A new Zoom feature for Task Boards

Agile & Scrum, Kanban & Lean, Usability, , , ,

Along with the new Undo feature we have added a Zoom button that appears on the top-right of the app, on laptops, desktops and tablets:

When zoomed out, the board shows all tasks (cards) as a single line, and this is handy if you are dealing with a large board. Here’s what a zoomed-out view looks like:

This feature has existed for a while in our mobile apps; now you can use it on your desktop as well.

We have also improved this feature on mobile to make it possible for you to add new tasks while you are zoomed-out.

Top Free Project Management Tools: Kerika ranks #1

Kerika, ,

SystemTek just published an article on the top free project management tools, and we are pleased to note that Kerika ranks #1 on the list, ahead of Trello, Asana, Clickup and Todoist.

The article notes that Kerika comes with:

Read the whole article.

Ultimate Guide to Lesson Planning: Tips and Strategies for Teachers

Academic & Nonprofit, Kerika,

Mirror Review features Kerika in an article on lesson planning! From the article:

Choosing the right lesson planner is important as it directly impacts your ability to organize teaching materials efficiently and save time in the long run. Kanban tools have gained popularity among teachers due to their visual and flexible nature. There are many tools available in the market like Clickup and Trello. But if you’re looking for a cost-effective tool that caters specifically to educators, Kerika is the standout choice.

Read the entire article.

Maximizing Task Management Tools for Personal Time Management

Kerika

An article on the Top 10 Challenges to Effective Time Management that features Kerika.  The Top 10 Challenges are:

  1. Procrastination
  2. Over-committing
  3. Lack of prioritization
  4. Interruptions and Distractions
  5. Ineffective Planning
  6. Multitasking
  7. Perfectionism
  8. Lack of Delegation
  9. Failure to Set Boundaries
  10. Neglecting Self-Care

The article goes on to say

Task management tools are your allies in the battle for effective time management. They come in various shapes and sizes, each offering unique features to help you stay organized and on top of your tasks. One such tool is Kerika, which offers flexibility by working seamlessly on all browsers and platforms, making it a versatile choice for individuals managing tasks across multiple devices.

Read the whole thing!

Kerika just got better: why you are seeing this message more often

Kerika, Technology

“Kerika just got better…” is a message you are seeing almost daily, and that’s thanks to the massive 2-year effort that overhauled our old backend and made it much easier to push out changes.

We are now rolling out bug fixes and feature improvements on a daily basis, using our modern architecture. Previously we had to batch these up and do large upgrades; now we can push out the smallest changes, when we feel they are ready to go.

Under the old architecture taking the servers down for maintenance was a painful necessity; now changes can be deployed without any downtime.

All changes still go through extensive internal testing, and new features go through a lot of usability testing in particular, before anything gets pushed out.

Making sure you catch up on all unread updates

Kanban & Lean, Usability, , , ,

If your board has a lot of tasks (and we know of people whose boards have nearly 2,000 tasks!), you may not notice immediately if a task that’s out of your current view has been updated.  Our latest version makes sure you don’t miss anything:

In the example shown above, the two columns have tasks with unread updates that are out of view because the columns are long (and the viewport is short).  Whenever this happens, Kerika will show you an orange arrow: clicking on the arrow will bring the next unread update into view.

This makes sure you always know when something has changed, even when that isn’t within your view!

At Kerika we are obsessed about usability…

A more detailed view of Task History

Kanban & Lean, Kerika, Usability, , , ,

It’s not often you need to look at the detailed history of a task (card) but sometimes you need to know exactly what happened, when, and who did what.

Our latest version has a much improved Task History, as you can see from these examples:

Every change made to a task is logged and the HISTORY tab of the task details dialog shows you not just who made a change and when, but also what the change was.

Where attachments were added, these are shown as links so you can quickly view it by clicking on the link.

Status changes show the old and new values for the status.

Due date changes also show the old and new due dates.

When it comes to sub-tasks (checklist items), the new history view is greatly improved:

You can see every instance of a checklist item changing, including renaming (editing), changing the assignments, and changing the due dates.

Enjoy Kerika!

Two ways of referencing URLs in Kerika

Technology, Usability

When you include a URL in a task’s details tab or chat, Kerika will look up the URL and then display the title of the page.  This is really useful because the URL may be very long and generally unintelligible, and people find the name of the site to be more useful.

Here’s an example, where the URL for the New York Times website is included in a chat message:

After this chat is sent, Kerika will look up the URL and then use the site’s name when the chat is displayed in Kerika, like this:

This is useful most of the time. The original URL, from the Wall Street Journal was long and contained many characters as a suffix  that most people would not find helpful.

But sometimes you want the URL itself to be clearly visible, and that’s possible in Kerika if you use the special escape character called the tilde “`” which appears on the top-left corner of English keyboards.

Here’s how you would use the tilde to “escape” the URL you are referencing:

And this is how it would look in the chat stream:

Because you used the tilde character to bracket the URL, Kerika doesn’t try to show the name; instead it shows the URL exactly as it is.

Another useful improvement from Kerika 🙂

Kerika has a free Template for Daily Tasks Planner

Best Practices, Kanban & Lean, Tutorials, ,
The best way to organize your work and stay on top of your tasks.
This powerful template helps you stay organized and on top of your tasks. With its clear overview of daily tasks, you can prioritize your work and track your progress to ensure that you meet your goals effectively.
Whether you’re managing a project or working independently, this template helps you streamline your workflow and achieve your objectives with ease.
How to use this template:
  1. Resources: This column is for listing any resources you need to complete your tasks. You can create new cards for each resource or use existing ones. This helps you keep everything in one place and ensures you have what you need to get your work done.
  2. Daily Personal Plan: Use this column to create cards for your daily personal tasks. Set priority levels and add category tags like “errands” or “meetings” to help you stay organized. This will ensure that you don’t forget anything important and can manage your time effectively.
  3. Daily Work Task: This column is for your daily work-related tasks. Create a card for each task, set priority levels, and add category tags. This will help you prioritize your work and ensure that you focus on the most important tasks.
  4. In Progress: Move tasks to this column when you start working on them. Use TASK STATUS options like “In progress,” “On hold,” “Blocked,” or “Needs Review” to track your progress. This helps you know what tasks are actively being worked on and what their current status is.
  5. Done: Move tasks to this column when they are completed, or mark them as “Done” using the TASK STATUS options. This helps you keep track of what tasks have been completed and what still needs to be done.

We just overhauled the entire back end of Kerika

Kerika, Technology

An effort that took 2 years finally completed yesterday when we updated the Kerika app.

This massive project involved rewriting everything on the back-end of Kerika in order to modernize the architecture and set up us for a more rapid development of end-user functionality, as well as making it easier to release new versions in the future using Docker container.

Our old backend was not well designed: everything ran as a single monolithic server. Over the years we moved slowly away from that, by building new features as microservices, and while that helped a little, it wasn’t enough.

We had reached a point where it was taking exponentially more time to build new features, and we were facing operational risk as well because the old backend was poorly understood and document.

A complete rewrite was necessary, and we bit the bullet on that a couple of years ago. There was significant cost and complexity but our great team powered through all the challenges, particularly when it came to transitioning our main database away from MySQL (hosted as RDS, by Amazon) to a NoSQL model using Google’s Firestore service.

Now that we are done we can start delivering more functionality, starting with support for non-English languages.

Stay tuned for our first non-English language, which will be Hindi, to be offered in a couple of weeks.