straight away. Press Escape to close it.

Colors

Colors group branches visually. A colored stripe at the left of each row shows the group; in the backlog the row is tinted in the same color and carries a label with the name of the node that gives the color. A node without a color of its own takes the color of the nearest colored node above it.

1. Click the node name to open its details.
2. Under Color, click one of the ten swatches. The stripe changes at once.
3. For another shade, click Custom color…, choose the color in Choose a color and click Apply (or Cancel).
4. Click No color to remove the color again.

Progress

A node that has children shows its progress at the right of the row: a counter such as 1/3, the number of finished children out of all children, and a bar. A task counts as finished when its status is Done; a finished task shows a check mark. A task that was part of a release shows the label Released: followed by the release name.

The bar fills according to story points: it shows the share of the node's total that its finished children carry. It fills only when every task below the node has an estimate.

Deleting a node

1. Click the Delete icon on the node.
2. The dialog Delete node? names the node and how many nodes below it go with it. Read it carefully.
3. Click Delete to confirm, or Cancel to keep the node.

Acceptance criteria

Acceptance criteria are the conditions that must be true for a node to count as done.

1. Click the node name to open its details and scroll to Acceptance criteria.
2. Type a condition in the field and click Add.
3. To remove a criterion, click the × next to it.

When you split a node, its criteria can be handed on to the new children.

Story points

Story points are your estimate of the size of a task. They feed the progress bars.

1. Click the task name to open its details.
2. Enter a number in Story Points.
3. Press Enter or click elsewhere. The value is saved.

The story points also appear next to each task in the backlog. More about the other fields of the detail panel is in Task details.