July 16
Using StoriesOnBoard's latest improvement, you can extend your backlog by adding a story map or part of a story map via Excel import.
To use this functionality, open the settings menu and pick the "Import Excel to story map" option.
In this dialog, you can upload your own Excel file by dragging and dropping.
Before importing the file, StoriesOnBoard performs a quick check on the uploaded file and returns any issues, such as a missing description or a structural error.
If description is also included, you can select which description format is applied after the input: Markdown or HTML formatting.
Right after the import, the new cards are added to the last (Unscheduled) release 'Story card'. All imported cards are marked with an Imported label.
Use cases where this feature is extremely helpful:
A product manager merges another team’s entire story map into the main product map to create a unified backlog for a multi‑team initiative.
A Scrum Master imports a pre‑built story‑map template from Excel to jump‑start planning for a brand‑new project.
A portfolio manager cherry‑picks and imports key epics from several completed maps to build a consolidated strategic roadmap.
A localization lead pulls in only the language‑specific tasks from another map to extend the current map with translation work.
A UX researcher imports workshop‑generated story cards stored in Excel, preserving their grouping by user‑journey steps.
A stakeholder‑relations team merges a spreadsheet of client‑submitted feature requests into the product map for joint prioritization.
An agile coach combines partial maps from multiple squads into one overarching map to surface cross‑team dependencies.