#BigTip: Master Jira card views on your Agile board
Jira cards are useful visual artifacts that help managers and teams track work items as they progress through a workflow. By facilitating visual communication and information sharing, Jira cards encourage teamwork and cooperation.
Today, we’ll explore Jira cards in BigPicture’s Agile board setting. You’ll learn about their purpose, benefits, and how to “play” with them effectively.
Ready to advance in the Jira card premier league table? Let’s begin!
What is a Jira card in BigPicture?
Jira cards visually represent work items, issues at risk, or standalone project risks. They are interactive rectangles that can be moved and edited in real-time. In BigPicture, Jira cards are available in two modules: Board (which we will cover in this article) and Risks.
Visualizing Jira issues with task cards
When discussing the Agile board, Jira cards typically represent user stories and tasks. But in BigPicture, you can use Jira cards to display any Jira issue on the board, which we refer to as ‘task cards.’
You can work with task cards much like physical Agile or Scrum boards. That includes moving task cards between the teams, Sprints/iterations, or statuses (To do, Done, In progress). Additionally, you can inline edit their properties, such as assignees, dates, priorities, and other fields based on your card configuration.
How to create a new Jira card
Let’s see how to create a new task card and add it to your board. (Hint: It’s quick and easy!)
Create and add a new task card to your Agile board
You can create and add a new task card directly on the board. Go to the Board module and locate the “+” (plus) sign. Click it to open the “Create task and add to board” modal. Here, you’ll see a Jira-like issue creation window where you enter the relevant work item details.
After clicking the Create button, the app will automatically add the task to the board. You can then drag it to the appropriate team’s swimlane to assign it or move it to the backlog for later.
In the example above, we created a new task card in the “Team unassigned” swimlane, which holds tasks without assigned teams.
However, if you already know the team to assign the task card to, you can skip the drag-and-drop step. Scroll down to locate the team on the board and click the plus sign in their swimlane to create, add, and assign a Jira card in one step.
Enabling key issue information with Jira card views
In card games, each card is distinct – Whether it’s the six of spades ♠, the Queen, or the Ace of diamonds ♦️. You can quickly grasp their meaning by glancing at the card’s number, letter, and symbol.
Jira cards function similarly by visually presenting important information, such as the summary and assignee of the risk or work item. In BigPicture, you have the flexibility to customize key information displayed on your task and risk cards.
This customization allows you to create various unique Jira card views and conveniently switch between them. Think of it as having your own personalized Jira card deck, where each card conveys exactly the information you desire.
Now, let’s see how to configure Jira card layouts (views) for your issues in BigPicture.
Creating and customizing Jira card views for project issues
In BigPicture, you create new task cards and customize the existing default ones using the Card View Creator, which simplifies the process with drag-and-drop functionality.
#1. Accessing the Card View Creator
The quickest route to the Card View Creator is by selecting “Card View” in the upper menu and then choosing “Manage card views.” This option takes you directly to a list of all your current card views.
Alternatively, you can take a longer route:
- Click the BigPicture link at the top blue Jira menu
- Go to Administration > Box type
- Select the Box type you wish to edit
- Choose Board > Card Views
As you can see, the “Card View” route is much faster!
On the following page, you can perform various actions, including cloning, editing, and deleting existing card views, including the default ones. Click the prominent “Add new Card View” button in the top right corner to initiate the Jira card creation process from scratch.
When the “New Card View” modal appears, name your new card (e.g., Progress) and add a description if desired. Here, you also set the Visibility status, determining whether your new view will be visible only to you (“Private”) or also to others (“Public”).
#2. Configure your new Jira card
Now, it’s time to customize your Card View Creator. Think of it as a blank canvas where you can add as many fields as needed. By default, the creator includes “Icon,” “Key,” “Status,” “Description,” and “Assignee” fields, which you can keep (recommended) or delete.
Begin by using the plus button to add a blank field. Then, locate the field you want to include on your card and drag it into the designated area. If necessary, you can resize or rearrange fields.
Note that the “Progress” field provides additional options. Not all fields have extra customization options, but when available, they may vary based on field type. The gear icon will indicate if a field offers more customization options.
Once you’ve finished building your new Jira card, save your work. The new card view will be accessible under the View menu, and you can enable it at any time. You can also add a view to your favorites by clicking the star icon.
Handling Jira card information overload
Lastly, consider the size and amount of information stored on your Jira cards.
While there’s no limit to the number of fields you can add to your task card, adding more data will increase the card’s size. Extensive card views may slow down the app and limit the number of cards visible in a single column on your board.
To address this issue, create multiple similar cards to display the necessary information efficiently. In essence, distribute the fields across two or more card views in a meaningful way.
Furthermore, if text-based fields truncate due to their length, you can enable the “Wide” layout for your board. This allows Jira cards to expand in width, providing more space for characters to be displayed.
Sign up to try BigPicture for free
BigPicture helps you plan, build, and manage complex projects and portfolios. One of its key features is project task visualization with Jira cards. You can use Jira cards on your Agile board to track a work item as it flows through a workflow, even when you work with remote teams and stakeholders. The cards are also customizable and allow you to view important details about work items at a glance.
Sign up for a 30-day free trial and discover how BigPicture can help you build and execute projects more easily — no matter how big, complex, or unique they are. We also encourage you to join our live demo webinar. It’s a fantastic opportunity to see for yourself why more than 20,000 PPMs and their teams trust our software to build their amazing products.
