Implementing Poker Planning in YouTrack Using Workflows

Introduction 

As a QA Engineer primarily working with YouTrack, I often find myself exploring ways to streamline the planning and estimation process for my team. One of the most widely used Agile techniques is Planning Poker, a consensus-based estimation method that fosters team cooperation while estimating task complexities. 

Unfortunately, YouTrack doesn’t have in-built functionality for Planning Poker, which was a significant limitation for our Agile workflow. When faced with this issue, I had two options: use an external tool alongside YouTrack or develop a custom solution within YouTrack itself.

Rather than switching back and forth between tools, I chose to implement Planning Poker directly in YouTrack using its workflow scripting API.

This blog post details how I developed this solution, including the creation of custom fields, workflows for vote collection, automatic calculation of story points, posting results transparently in comments, and updating the story points field.