Agilo for trac - FAQ

Welcome to the FAQ of Agilo for trac, the supportive Scrum Tool. In order to keep this page up to date and useful we would like to ask you to support us. So, if you don't find the right answer below, let us know!

 

  1. Which version of Agilo should I use?
  2. Licensing
  3. Backlogs
  4. Task, User Stories and other Items
  5. Admin Interface
  6. Teams View
  7. Bugs
  8. General Stuff
  9. Installation
  10. Integrations

You don't find the right answer? Please send us your question in an e-mail →

 


1. Which version of Agilo should I use?

If you download Agilo from our web site, you can choose between:

2. Licensing

In order to use Agilo Pro you need to activate a license. For your evaluation we offer a Free 30 Day Trail. After that you need to buy a Team license. You can activate the licenses as the Administration panel under "Licensing".

What is a user in terms of Agilo Pro licensing?

Currently a user license means 'concurrent users' (on a daily basis). That means the first user logging in the morning locks one license for the whole day, so you need one license per user unless you have some users that only login every once in a while in which case you can take the "risk" of having a shared license, or a pool of those.

Can I have more users than licenses?

Yes, you can configure more users than your license allows. If more people than licensed login in one day though, all Pro functionality will be disabled for all users for the remainder of the day.

Can I set up some users who don't have Pro access?

Unfortunately, this is not possible. Since all users can use the Pro functionality, all need a license.

Can I use Agilo Pro to develop free and open source software?

Sure! We're using and building software that is free and open source, and we support others who do so as well. If you are using Agilo to manage your open source project or if you're a student, don't hesitate to contact us regarding free licenses. By the way, we also have discounts for universities and not-for-profit institutions.

 

3. Backlogs

Does Agilo for trac allow multiple Product Backlogs?

Unfortunately, you can only have one Product Backlog per environment. However, there are solutions to track multiple products with Agilo:

How to show custom types in Backlogs?

You can create backlogs of any custom types in Agilo for trac. Types will however only be shown in Agilo if they either are considered a container or a task (something that can be worked on). To make something a container, you need to add an outgoing link to something which would already be shown in a backlog. To make something tasklike you need to add a custom field named remaining_time (just like on tasks).

What are "Contingents"? How are they used?

We encourage the use of contingents to track time-boxed work that cannot be planned in advance. A capacity removes a part of the team capacity, and stores it aside for contingencies. This could be e.g. a Hot Fixing contingent to fix bugs in a production release, while you are in a sprint. The idea of contingents is to create buffers for transparency and to give control to the Team not to miss the commitment. This buffer is normally negotiated with the Product Owner at the beginning of every sprint.

 

4. Task, User Stories and other Items

What are Resources?

In Agilo every Ticket/Item can have an owner (assignee). Resources describe every other Team Member besides the owner that are working on a task. A resource is allowed to book remaining time on a task, but not to change its status, only the owner can do this. Useful for design meetings, and any other activity which is performed by more than one person, also pair-programming :-)

What is Importance?

Importance is what Mike Cohn calls 'Mandatory", 'Linear' and 'Exciter' stories, according to the Kano Analysis. It represents what is needed, what is wished and what would excite the user of the system. This property can be very useful to make a bit of "risk management", try to push forward all the mandatory first, than some linear and than the exciters. You can change the Importance at any time because the system is completely dynamic.

 

5. Admin Interface

Can I change the terms used in Agilo like "Requirements", "Impediment", "User Story"?

Yes, if your company uses different terms than the default Agilo for trac terms, you can change these in Admin Interface: Agilo/Types. Click on the link and change the alias of a type, that is what is used in the interface. Do not try to change the name of the predefined Agilo types (task, story, requirement, bug), this will affect the way Agilo for trac works.

How can I configure or add new Items/Ticket types in Agilo?

You can configure every Agilo for trac Item in the Admin Interface: Agilo/Types. Clicking on the link you will see all the pre-configured Agilo types. You can change the fields for a type and also add new types of tickets for your own specific needs (e.g.: Impediment).

Can I add a new field to the Items/Tickets in Agilo for trac?

You can add custom fields to Agilo at the Admin Interface: Agilo/Fields

 

6. Teams View

Can I see the actual capacity, overtime etc. of a team member?

Selecting the Teams item in the upper menu you will find a list of all you teams. By selecting one team, you will see the individual capacity for every team member. You can also see all the sprint statistics including Velocity (Estimated and Actual) and Commitment/Capacity.

 

7. Bugs

Is there a way to track remaining time on a bug?

You can add tasks to it, then the total remaining time will be shown on the bug. This is the way we suggest, because more than one task might be needed to fix a bug. As a best practice we suggest to write tasks whenever it makes sense to (e.g.: more than 2h-4h of work depending on the Sprint duration).

 

8. General Questions

Is there a view or report that simulates a Planning Board?

Yes, Agilo Pro has a feature called "Whiteboard". It supports you at the Daily Standup Meeting, as well as during Task breakdown and general sprint execution.

Is there a roadmap that describes the future plans for the tool?

Sure! But it is not public. We plan to open the Agilo Development Website to the masses, but given our limited time, it will be a significant effort to make triage and sorting of all the requests in a sensible way.

Can I start the Agilo Appliance using VirtualBox as well?

Yes, you can. We have documented the steps necessary to run the Appliance in VirtualBox in our blog.

 

9. Installation

Is there an automated tool for importing existing SVN repositories into Trac and Agilo for Scrum?

You can use SVN tools, Trac just connect to existing repositories as such, you do not need to import. The only condition is that the SVN repository is located in the same place where the Trac server runs, as the SVN API are available only via filesystem.

Can I install Agilo for trac on Windows 7?

Yes, the Agilo for trac installer for Windows supports 32-bit versions of Windows Vista and Windows 7 as well. Due to the increased separation of privileges, you need to make sure you run the Agilo service as the administrator so it has write access to the Agilo/Trac environment. To do this: load a command prompt as administrator (Start, type "cmd", right click the Prompt link, click "Run as..." and then select "Administrator"), navigate to c:\Program Files\Agilo and execute the "run" command.

 

10. Integrations

Is Agilo for trac compatible with Bitten?

Yes and we use it integrated with that on https://dev.agile42.com/

 

Have fun

The Agilo Software team