Product Documentation

Super Admin: Super admin is the person, who is more like an owner of the product within your organization, and by default, he has access to all the squads and retrospective data within the organization. Super admin creates and manages the squads within the organization. They can access Retroacto via their designated email id and password.

Squad Admin: Squad admin is the person, who is the leader of one or more squads or teams within your organization, and by default, he has access to the squads and retrospective data assigned under his portfolio. Squad admin can create and manage retrospective sessions for their team. They can access Retroacto via their designated email id and password.

Retro Participants: Retro participants are team members working for a team and join retrospective sessions with the invite link or event code provided by the squad or super admins. They don’t need to register with Retroacto to participate in Retrospective sessions and their participation is controlled by the other participants in the Retrospective session.

A squad is a group of people who work towards a defined outcome over a specified period.

How to create a new squad?

After successfully logging into Retroacto as super admin, click on create squad under the squad menu. You will be redirected to the squad creation page.

1. Click on the ‘My Squad’ box if you are creating a squad for your own team

2. Enter your ‘Squad name‘, This is a mandatory field.

3. Upload a team logo (if you have one).

4. Enter a small description about your team.

5. Enter the ‘First Name‘ of the squad lead, This is a mandatory field.

6. Enter the ‘Last Name‘ of the squad lead, This is a mandatory field.

7. Enter the ‘Email id‘ of the squad leader, This is a mandatory field.

8. Click on ‘Send Invite’ to create the squad and send an invite to the squad Lead.

How to view and manage squads?

After successfully logging into Retroacto, click on Squad List under the squad menu. You will be redirected to a page containing the list of squads

1. Click on the ‘Edit Squad‘ if you wish to edit your squad details

2. Modify your ‘Squad Name‘, This is a mandatory field

3. Modify your team logo (if you have one).

4. Update the description of your team.

5. Modify the ‘First Name‘ of the squad lead, This is a mandatory field.

6. Modify the ‘Last Name‘ of the squad lead, This is a mandatory field.

7. Modify the ‘Email id‘ of the squad leader, This is a mandatory field and only super admin can modify.

8. Click on ‘Save‘ to update the squad details and ‘Cancel’ to discard the changes.

A Retro is a structured session on an iterative agile journey that provides an opportunity for teams to reflect on past work and identify ways to improve. Teams hold retrospective meetings after a time-boxed period of work is complete, typically end of each sprint.

How to create a new Retro Session?

After successfully logging into Retroacto, click on Create Retro under the Retro menu. You will be redirected to the Retro creation page.

Instant Retro

1. Choose the ‘Squad’ from the drop-down for the Retro session to be conducted. This is a mandatory field.

2. Enter your ‘Retro Title’, This is a mandatory field.

3. Choose ‘Instant Retro’ if you want to start the session immediately. This is a mandatory field.

4. Choose ‘Retro Template‘ from the drop-down on the topic you wish to run the Retro. This is a mandatory field.

5. Click on ‘Create Retro‘ to create the Retro session.

Scheduled Retro

1. Choose the ‘Squad’ from the drop-down for the Retro session to be conducted. This is a mandatory field.

2. Enter your ‘Retro Title’, This is a mandatory field.

3. Choose ‘Scheduled Retro‘ if you want to run the retro on a future date and time. This is a mandatory field.

4. Choose ‘Retro Template‘ from the drop-down the topic you wish to run the Retro. This is a mandatory field.

5. Click on ‘Create Retro‘ to create the Retro session.

How to view and manage scheduled Retro session?

1. Click on ‘Copy Link’ to copy the meeting invite into a clipboard.

2. Click on ‘Edit Board’ to modify the retro session details including Squad, Retro Title, Retro Template, and Retro schedule.

3. Click on ‘Cancel Retro’ to cancel the Retro session.

4. Click on ‘Delete Retro’ to delete the Retro session.

Retrospective sessions are one of the official ceremonies of the scrum methodology. Facilitated by a scrum master this session hosts the entire scrum team including developers, quality engineers, and product owners. Retrospective sessions are usually conducted at the end of every iteration or sprint focusing on the team’s reflection from the past and identifying the ways to improve.

According to the Agile principle manifesto “At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.”, these sessions are used to implement this principle.

How to start a new Retro session?

The Retro sessions can be started in two ways in Retroacto.

Instant Retro

1. Choose the ‘Squad‘ from the drop-down for the Retro session to be conducted.This is a mandatory field.

2. Enter your ‘Retro Title‘, This is a mandatory field.

3. Choose ‘Instant Retro‘ if you want to start the session immediately.This is a mandatory field.

4. Choose ‘Retro Template‘ from the drop-down on the topic you wish to run the Retro. This is a mandatory field.

5. Click on ‘Create Retro‘ to create the Retro session.

A new retro session is created on a pop-up window as shown below

The small little timer clock on the screen allows the session admin to run the time-boxed events during the retrospective sessions. At the end of the specified time frame, a sound gets emitted to participants and admin sessions.

Click on the ‘Play button’ to start the timer clock.

Click on the ’Copy button’ to copy the meeting link into a clipboard to share it with participants via your meeting invite.

