As the developer of an issue tracking platform there are many features on your radar. Some of those features define and articulate the unique value of your approach to this busy segment. Other features are must-have requirements but do not work differently for your product than any other.
For us, printing out a team's issues, stories and epics is our focus and a place where we want to deliver unique features - templates that adapt to what is written, a colourful and accessible rendering, and printing as an outsourced service, for delivery by post.
By taking on printing for our customers we can use specialist equipment and premium cardstock. We can deliver cards that are thoughtfully optimised for use in set-piece meetings, rather than for running through the office printer and dividing with scissors (something users can find physically painful). We want to help people use paper more often, as it is the right tool for certain jobs.
We believe the value you offer your users is probably elsewhere.
We developed our printing service as an API and have now plugged it into multiple front-ends. We believe there is value in plugging it directly into issue tracker front-ends as a replacement for their native print feature. Making it available as an Add-On is also possible, but would not relieve platform owners of delivering their own native print functionality on their platform. Users would get a print-preview much as they do now, and have the option of printing themselves. They would also get access to our layout and rendering software, which uses an evolving set of rules to optimise rendering for the card format. They would also have the option to outsource the printing and cutting to us.
And it does not have to stop here. Many teams like to put data on their walls. Burn up charts, cycle-times, face-walls, estimation accuracy stats, dependency graphs etc. We're able to be a virtual-assistant for leads and delivery managers and help them provide a conducive physical environment for their teams.
If you are building out an issue tracker or portfolio management platform and are wondering whether to prioritise printing features then schedule a call to speak with us about these possibilities.
