6 ms·

Any word on the future of Pivotal Tracker?

Timothee 15y ago
That's when open-sourcing vs. closing it down (if that were to happen) would be fantastic. (cf. one HN discussion from today about that) If Pivotal Tracker were to disappear, that would be quite the disaster for a lot of people.
- Drbble 15y ago
  Only people who run their business on a random startup webapp. I wish amazon or Google would externalities their pro quality trackers, though.
  - AndyKelley 15y ago
    Having just quit Amazon and knowing firsthand the disaster that was project tracking, this comment amuses me. There is no "pro quality tracker" at Amazon.
    - rsanheim 15y ago
      There is no such thing as a 'pro quality' tracker. They ALL suck, in different ways, and simply try to minimize their deficiencies based on the context they were developed in. You find the one that fits your world view and your work flow, and put up with the annoyances and oddities, or try to paper over them with hacks and service hooks.
    - Drbble 15y ago
      Amazon had tools, but not every team used them. I loved the tool Haakon wrote. And there was actually a great third party open source tool back in 2009, whose name I forget, that was bizarre abandoned. It's not like Pivotal sets a high bar. It doesn't even have a notion of progress, and it has that ridiculous multi column layout so you can't easily use a screen to look at a task. And it runs on a random startup webserver that can be turned off at any moment.
- jes5199 15y ago
  I use Tracker and find it to be a major pain. It's close enough to the tool that I actually need that it's useful, but then it gets opinionated and makes certain things impossible. For example: "chores" skip the verification state. So I don't use them anymore. and the fact that "stories" can't actually track their own prerequisites, it's really to accidentally lose your sequencing information
  - apinstein 15y ago
    We switched from tracker to Planbox about 6 months ago and have been thrilled. Same general model as tracker with better execution. It's a young product so there are still some issues but it's clearly heading in the right direction. They also have an import from tracker so it's painless to try out.
    - orblivion 15y ago
      I'm annoyed by Pivotal's interface too, but the intro video from Planbox didn't really impress me much (maybe because I work at a really small company and that level of hierarchy and customization probably isn't relevant to us.) Do you have any particular examples of what it does better than Pivotal?
      - apinstein 15y ago
        I came to loathe the columnar setup of Pivotal. I found myself constantly rearranging the interface just to be able to work. We have a lot of project and subprojects here, and Planbox's hierarchy (there is basically one more level than in Tracker) is really useful. Their UX for slicing and dicing based on person, label, project, etc is also nice. The search is faster (it's all client side so it's practically instant). The charts make more sense to me. It doesn't treat stories as a unit of work; rather they are a goal. Thus all of the tasks in Planbox can be individually assigned to different people and estimated and time-tracked at that same level of granularity. Overall I just found that there were a lot of things I was hacking around in Pivotal, and frankly I didn't even notice it. It's only when we hired a couple of people and they pointed out frustrations with Pivotal that I started looking around. When I started using Planbox, that's when I really realized how much I was adjusting myself to the limitations of Pivotal. I find myself much less stressed managing things via Planbox. Hope that helps!
philodespotos 15y ago
The CEO posted something on their blog: http://pivotallabs.com/users/rob/blog/articles/2052-same-pivotal-increased-velocity http://pivotallabs.com/users/rob/blog/articles/2052-same-piv... > Same services, same Pivotal Tracker, same industry leading development practices - now paired with more resources than ever.
snprbob86 15y ago
Switch to Trello. It's practically the same thing, but far less opinionated/religious.
- orblivion 15y ago
  Trello is great, the interface makes me a lot happier than Pivotal, but I think it's more suited for something like a big data collection and processing project, where you have a lot of little pieces to keep track of. It doesn't seem like it would be that great for software development. Correct me if I'm wrong though, please. BTW I thought I read someone comment somewhere about being able to split checkboxes out into separate cards, but I couldn't find any other mention of it. Can you do that? That's one thing that I thought would make Pivotal much better.
  - snprbob86 15y ago
    > It doesn't seem like it would be that great for software development. See how the Trello team uses it: https://trello.com/board/trello-development/4d5ea62fd76aa1136000000c https://trello.com/board/trello-development/4d5ea62fd76aa113... > split checkboxes out into separate cards, but I couldn't find any other mention of it. Can you do that? Yes. There is a "covert to card" link that appears when you click on a checklist item.
- vineet 15y ago
  One of the nice things about Pivotal Tracker was that it was opinionated in just the right ways. That being said, I like Trello as well. I will not be surprised if Trello provides an imported for Pivotal Tracker because of the uncertainty of this news.

