Adam of Code Sprinters will speak at the EuroPython 2008 conference in Vilnius next week. Feel free to catch him there, he can be easily recognized by his long curly blonde hair :)

This year's edition of Certified Scrum Masters training in Cracow will take place on 2nd and 3rd of October 2008. You can reserve your place now - 50€ off for early reservations.

View the CSM training page.

We've just upgraded the Banana Scrum to v.0.16. Here is a short recap of what the last two versions did bring to Banana users. 

Banana Scrum v.0.16
There are two main changes in this version of Banana Scrum:

1. iCal sprint calendars. Users can subscribe to a sprint calendar for a project and see all the sprints in their favourite iCal compatible calendaring application. Every user gets his own unique access key which is a part of the calendar URL. The calendar is available thrugh "iCal sprint calendar" link at the bottom of the list of sprints. Simple use that link in your application to have sprints calendar appear in it.
2. comments for backlog items. After expanding an item you can click "comments" link which displays all the commments and allows adding a new one.

Banana Scrum v.0.15

1. Backlog items have now a time stamp and information about when they were last modified and by whom. A backlog item's is considered modified if there is:

    - a change in the user story,
    - a change of the estimate,
    - a change of its description.

   This is the first step towards creating a fully-fledged history for backlog items. 

2. Our AJAX interface now uses a different scroll mechanism which allows dragging items on long backlog lists below the window border.
3. Paperclip icon next to every item which has an attachment.

We invite you to discuss with us and ask for features or bug fixes on our support forum. 

New Banana Scrum release brings you the following:

• handy counts of items, estimation units etc. on backlogs,
• optional e-mail notification for newly created user - as a domian admin select "Send email to user" and the newly created user will get an e-mail notifying about his account and access information, admin can also add a note to that e-mail,
• on the sprint page everyone sees a big visible reminder with the number of days left until it ends,
• a bunch of bug fixes, especially for IE.

One of the bug fixes prevents accessing a Banana Scrum domain that was not yet activated by clicking on the link provided in the activation e-mail. The bug was that it was possible to use the account anyway after registration. If you can't access the account please check your mailbox and use the activation link provided to enable it.

With any problems, suggestions or to discuss with us use the Banana Scrum forum at GetSatisfaction.

We're happy to announce that Banana Scrum is now in version 0.13. Here are the changes that we have introduced since 0.10:

• We've added automatic counting of backlog items on product backlog and sprint backlog pages. Total items, not estimated items and total estimation units are now counted.
• Users can reset their forgotten password.
• When sprint is removed all items not marked completed are moved back to the product backlog. All items marked completed are removed together with the sprint.
• Product Owners can now export the product backlog of a project to a spreadsheet (using a CSV file).
• Admins can now lock and unlock user accounts. Handy for denying access to the system to users without removing their accounts (and the information stored with it).

Plus the usual bug fixes.

If you want to discuss these and other features of Banana Scrum as well as share your user experience and requests with us you can now do it on the Banana Scrum Forum.