Setting up the physical board

Agile Cards come with the synchronization feature allowing the team members to easily synchronize the physical and digital boards. In order for the synchronization to work the physical board must be configured first in Jira.

Agile Cards needs to know which of the columns you want to be displayed on your physical board. The columns will be represented by the human-readable labels, and divided by computer-readable "splitters". 

In order to start setting up the physical board for scanning, select Agile Cards → Synchronize physical task board option from the menu:

You will be presented with the synchronization dialog. It has three tabs. One for setting up the splitters and two for performing the actual synchronization.

Make sure to go to the "Physical board setup" tab first. It is here where you will be able to set up your physical board. The screen will allow you to add the columns and reorder them on your physical board. To add a new column, select it from the drop-down list. To reorder the columns simply drag them along the screen into the new position. In order to remove the column from the physical board, drag it back to the list on the left.

Mind that you can define multiple physical boards configured around different Jira fields. By default the physical board will be defined for Status field in Jira, in order to mimic your digital Kanban or Scrum boards. But you can also define physical boards for other fields as well. Currently Agile Cards allows you to define physical boards for:

• status field
• custom fields of single select type

but in future we will add more fields to it. If you want us to know which field you want to have implemented next please contact us directly at support@appfire.com.

All the configuration which is performed on this screen only affects the physical board setup for Agile Cards. It is safe to experiment freely!

Printing splitters

When you are ready with the configuration, press the "Print splitters" button. Agile Cards will generate a document which will contain the necessary information for the scanner to work. The document will consist of three sections, usually divided into three pages:

• board QR code
• human-readable column labels
• computer-readable column splitters

Here is what you need to do with them:

Board QR Code

The QR code for the board makes it easier to access the Agile Cards synchronization page from mobile devices.

You can cut out the QR code and attach it to your board in whatever place. You can also chose to not use the board QR code at all. It is optional and not required by the synchronization algorithm to operate.

Human-readable column labels

Human-readable column labels are as simple as that. You can print them out, cut them into separate strips and attach the labels to the top of your columns. Or the bottom. Or wherever it makes sense for your team to have them. As in case of the Board QR code, the human-readable column labels are not required for the Agile Cards synchronization to work.

Computer-readable column splitters

Column splitters are required for Agile Cards synchronization algorithm to properly recognize the placement of the cards on the physical board. Once printed make sure you cut them into separate strips along the cutting lines. When attaching the splitters to the board always make sure that:

• the KR codes are not obscured by anything (pins, tape, magnets)
• the splitters are positioned vertically with "top" and "bottom" labels positioned correctly
• The order of the column is not changed, so that the neighbouring columns' labels printed out on the splitters match accordingly

Place all the physical components on the physical board and... that is it! You are done setting up your physical board for Agile Cards to work with.

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