Clicking on ’ Add Title’ will allow the session admins to add a new column to the existing template. Click on the small right green tick button to save the new column.

How to join a Retro Session?

Participants can join a Retro session in two ways.

1. If the participant knows the event id, they can simply join by clicking the ’Join Retro’ button on the Retroacto homepage.

The participant will be redirected to a page to enter their name and event id.

2. They can also join the session via the full link received from the session organizer or the participant from the copied link on the clipboard.

The participant will be redirected to a page to enter their name.

The entry or denial to the sessions is actioned by already existing participants or session admins.

A pop-up window appears on retro sessions to ‘Allow’ or ‘Deny’ user entry.

When multiple people are trying to join the session at the same time, the following pop-up window appears on the session to allow all the participants into the session.

The number of participants in the session can be seen through the following section on the retro session.

How to actively participate in a Retro Session?

Once the Retro session is commenced, participants and session admins can add their comments against the respective topic.

People are allowed to modify or delete any card within the session. This is to provide greater flexibility to the team in managing cards within the session.

The comment which needs high attention is noted on a highlighted color based on participants voting against the card. If more than 50% of people in the session vote for a card, this gets highlighted for getting additional traction during the discussion.

The card can be dragged to any column by anyone participating in the session.

How to manage cards during the Retro Session?

Retroacto provides greater flexibility to the retro participants in managing their cards during the session.

1. We can create an action from a card by simply clicking the three dots on the card and then clicking the convert action icon.

2. The card can be edited by anyone by simply clicking three dots on the card and the edit icon.

3. The card can also be deleted by anyone by simply clicking three dots on the card and the delete icon.

How to create an action from a card during the Retro session?

Creating an action from a card is very simple in Retroacto. By clicking the three dots on a card and then clicking the convert to action icon.

A new pop-up window appears on the screen to create a new action.

1. Enter an action title.

2. The description filled is automatically populated from the information provided on the card. This can be modified to reflect the action description.

3. Assign an owner to the action.

4. Click on the ‘Save’ button to create the action.

How to identify the comments which triggered an action?

The card which triggered an action during the retrospective session can be identified by a colored border card as shown below.

What is the cadence in Retroacto?

Cadence is a unique feature built by Retroacto to understand a quick reflection of team sentiment during the last iteration or sprint. Cadence measures the team sentiment on the scale of smiley faces.

A ‘Happy’ smile reflects the overall team sentiment was good during the last iteration or sprint.

A ‘Flat’ smile reflects, the team felt moderate (neither felt good nor bad) during the last iteration or sprint.

A ‘ Sad’ smile represents, the team felt bad during the last iteration or sprint.

How does the cadence work?

At the end of the Retrospective session, the Squad or Super admin running the session presses the ‘End Retro’ button on the Retro session. Once this button is pressed the following screen appears on every participant screen.

The participants are free to choose an option from the smileys. If the participant is not interested in providing feedback, they can click on the ‘Not Interested’ button.

Each button on the screen has a score associated with it and the Retroacto sentiment analysis engine derives overall team sentiment based on the response provided by the team.

This will become the final cadence for that sprint and stored in the sprint history.

How to view all the actions?

The actions can be viewed by clicking ‘Actions’ from the menu.

1. The actions can be searched through squad and event id.

2. The actions can be filtered through their status.

How to add a new action?

1. Click on the ‘Add Actions’ button to add a new action.

2. Choose the respective sprint from the drop-down.

3. Add a suitable title in ‘Add title’</span.

4. 4. Add a brief description in ‘Add Description’.

5. Add the action owner in ‘Assignee’.

6. Choose the right status of the action from ‘Status’.

7. Click on ‘Save’ to create a new action.

How to edit or delete the action?

1. The existing actions can be edited by clicking the three dots and the ‘Edit’ button to edit an action.

2. The existing actions can also be deleted by clicking the three dots and the ‘Delete’ button to delete an action.

The following screen pops up and lets the super or squad admins edit actions.

1. Update the required field on the action.

2. Click on the ‘Update‘ button to save the action.

The Super Admin and Squad Admin have their dashboard to view the key metrics on Retrospectives for their organization and team respectively.

Super and Squad admins are presented with the dashboard once they log on to Retroacto with their credentials. They can also reach the ‘Dashboard’ page by clicking the navigation menu on the left panel.

We are presenting 4 key metrics on the Dashboard for admins.

1. Total number of Retro’s created for the organization (Super Admin) and Squads (Squad Admin).

2. Total Number of Squads within the organization can be viewed by the Super admin and the Squad admin can view the number of squads they own.

3. Total number of successful retros conducted via Retroacto is presented as a third metric.

4. Total time spent on Retrospective is provided as a fourth metric.

Retro event calendar

The Super and Squad admin can view the scheduled retro across their organization and teams via the Retro events calendar.

By clicking the calendar, you will get redirected to the respective retro to start the event.

Cadence

The cadence graph depicts how the team’s mood tracking over a period of time. The super admin can view the aggregated team mood across the organization and the squad admin can view the aggregated team mood across the squads they own.