Health updates provide visibility to stakeholders about your ongoing work. They're great for managing expectations and soliciting support from leadership when needed, and can be used at any point in your PDLC, from discovery to delivery.
In this article:
- Composing a health update
- Understanding health updates
- Displaying health updates on boards
- Automatic health status roll-up
- See also
Composing a health update
Makers and admins can compose health updates from the Health tab of an item's details sidebar. Only the user who creates the health update will be able to delete or modify the update.
Once a health update is created, followers of that feature will receive an email notification.
To create a health update from the details sidebar:
- Click on an objective, key result, initiative or feature to open its details.
- Select the Health tab.
- Click the New update button.
- Click one of the health statuses.
- Compose your update in the text field.
- Click the Post update button.
Note: You can also create health updates by clicking directly on the appropriate cell of the Health column.
Tip: Use templates to unify health updates across the teams, making it easier for the product leadership to understand what is happening in your team. You can use frameworks like “Progress, Plans, Problems” (PPPs) or others to communicate health updates consistently across teams.
Understanding health updates
When composing a health update, you can choose from the following health statuses:
- On track: You’re confident that you will deliver the work by when it is due.
- At risk: You're falling behind but still believe you can deliver the work with support.
- Off track: The work is in trouble, and you probably won't deliver it on time.
Displaying health updates on boards
Grids and feature boards
To display the Health column on a grid or features board, click the Add columns button, select Default Fields, and toggle on Health.
Timeline boards
You can display health updates on timeline cards:
- Click on Configure.
- Select the item type of the card where you want to show the Health status.
- Toggle Health.
Automatic health status roll-up
Health statuses automatically roll up to parent items. This aggregation is not influenced by the board's configuration or filters—it accounts for the health of all child items, even if some are hidden by filters.
Automatic health status roll-up activates when more than half of an item's children have health statuses. The roll-up is calculated according to these rules:
- If at least one child item is Off track, the parent item is Off track.
- If no child items are Off track, but at least one is At risk, the parent item is At risk.
- If all child items are either On track or Not set, the parent item is On track.
Overwriting the automatic roll-up
You can overwrite the automatic roll-up value by manually composing a health update. Once you set an item's health manually, changing its children's health values won’t overwrite your manual update.
However, you can still view an item's automatic roll-up, and even switch between automatic and manual health statuses on a per-item basis. There are two ways to access the menu which governs this behavior:
- By right-clicking a cell in the Health column of a grid board.
- From an item's sidebar, on the Details tab, Scroll down to the Health section, then click the ••• More actions button.
See also