Getting started with Aha! Develop

Aha! Develop
Getting started
Introduction
Getting started with Aha! Develop

Welcome to Aha! Develop — the agile tool for healthy development teams. It connects technical work to the product roadmap, optimizes workload, and streamlines reporting.

This article will give you a one-page list of resources as you configure and customize your trial or new account. You can completely customize the UI, workflow, and integrations through extensions.https://www.wistia.com/medias/i8u152xy6pIf you have any questions, please contact us. We do not have salespeople at Aha! — just product experts.

Click any of the following links to skip ahead:

Trial best practices
Account configuration
Extensions
Sprint planning
Kanban boards
Wiki-like knowledge base

Trial best practices

Use these tips as you explore Aha! Develop during your trial.

All Aha! Develop trials start on the Advanced plan. This gives you full access to all Aha! Develop capabilities — so you can determine which plan is the best fit.

Install extensions: Extensions are the key to a radically customized Aha! Develop account. Choose from a selection of preexisting extensions or build your own.

If you have integrated your Aha! Develop account with an Aha! Roadmaps account, note that extensions are disabled by default. Extensions can be powerful additions, but they can also affect both Aha! Develop and Aha! Roadmap users. Please consider the security implications before allowing any extensions to be installed.
Invite your team: Make the trial experience as authentic as possible for a valid comparison. You can invite your team in bulk using team import settings.
Manage backlogs: Import work from other systems or create epics and user stories in your account to manage all of your work in one place.
Optimize workflows: Whether you work in iterations or use a pull-based approach, you can tailor each view in Aha! Develop to fit your team's workflow.

Our Customer Success team is made up of product experts and developers. Reach out if you have any questions. We respond very quickly.

The rest of this article will walk you through configuring your new Aha! Develop account.

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Account configuration

Did you just add Aha! Develop to an existing Aha! account? Great! First create an Aha! Develop team. To do this, navigate to User menu -> Settings -> Account -> Customizations -> Teams and click Add team.

Let's start with user permissions and settings.

Where to go	What to do	Best practices
User menu -> Settings -> Account	Choose from four non-admin user roles, and three different admin types. Any user type can also be an administrator.
User menu -> Settings -> Account	These settings apply to your entire Aha! account — though you can choose which settings you want to apply to individual teams. Build out your team hierarchy. This defines your Aha! account structure and gives you a chance to configure settings once that every workspace can inherit. Customize a record workflow. Configure a custom layout. Add a custom field.	There are three types of admins in Aha! Develop and three types of admin settings. Account: Account admins can access the account settings such as the account profile. Billing: Billing admins can access account-level billing and user permissions. Your account must always have at least one billing administrator. You cannot delete or disable your only billing administrator. Customization: Customization admins can access account-level customizations such as custom fields, custom layouts, and your teams.
User menu -> Settings -> Team	Each Aha! Develop account is made up of individual teams. Team settings: Configure a team. Team import settings: Import records into a team.
User menu -> Settings -> Personal	Configure your personal account profile and preferences, such as your personal home page, extensions, and notification preferences

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Extensions

Extensions allow developers to use JavaScript to extend the Aha! Develop user interface as well as to automate actions within Aha! Develop and between Aha! Develop and other systems.

Where to go	What to do	Best practices
User menu -> Settings -> Account	Install one of the existing extensions from the extension library.	Individual team members can enable extensions from User menu -> Settings -> Personal
User menu -> Settings -> Team	Bring in your data. You can migrate multiple records through a simple CSV import, or import records one at a time from third party tools that other teams in your company rely on. Import from CSV List of available importers	For a data migration, remember that you do not have to bring in everything in one import right away. Try a few small imports to make sure you are pulling in everything you need — then bring in the rest. Need to create new data? Use the AI assistant to generate user stories based on your project.
Your code directory	Build your first extension. Create an importer extension to pull records in from another tool or service.	Use Aha! web components for common UI elements that you can use inside your extensions.

Where to go

What to do

Best practices

User menu -> Settings -> Account

Install one of the existing extensions from the extension library.

Individual team members can enable extensions from User menu -> Settings -> Personal

User menu -> Settings -> Team

Bring in your data. You can migrate multiple records through a simple CSV import, or import records one at a time from third party tools that other teams in your company rely on.

Import from CSV
List of available importers

For a data migration, remember that you do not have to bring in everything in one import right away. Try a few small imports to make sure you are pulling in everything you need — then bring in the rest.

Need to create new data? Use the AI assistant to generate user stories based on your project.

Your code directory

Build your first extension.
Create an importer extension to pull records in from another tool or service.

Use Aha! web components for common UI elements that you can use inside your extensions.

