ZenHub Workspaces come with nine default pipelines to start with: New Issues, Epics, Icebox, Product Backlog , Sprint Backlog In Progress, Review/QA, Done and Closed . As every team works differently, we offer various features to help get your Workspace customized to suit more unique workflows.
When you create a new Workspace, Issues will automatically be sorted into relevant Pipelines, reducing the amount of setup time required. Right now, Issues will be sorted according to these triggers:
- Issues in the current Milestone will be moved to Sprint Backlog
- Issues with no recent activity will be moved to Icebox
- Issues with connected PRs will be moved to in progress
-Issues updated in the last 30 - 90 days are moved to “Product Backlog."
This will be a one-time sort, meaning Issues will only be moved once during the initial Workspace setup.
Renaming and deleting pipelines
By selecting the pipeline options menu located at the top of each pipeline, you'll have the option to rename existing pipelines or delete them.
Renaming and deleting pipelines impacts everyone on the team
Renaming and deleting pipelines are global actions, impacting anyone using the Board. Deleting a pipeline moves all the Issues in that pipeline to the pipeline furthest left in your Board.
Adding new pipelines
As your team makes workflow changes, ZenHub makes it easy to focus on kaizen and keep your workflow flexible. Scroll to the far right of your Board to add a new pipeline.
You can move the pipelines on your Board by using drag and drop to ensure the order of the pipelines accurately reflects your workflow:
Pipeline Descriptions
Pipeline descriptions allow you and your team to effectively communicate what each pipeline means on the Board. Adding a description to each pipeline ensures you can communicate what your particular workflow means within your workspace.
By adding a description to each pipeline, team members will have a clear understanding of what Issues belong in which pipeline allowing for a clear and consistent flow of Issues across the Board.
Benefits of pipeline descriptions
Here are a few ways pipeline descriptions helps teams:
- Provides teams with an effective way to communicate what each pipeline means within their workflow
- Ensures there is a consistent usage of pipelines which improves Board hygiene
- Eliminates the need for an external tool to communicate how your team collaborates together
Creating and using pipeline descriptions
All new Workspaces that are created will have eight default pipeline descriptions to match our default pipeline stages. While these default descriptions are a great starting point for any project, they should be customized and changed to suit your teams' workflow:
Here's an overview of the pipeline descriptions provided:
| Pipeline | Pipeline description |
| New Issues | Newly created issues land here automatically. |
| Epics | Epics that group together issues for tracking long-term goals |
| Icebox | Low priority issues that do not need to be addressed in the near future. |
| Product Backlog | Upcoming issues that have been reviewed, estimated and prioritized top-to-bottom. |
| Sprint Backlog | Issues ready to be worked on in the sprint, prioritized top to bottom. |
| In Progress | Issues currently being worked on by the team. |
| Review Q/A | Issues open to the team for review and testing. Usually this means the code is ready to be deployed, pending feedback. |
| Done | Issues that are tested and ready to be deployed to production. |
| Closed | Issues that are complete and closed land here. It is not possible to edit or delete the closed pipeline. |
Updating new pipelines or empty pipelines
To add pipeline descriptions for pipelines, select the pipeline options and menu and choose Edit name and description
It's important to communicate what type of issues should land in pipelines when adding descriptions. Each member of the team should have a clear understanding of how Issues are supposed to flow across pipelines.
Updating existing pipelines
To edit and customize existing pipeline descriptions, select the pipeline options menu where you can choose Edit name and description. From here you will be able to edit the pipeline name and description or return the pipeline to an empty state.
Useful information on pipeline descriptions
- If you edit a pipeline description in a multi-repo Board, the description will be the same for all connected repos as the pipelines are the same.
- Pipeline descriptions are not mandatory, these can be deleted at any time and returned to an empty state. However, these are a great way to communicate to your team where issues should be placed based on your workflow and we highly encourage your team to set these up or help organize your work.
For more information, see: Setting up your first ZenHub Workspace