That's when open-sourcing vs. closing it down (if that were to happen) would be fantastic. (cf. one HN discussion from today about that) If Pivotal Tracker were to disappear, that would be quite the disaster for a lot of people.

Drbble 15y ago
Only people who run their business on a random startup webapp. I wish amazon or Google would externalities their pro quality trackers, though.
- AndyKelley 15y ago
  Having just quit Amazon and knowing firsthand the disaster that was project tracking, this comment amuses me. There is no "pro quality tracker" at Amazon.
  - rsanheim 15y ago
    There is no such thing as a 'pro quality' tracker. They ALL suck, in different ways, and simply try to minimize their deficiencies based on the context they were developed in. You find the one that fits your world view and your work flow, and put up with the annoyances and oddities, or try to paper over them with hacks and service hooks.
  - Drbble 15y ago
    Amazon had tools, but not every team used them. I loved the tool Haakon wrote. And there was actually a great third party open source tool back in 2009, whose name I forget, that was bizarre abandoned. It's not like Pivotal sets a high bar. It doesn't even have a notion of progress, and it has that ridiculous multi column layout so you can't easily use a screen to look at a task. And it runs on a random startup webserver that can be turned off at any moment.
jes5199 15y ago
I use Tracker and find it to be a major pain. It's close enough to the tool that I actually need that it's useful, but then it gets opinionated and makes certain things impossible. For example: "chores" skip the verification state. So I don't use them anymore. and the fact that "stories" can't actually track their own prerequisites, it's really to accidentally lose your sequencing information
- apinstein 15y ago
  We switched from tracker to Planbox about 6 months ago and have been thrilled. Same general model as tracker with better execution. It's a young product so there are still some issues but it's clearly heading in the right direction. They also have an import from tracker so it's painless to try out.
  - orblivion 15y ago
    I'm annoyed by Pivotal's interface too, but the intro video from Planbox didn't really impress me much (maybe because I work at a really small company and that level of hierarchy and customization probably isn't relevant to us.) Do you have any particular examples of what it does better than Pivotal?
    - apinstein 15y ago
      I came to loathe the columnar setup of Pivotal. I found myself constantly rearranging the interface just to be able to work. We have a lot of project and subprojects here, and Planbox's hierarchy (there is basically one more level than in Tracker) is really useful. Their UX for slicing and dicing based on person, label, project, etc is also nice. The search is faster (it's all client side so it's practically instant). The charts make more sense to me. It doesn't treat stories as a unit of work; rather they are a goal. Thus all of the tasks in Planbox can be individually assigned to different people and estimated and time-tracked at that same level of granularity. Overall I just found that there were a lot of things I was hacking around in Pivotal, and frankly I didn't even notice it. It's only when we hired a couple of people and they pointed out frustrations with Pivotal that I started looking around. When I started using Planbox, that's when I really realized how much I was adjusting myself to the limitations of Pivotal. I find myself much less stressed managing things via Planbox. Hope that helps!

philodespotos 15y ago

The CEO posted something on their blog: http://pivotallabs.com/users/rob/blog/articles/2052-same-pivotal-increased-velocity http://pivotallabs.com/users/rob/blog/articles/2052-same-piv... > Same services, same Pivotal Tracker, same industry leading development practices - now paired with more resources than ever.

snprbob86 15y ago

Switch to Trello. It's practically the same thing, but far less opinionated/religious.

orblivion 15y ago
Trello is great, the interface makes me a lot happier than Pivotal, but I think it's more suited for something like a big data collection and processing project, where you have a lot of little pieces to keep track of. It doesn't seem like it would be that great for software development. Correct me if I'm wrong though, please. BTW I thought I read someone comment somewhere about being able to split checkboxes out into separate cards, but I couldn't find any other mention of it. Can you do that? That's one thing that I thought would make Pivotal much better.
- snprbob86 15y ago
  > It doesn't seem like it would be that great for software development. See how the Trello team uses it: https://trello.com/board/trello-development/4d5ea62fd76aa1136000000c https://trello.com/board/trello-development/4d5ea62fd76aa113... > split checkboxes out into separate cards, but I couldn't find any other mention of it. Can you do that? Yes. There is a "covert to card" link that appears when you click on a checklist item.
vineet 15y ago
One of the nice things about Pivotal Tracker was that it was opinionated in just the right ways. That being said, I like Trello as well. I will not be surprised if Trello provides an imported for Pivotal Tracker because of the uncertainty of this news.