Add a 'Blocked' status

Thanks for replying Mike.

Yep that is a good suggestion. I will use labels for now.

I still think a special status that made the story highlighted red would be useful, you need that info really in your face, a label can be glossed over pretty easily. You would have to intentionally go searching for blocked stories to really find them, they won't stand out in a long list.

I have already become pretty practiced at ignoring the labels, since they bump the alignment of the heading out, you have to sort of develop a blind spot for them.

We've been using labels and it sucks. Labels do not stand out significantly enough. It might work if a label could be in all CAPs but low, tracker downcases the labels. Or if labels could be config'd to have background color so they stand out.

The original request is very valid. Blocked is a first class status. Some work has been done but something external is standing in the way so pay attention to me. The people I work with (dev and biz) would love for it to stand out more.

I agree with Tinomen. A blocked tag, while searchable definitely isn't the best solution.

And as for highlighting, I think a light red would be awesome

When working on a story, how do I handle a roadblock - like if I need to go back and ask a client a question and am waiting for their response? Essentially I just need a Hold state or something.

This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled
Hold or Roadblock State?.

Not sure how it affects iterations, but in our short experience, we feel we sometimes have to turn "started" log entries (tasks) into "Not started" manually if for some reason or another we have to stop working on it due to maybe rearranging the current sprint backlog or simply having to suddenly work on some other project for a few days.


Perhaps there is a logic to it but "pausing" or making "pending" a log entry seems logical in this cases, so you can "restart" when you get back to it.


I know it's not a case of tracking hours on a task and that is the sprint time what has to be tracked, but if you know you are not working on it for a couple of days it does not seem logical that it shows as "started".

This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled
A "pause" button.

I don't like the term "blocked" It sounds very anti-productive and more like if that status was up, it would mean I'm not supposed to work on it.

To preface this request, my stories are a little bigger and more nebulous than typical tracker stories since I'm doing design instead of development.


I often find that I have a lot of progress on a story but then priorities change and I need to set it aside for a while. It's "started" but not really in progress, it's effectively "paused"


It would be very nice to have the differentiation between not-yet-started and started-but-not-in-progress

This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled
pause a started story.

Paused or on hold would be good terms too, probably better than blocked indeed.

Eddie, Thijs: the whole point of the blocked status is it's a really big deal. The reality is that in any development you will occasionally get situations that you can't resolved and that prevent you from completing your stories for the iteration. When this occurs it needs to be SHOUTED in the most obvious way possible so that the project lead/scrummaster etc can know that it has occurred and take steps to remove the roadblock. It is all about productivity. This term isn't one i made up but is common parlance in the Scrum methodology.

The problem is that I don't believe this software is purely for development purposes. I use it from a project management standpoint managing 8 employees on my marketing and development team.

As far as Scrum goes, why not change that iterations to sprints?!

But after your argument, I do agree that blocked is a good term for a roadblock of monumental cases, but hold or pause relates more to work flow for me and should not be dismissed by the developers.

Perhaps a better use of BLOCKED maybe what you described as above: The scrummaster or project leader is the only one that can set that status. If that's the case, then I'm posting my advocacy for HOLD or PAUSE in the wrong thread.

It sounds like some people need states that other people wouldn't want (I don't think I would enjoy a "blocked" state, but I can see why some do).

+1 for custom states