The backlog and importing

The backlog is the simple list view of all the work on a project. Where the board shows your cards as columns you drag between, the backlog shows them as one tidy list, top to bottom. It is the fastest way to scan everything, find a card, and tidy up in bulk. A card is a single task or item of work, like “Order kitchen tiles” or “Snag list, first floor”.

What you can do here

• Read every card on the project (or in one space) as a plain list.
• Search by words and narrow the list with filters.
• Open any card to see its full detail.
• Select many cards at once and act on all of them together.
• Mark prepared cards as Ready to pick up by dragging them into the drop zone at the top of the list.
• Add a new card straight from the bottom of the list.
• Import a whole batch of cards from a spreadsheet.

A space is a room, zone or area of the job (for example “Kitchen” or “First floor”). If you opened the backlog for one space, you only see that space’s cards. Otherwise you see the whole project.

How to find a card

1. Type in the search box at the top of the list. It matches as you type, so you do not press enter.
2. Narrow the list further with the dropdown filters next to the search box:
   • Type keeps only one kind of card (for example actions or questions).
   • Epic keeps only cards in a chosen epic. An epic is a larger piece of work that groups related cards.
   • Role keeps only cards tied to a chosen role, when roles are in use.
3. Filter by person using the row of avatars (small round profile pictures) below the search box. Click an avatar to show only that person’s cards. Click more avatars to add more people. Click “Clear” to show everyone again.

You can combine all of these. Searching for “tiles” while one person and one epic are selected shows only their tile cards in that epic.

How to mark a card ready to pick up

Above the backlog list sits a drop zone named Ready to pick up. It shows the cards that are prepared and cleared to start, and the board shows the same cards as its first column.

1. Prepare the card: finish the description, attach what is needed, involve the right people.
2. Drag the card from the backlog list into the zone. You can also open the card’s menu (the three dots) and choose Ready to pick up.
3. Changed your mind? Drag the card back down into the list, or use Move to backlog in the menu of a card inside the zone.

Cards in the zone are no longer part of the backlog: they count as work on the board, and the bulk selection below only applies to backlog cards.

How to act on many cards at once

1. Tick the checkbox on the left of a card to select it. Tick more cards to add them to the selection.
2. To pick a run of cards quickly, tick the first one, then hold Shift and tick the last one. Everything in between is selected too.
3. Use the checkbox in the list header to select or deselect every visible card at once.
4. A dark bar slides up from the bottom showing how many cards are selected. Open its menu (the three dots) to choose an action for all of them:
   • Move to a board column.
   • Assign to a person, or unassign them.
   • Generate a title with the assistant, useful when cards came in with rough or empty titles.
   • Delete the selected cards. You are asked to confirm first.
5. Press Escape, or use the close button on the bar, to clear your selection.

Tip: To clean up an import, sort with filters first, select the batch with Shift-click, then assign and move them all in one go.

How to add a single card

At the bottom of the list there is a quick-add row. Type a title and add it. The new card lands in this project (and this space, if you opened a space), ready for you to open and fill in more detail.

How to import cards from a spreadsheet

If you already track work in Excel or a CSV file (a plain text spreadsheet), you do not have to retype it. The import wizard brings those rows in as cards. Importing creates cards, so you need contribute access to the project.

1. Open the import wizard with the Import button near the board, then choose where your data comes from:
   • File: upload a .csv, .tsv, .txt, .xlsx or .xls file (up to 20 MB).
   • URL: paste a web link to a published sheet and Wyroo fetches it.
   • Paste: paste rows straight from a spreadsheet.
   • Text: paste a plain description and the assistant pulls out the cards for you.
2. For file, URL and paste, leave “First row is a header” ticked if your top row holds column names. Wyroo guesses this for you, so only change it if the guess is wrong. Then continue.
3. On the mapping step, tell Wyroo what each of your columns means. For every column, pick a target field from the dropdown: Title, Description, Epic, Assignee, Type, Priority, Status, Tags, Deadline, Story points, Subtasks or Roles. Set columns you do not want to Skip. Title is the only required field. Under each column name you will see an example value taken from your own rows, which is how you tell columns apart when your sheet has no header row and Wyroo has to call them Column 1, Column 2 and so on.
4. Check the live summary: how many new cards will be created, and how many look like duplicates (a card with the same title already exists) and will be skipped. If you mapped an assignee column, Wyroo shows how each name matches a member, and a small preview shows your first rows the way they will import.
5. Choose where the cards land: the backlog, or a specific board column. If you mapped a description, you can also let the assistant write tidy titles.
6. Start the import. It runs in the background and the last step tells you the totals: how many came in and how many were skipped.

A Subtasks column becomes a checklist on the card. Put one item per line in the cell. A line that starts with a tick mark (for example a checked box) is brought in already done. Recent imports are listed on the first step, so you can reuse a source link.

A Roles column attaches the roles a card belongs to. One cell can name several, separated by commas, semicolons or pipes: “Electrician, Plumber” attaches both. Wyroo only attaches roles the project already has, and never invents one from a word in your sheet, because a role belongs to your whole company and would arrive with nobody in it. Anything it cannot place is listed on the last step, so you can add those roles and import again. See Roles.

Tip: Wyroo skips duplicates by matching titles, so a second import of the same sheet will not flood the project with copies. You can import up to 5000 rows at a time.