Status of a user story

A user story can be in any of the following six statuses, from the moment when a user story has been identified, until the requirements associated with the story have been implemented and confirmed working.

Status Color Code Description Pending The Pending state is the initial state of any user story. In this state, the user story has nothing more than a short description of user's need. The only purpose of user story, for now, is for reminding all parties for a future discussion of user's request written in this user story (card). It is possible that the user story will be discarded in the future. Todo When a user story is agreed to be addressed in a sprint, that user story is said to be in the Todo state. No detailed discussion has yet been carried out in this state. Discussing When a user story is in the Discussing state, the product owner will communicate to the development team in confirming the requirements as well as to define the acceptance criteria. Development team will write down the requirements or any decisions as conversation notes. UX specialist may create wireframes or storyboards to let user preview the system, and to feel it. Developing Once the requirements are clarified, the development team will design and implement the feature to fulfill user's requests. Confirming Once the development team has implemented a user story, the user story will be confirmed by the product owner. He/she will be given access to the testing environment or a semi-complete software product (sometimes known as an alpha version) for confirming the feature. Confirmation will be performed based on the confirmation items written when detailing the user story. Until the confirmation is done, the user story is said to be in the Confirming state. Finished Once the feature is confirmed done, the user story is said to be in the Finished state. Typically, this is the end of the user story. If user has a new requirement, no matter it is about a new feature or an enhancement, the team should create a new user story.

Description of user story statuses

Color code of user story

Each status is associated with a color code. User story in a particular status will have its title bar painted in the color associated with that status. The following image shows two user stories, one in Todo and another in Developing state. As you can see their title bar are painted in different colors.

User stories in different statuses (Todo and Developing)

Setting the status of user story

To set the status of user story:

1. Locate the user story first. Here are some of the typical ways to locate a story.
   • If you own the URL of a user story, open the URL by selecting Diagram > Link from the toolbar. Paste the URL in breadcrumb in press Enter.
   • To locate a user story in a particular use case, open the use case by selecting UeXceler > Use Case first. Find the story under the User Stories tab on the right hand side.
   • To locate a user story in a sprint, open the sprint from the UeXceler > Sprint page and find the story there.
   • You can also find a user story in the UeXceler > User Story page. Note that if your story was added into a sprint, you have to enable the In Sprint option in the Advanced Filter.
2. Open the story by double clicking on it.
3. Open the Description tab.
   

   Opening the Description tab

4. At the bottom right corner of the page, click on the dropdown menu of Status and select the status you want.
   

   To select a status for a user story

Configuring user story statuses

The six default statuses are typical for most scrum projects. If you want to introduce new statuses, or to remove the statuses we provided, configure them. Note that the configuration of statuses is project based. If you want to use the same set of user story statuses in different projects, you need to configure in each of these projects. To configure user story statuses:

1. Select Window > Configuration > Manage User Story Statuses... from the toolbar.
2. In the Manage User Story Statuses window, the statuses available for selection are listed on the left hand side, with their properties like their name, color code, description, entry condition and user story attributes listed on the right hand side. You can add a new status by clicking Add and filling in its details. If you want to remove a status, select it on the left and click Remove. Note that a removal of status is allowed only when it has not been selected by any user story. Besides, there must be at least one status left.
   

   The Manage User Story Statuses window

Description

Description is the definition of a user story status. The description entered here will be shown in Kanban Board as a tooltip of status column.

Description of user story as tooltip in Kanban Board

Entry Condition

Specify the conditions required for setting a user story to be in this status. For example, when All confirmations are completed is checked, you can only set a user story to be in this status when all of its confirmation items are checked.

User Story Attributes

The selected attributes will be applied to the user stories in this status.

Attribute Description Read Only except Confirmations All the properties of user stories, except confirmation items, will be non-editable. Read Only (Sprint close factor) All the properties of user stories will be non-editable. Besides, a sprint can only be closed when all of its containing user stories are in this status (or any other statuses with this option checked).

Description of user story attributes

Related Resources

The following resources may help you to learn more about the topic discussed in this page.

• Visual Paradigm Know-How - Tips and tricks, Q&A, solutions to users' problems
• Contact us if you need any help or have any suggestion