UPDATED 17:03 EDT / JULY 22 2014

Huboard Enterprise: Project management for Github repositories

man using computer in dark room screen glow privacy securityGitHub today is the most popular online repository for projects related to the development of code and more. And if you are used to work on Github and use regular Kanban to manage your tasks and progress of development, you’ll love Huboard.

Huboard Enterprise is an open source platform developed in Ruby on Rails for adding project management features directly to your Github projects. Developer Ryan Rauh started developing Huboard almost three years ago. Like Trello, which needs no introduction, you can monitor real-time job status of your projects organized in several columns as: To do, current, complete, prod, etc.

The difference lies in the fact that the platform is directly related to your Github where you can list your Github projects, automatically synchronize your issues with numbers, manage various milestones, and assign tasks to a member of your team to easily filter out various tasks.

How it works

System of tracking tasks in GitHub lacks the mechanism of prioritizing tasks. In this case, you can use labels with priority tasks, such as high, medium, low, but perhaps you prefer an ordered list of the most important tasks at the top of the list. Huboard offers you user-friendly interface in the style of Kanban (similar to Trello), which uses all the possibilities GitHub API.

The key to Huboard is the simple tagging. Simply add a number, dash, and the title of the issue for it to be listed on the Kanban board. Then apply the label(s) to the issue. Huboard has both pros and cons for an agile project team. It provides a direct interface within Github without the addition of any plugin or bridges. The company site says it is built to complement GitHub Flow, by giving you just enough to get out of your way so that you can focus on your code and not your tools.

With Huboard, you look at your problem in GitHub, but with a different interface. However, it is worth mentioning that it simply and quickly deploy the platform Heroku, and it does not require large support costs. Using Huboard, you get the opportunity to see the priority tasks for the week, so developers always see what they have to do more.

Milestones can be created, issues can be assigned to them (and to users) with drag ‘n’ drops and milestones can be prioritized by re-ordering them. The Kanban board uses the number to order the columns by the labels and the following title as the column header so as to distinguish the errors. Once developers worked on a specific issue on Kanban board, they can drag and drop work into different columns, updating the labels within GitHub. Further, the board provides basic, high-level progress on issues at the milestone level.

Better project management

Some project management system require a new login for each new instance of the software. For example, if you have two different clients that use the same project management system, it is possible that you will have to remember two different combinations of username and password and you cannot easily switch between accounts.

Huboard provides users with access to all projects and repositories, to which you have access, without having to create multiple accounts. Github system contains nothing superfluous, but you may find that it lacks the familiar and comfortable you options. However, fortunately, Huboard development team is constantly working on GitHub functionality of the system.

On negative side, the tool still lacks features like detailed metrics or reporting, combining milestones with the same name or estimation tools and mechanisms. However, the developers are working on more features including file attachments to issues, project overview, metrics, lead time, audit history, graphs, and enterprise support. To summarize, it is worth noting that Huboard is a great project management system for the tech-savvy professionals.

photo credit: powtac via photopin cc

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