http://www.userstories.com/ What your site is all about. en-us Summary: I chose this product because of reviews by others and the hosted version is free with less than five users. I have a Mac development shop but run Microsoft Windows in VMWare Fusion. I found the setup to be too complex for a hosted product because the user has to configure a database connection to a SQL Server. I expected a hosted version to not expose the datastore details to a user. In any case, after a software upgrade released today, 4 Apr, 2010, I’m unable to connect to the application database. Chronology: On 3 Apr, 2010, I first installed the product prerequisite: NET Framework 3.5. Then installed ScrumDesk using a link in my registration email. I entered the SQL Server host info, username and password, logged in as the administrator and added users. Then I setup a another user on a different computer. To do this correctly the administrator needs to remember to send the database connection info to the user using a button in the user interface. I installed an instance of ScrumDesk on the user’s computer and loaded the database connection info as described in their instructions. After setting up a few users, I transcribed my user stories from sticky notes. Incidentally, I like the backlog view, it's a nice emulation of a wall of notes. I closed the app and finished for the day. On 4 Apr, 2010, I opened the application and updated to a new version released on the same day. After the update, I was no longer able to login to the hosted version because of a SQL Server connection error. I hope I haven’t lost my work. Anyway, in my opinion, I think this could be a much better product if the hosted version removed the direct database connectivity dependency and refactored the user interface using something like Adobe Air or HTML 5. Conclusion: Given my experience, I would not recommend the current version of the product to a friend or colleague. Sun, 04 Apr 2010 21:39:49 -0500 http://www.userstories.com/reviews/64 http://www.userstories.com/reviews/64 ScrumDesk John Boyer Very easy tool not just for management of the team, but also keeping it on the best way how to implement agile and Scrum. Guys did great progress since it was published here. We run it in enterprise company in distributed environment and we really liked it. Thu, 18 Mar 2010 17:19:09 -0500 http://www.userstories.com/reviews/63 http://www.userstories.com/reviews/63 ScrumDesk martin tarasovič Sun, 09 Aug 2009 09:47:43 -0500 http://www.userstories.com/reviews/46 http://www.userstories.com/reviews/46 ScrumDesk Pete Boon Mon, 08 Dec 2008 23:35:33 -0600 http://www.userstories.com/reviews/21 http://www.userstories.com/reviews/21 ScrumDesk vasundhara JM Very handy and easy to use tool which supports development needs. ScrumDesk is useful through the entire life cycle of a product. Provides all important and real-time information about your projects (progress, statistics, teams,...) on very handy dashboard. Thu, 27 Nov 2008 14:37:47 -0600 http://www.userstories.com/reviews/20 http://www.userstories.com/reviews/20 ScrumDesk Monika Kantorova Wed, 26 Nov 2008 14:35:31 -0600 http://www.userstories.com/reviews/19 http://www.userstories.com/reviews/19 ScrumDesk Daniel Ferenc I found this product by accident when looking for something to better manage our product backlog which I'd previously been doing using Excel. The transformation was near-instant. Even though we were mid-sprint at the time, within a morning I had entered the entire backlog into the product. The next morning we had automated burn-down charts and management reporting on stories and project progress. The only discipline we have had to enforce is for the team to update their progress but this is very simple using drag and drop graphical task boxes which are moved between states (not started through to done). We opted for a local installation of the MS SQS Server database once we'd tried out the remote ASP model for performance reasons (but we are in Australia). The application itself is .NET and has slotted into our existing SQL server Windows environment without any problems or issues. Thoroughly recommended. The product itself is growing all the time and the guys supporting it seem very receptive to user-suggestions for improvements or enhancements and the quality of support received to date exceeds that of the many much larger organisations I work with on a daily basis. In short, this product gives us everything we need to manage our Scrum deliveries. The product has some 'extra' capabilities outside formal Scrum but these don't have to be used if you don't want to use them. (such as using phases for delivery as well as sprints). Our business clients like the product too and we had them sitting round the same table using the online Planning Poker to plan and estimate stories for the current sprint. We achieved a 200 story point sprint for a team of sprint in 2 hours which I just know that previously we wouldn't have been able to do. I have not thoroughly reviewed other Scrum products but just don't feel the need to do so having used this one. It does everything we need, it works and the people who wrote and support it are only an email away if you ever need help. Wed, 26 Nov 2008 14:07:06 -0600 http://www.userstories.com/reviews/18 http://www.userstories.com/reviews/18 ScrumDesk Rob Hale We've been trying and using several scrum products, but this one satisfies our needs perfectly. I do not think you will need to search another once you install ScrumDesk. Peter. Sat, 18 Oct 2008 10:41:50 -0500 http://www.userstories.com/reviews/7 http://www.userstories.com/reviews/7 ScrumDesk Peter Prokopcak Fri, 26 Sep 2008 03:06:35 -0500 http://www.userstories.com/reviews/1 http://www.userstories.com/reviews/1 ScrumDesk Fero Ivanic