Card types
Introduction
Card types are the various things you track in your project. These things would change from project to project depending on the methodology you follow and the kind of project. For example a newly started project under active development could have card types like story, risk, defect etc. while a project in maintenance mode might have bug, issue, enhancement, feature request etc.
Each card type can have its own properties and transitions. This means that different types of cards could proceed through different properties and different lifecycles.
Card types behave like property values, which allows them to have a sort order and color. You can group by and color by Type in grid views, filter by them, create saved views and tabs, use them in MQL Queries and charts, just like you could with any other enumerated property.
Take a look at the standard project templates that are provided with Mingle to see some examples of what kind of card types may be useful to your project.
Maintaining card types
Navigate to the Card types page
- Sign in to Mingle as a project administrator and open the project (if you're not already working in the project).
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Click the Project admin tab.
Mingle displays the Project settings page.
if you are logged in as a project team member, Mingle displays the Team page.
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Click the Card types link.
Mingle displays the Card types page with all card types set up for this project.
Editing and deleting card types
The card type page looks and works similarly to the card property page. Use the edit and delete links to edit existing card types.
You can only delete a card type if it is not used by any card in your project.
Add or remove properties
You can add or remove properties from a card type, click the Edit link and add or remove properties using the checkboxes next to the property names
If you remove properties from a card type, then any data that was held in those properties is lost.
Maintain card defaults
Click on the Edit defaults link to specify default property values for the card type.
Reorder card display properties
You can change the order in which card properties are displayed in the card view.
Click on the Drag links next to the properties you want to re-order and drag them into the correct order.
Creating a new card type
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Click the Create new card type link.
Mingle displays the New card type page.
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Select which card properties should apply to the new card type
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Click on the Create type link to save your work.
How do card types impact how Mingle works?
Card Editing
You can only set values for properties that belong to the current card type. Properties that are not applicable will not even show up.
If you change the type of a card, all properties not applicable to the new type will be deleted. You cannot automatically undo this change. You can still undo it manually, using the project history. The same thing happens when editing cards in bulk.
Transitions
You can only use properties in a transition that are valid for the specified card type. You cannot change a card's type in a transition.
Filters
Card types drive a lot of how filtering works. The valid properties for the selected properties are automatically made available to you.
Click here to read more about filtering.
Importing and Exporting from Excel
- While importing cards, there is an option to import a particular column's values as card types. If you have a column called Type, it will be automatically chosen to be the card type column. On import, a card type will be created for each unique value in this column. All other columns that are selected as properties are made available to that card type.
- You can only choose at most one column to be card type.
- If you import from Excel into a project without any cards and you do not select any column to be card type, all imported cards will be assigned the first card type in the project. This card type is shown to you when you import.
- If you import from Excel over existing cards and update their card type, all values corresponding to their old type will be deleted.
If when you are updating cards through Excel Import, you change the type of a card, all properties not applicable to the new type will be deleted. You cannot automatically undo this change. You can still undo it manually, using the project history.