Retro boards

A retro board is where your team looks back on a sprint, a release or an incident. People add cards to columns, vote and comment on them, and turn what they agree on into action items. This page covers creating a retro, running it, inviting guests, and closing it.

Retro boards live under Retro in the EvoHub console.

#Create a retro board

The Retro home page lists your boards with their status (active or closed) and counts of total, active and closed boards and open action items. If you pick a team in the team switcher, the list shows that team's retros.

#Columns

People who can manage the board can shape it:

• Add a column: click Column, give it a name, optionally pick an emoji and a color, and click Add.
• Rename a column, or change its emoji and color, from its heading.
• Reorder columns by dragging them by the handle.
• Delete a column. All of its cards are deleted with it.

#Cards

Type in a column's box ("What's on your mind?") to add a card. Cards do not show who wrote them, so people can be candid.

On each card you can:

• Vote: click Agree (thumbs up) or Disagree (thumbs down). The card shows the total score. Each person has one vote per card; clicking the same direction again removes your vote, and clicking the other direction switches it.
• React with an emoji: 👍 ❤️ 🎉 🤔 😢 🚀 💯 🔥. Click a reaction again to remove yours.
• Comment: open the card's comments and write one.
• Edit or Delete it, with the icons on the card. Double-clicking a card's text also starts editing.

You can edit and delete your own cards, and delete your own comments. People whose role can manage retros (retro:board:write, held by Owners, Admins and Members) can edit or delete anyone's cards and delete anyone's comments, which is how you moderate a board.

#Merge duplicate cards

When two cards say the same thing, drag one onto the other in the same column. Confirm Merge and the dragged card's text is combined into the target card, and the dragged card is removed.

#Turn voting or comments off

Use the Voting on/off and Comments on/off buttons in the board header. Both are on for a new board. Turning one off hides it on every card.

#Action items

The Action Items section below the columns holds the follow-ups the team agrees on.

• Click Add, describe the action, optionally type an Assignee (free text, so it can be a person, a team or anything else), and click Create.
• Tick an action item to mark it done; tick again to reopen it.
• The section shows how many are still open.

Action items stay with the board after it is closed, and the Retro home page counts the open ones across all your boards.

#Run it live

Everyone on the board sees new cards, votes, reactions, comments and action items appear as they happen, without reloading. The header shows how many people are online.

#Invite guests with a share link

People outside your EvoHub organization can join a retro through a share link.

Guests open the link without an EvoHub account. They can add cards, vote, react and comment. They cannot manage the board, add action items, edit or delete cards from the board, or export it.

Anyone with the link can join, so share it only with the people you mean to.

#Share link modes

A share link has three modes:

The console always creates links in participate mode. To change the mode, or to revoke every existing link by issuing a new one, use the API with an API key that has the retro:board:write scope:

# Make the link read-only
curl -X PATCH https://evohub.io/api/v1/retro/boards/<board-id>/share \
  -H "X-API-Key: $EVOHUB_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"mode": "read_only"}'

# Issue a new link; every old link stops working at once
curl -X POST https://evohub.io/api/v1/retro/boards/<board-id>/share/rotate \
  -H "X-API-Key: $EVOHUB_API_KEY"

The rotate call returns the new share_url.

#Who can see a retro

Click People in the board header to open Who can see this retro.

• Who sees it without being named: Everyone in the organization, the retro's team, or Only the people named here.
• People: add someone from your organization with Add a person…, or remove them. Members of the retro's team are listed as via team.
• Teams: give another team access with Share with a team…, or Unshare it.

Naming someone only lets them see the retro. What they can do on it comes from their organization role. Owners and Admins can see every retro.

#End and reopen a retro

When you are done, click End Retro and confirm. The board is closed: a banner says "This retrospective has been closed. No further changes can be made.", and nobody can add or change cards, votes, comments or action items.

To continue, click Reopen Retro.

#Export to PDF

Click Export PDF in the board header to download the board, with its columns, cards and action items, as a PDF.

#Delete a retro board

On the Retro home page, hover over a board and click the trash icon, Delete retro, then confirm. Deleting a board removes its columns, cards, votes, comments and action items.

Only Admins and Owners can delete retros (retro:board:delete). Members can create, run and close them, but not delete them.

#Permissions

Viewers can open the retros they can see, but the board is read-only for them. See Roles and permissions.

#Related

• Boards
• Organizations and teams
• Roles and permissions