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Sprint planning

If your team uses sprints to plan and manage work, navigate to Plan → Sprint planning.

Where to go	What to do	Best practices
If your team uses sprints to plan and manage work, navigate to Plans → Sprint planning.	Manage your prioritized backlog. Pull work from your prioritized backlog, through importers, or create it directly in your Aha! Teamwork account. Create and manage sprints. Estimate work and manage team capacity. Use velocity, burndown, and burnup reports to track your team's progress, forecast completion dates, and mitigate risks.
AI assistant	Use the Aha! AI assistant to plan your work and refine your backlog: Provide initial effort estimates using story points, T‑shirt sizes, or hours. The AI will be able to predict effort more confidently once you are in an Aha! account with a few weeks' work completed. Draft acceptance criteria for you to refine. Create a test plan for your activities. You can also use the AI to help you interpret and explore reports. Open the AI chat window on any report, and the AI will include that report as context automatically. Ask it for executive summaries, risks to mitigate, recent trends, or any other question that piques your curiosity.	You can also use the AI to help you interpret and explore reports. Open the AI chat window on any report, and the AI will include that report as context automatically. Ask it for executive summaries, risks to mitigate, recent trends, or any other question that piques your curiosity.
If your team prefers workflow boards (whether for Kanban or general agile project management), navigate to Work → My board or Work → Team board.	Pull work from your prioritized backlog, through importers, or create it directly in your Aha! Teamwork account. Use workflow boards to track and manage your team's work. Set work in progress (WIP) limits to improve team efficiency.	You can group records on this board by a variety of standard and custom fields, and customize the cards to see the most important details first.

Where to go

What to do

Best practices

If your team uses sprints to plan and manage work, navigate to Plans → Sprint planning.

Manage your prioritized backlog.
Pull work from your prioritized backlog, through importers, or create it directly in your Aha! Teamwork account.
Create and manage sprints.
Estimate work and manage team capacity.
Use velocity, burndown, and burnup reports to track your team's progress, forecast completion dates, and mitigate risks.

AI assistant

Use the Aha! AI assistant to plan your work and refine your backlog:

Provide initial effort estimates using story points, T‑shirt sizes, or hours. The AI will be able to predict effort more confidently once you are in an Aha! account with a few weeks' work completed.
Draft acceptance criteria for you to refine.
Create a test plan for your activities.

You can also use the AI to help you interpret and explore reports.

Open the AI chat window on any report, and the AI will include that report as context automatically.
Ask it for executive summaries, risks to mitigate, recent trends, or any other question that piques your curiosity.

You can also use the AI to help you interpret and explore reports.

Open the AI chat window on any report, and the AI will include that report as context automatically.
Ask it for executive summaries, risks to mitigate, recent trends, or any other question that piques your curiosity.

If your team prefers workflow boards (whether for Kanban or general agile project management), navigate to Work → My board or Work → Team board.

Pull work from your prioritized backlog, through importers, or create it directly in your Aha! Teamwork account.
Use workflow boards to track and manage your team's work.
Set work in progress (WIP) limits to improve team efficiency.

You can group records on this board by a variety of standard and custom fields, and customize the cards to see the most important details first.

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Kanban boards

Use interactive kanban boards to manage the flow of work. Navigate to Work → My board or Work → Team board to get started.

Pull work from your prioritized backlog, through importer extensions, or create it directly in your Aha! Develop account.
Use workflow boards to track and manage your team's work.
Set work in progress (WIP) limits to improve team efficiency.
Use throughput and cycle and lead time reports to track your team's progress and identify work or workflow friction before it can significantly affect your roadmap.

Where to go	What to do	Best practices
Work → My board or Work → Team board	Pull work from your prioritized backlog, through importer extensions, or create it directly in your Aha! Develop account. Use workflow boards to track and manage your team's work. Set work in progress (WIP) limits to improve team efficiency. Use throughput and cycle and lead time reports to track your team's progress and identify work or workflow friction before it can significantly affect your roadmap.	You can group records on this board by a variety of standard and custom fields, and customize the cards to see the most important details first.
Reports	Open the AI chat window on any report, and the AI will include that report as context automatically. Ask it for executive summaries, risks to mitigate, recent trends, or any other question that piques your curiosity.

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Wiki-like knowledge base

Navigate to Document → Notes to create a knowledge base for your team. This is an excellent location for sprint retrospectives, deploy policies, or product architecture documentation to assist your team members.

Where to go	What to do	Best practices
Document → Notes	Notes use the Aha! collaborative text editor. You can directly mention users or records. Build a collapsible hierarchy to organize your documentation.	Use AI to draft technical documentation based on your feature descriptions

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If you get stuck, please reach out to our Customer Success team. Our team is made up entirely of product experts and responds fast.

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