Introduction
Board History in piplanning.io helps teams and Release Trains stay on top of what's changed during planning and execution. Whether you’re looking to track changes made yesterday, audit scope drift, or prepare for Inspect & Adapt, the Board History gives you two powerful ways to view changes on your boards:
Log (Chronological Order) – a timeline of every change made.
Compare – a before/after snapshot between two points in time.
You can use filters in both views to focus on what’s relevant—like iteration changes, sticky types (e.g. User Stories, Features), or specific fields (e.g. Assignee, Links, Story Points) or actions (e.g. Created, Deleted, Mirrored).
Feature | Log | Compare |
Purpose | See a timeline of what happened, when, and by whom | See a before vs. after snapshot between two points in time |
View | Sequential list of changes across the board | Side-by-side diff of sticky notes between two selected timestamps |
Best for | Auditing activity, understanding change flow, daily tracking | Progress analysis, scope drift, delta reports |
Time Span | Any time window (continuous activity log) | Two specific points in time (state comparison) |
Granularity | Shows all changes one by one, in the order they occurred | Aggregates all changes between two states into one diff view |
Log (Chronological Order)
The Chronological Log gives you a time-ordered list of all changes that occurred on a board, showing what happened, when it happened, and who made the change.
This is ideal when you want to:
Investigate recent activity
Reconstruct a sequence of changes
Audit changes made over a specific period
Understand collaboration behavior in real time
You can filter the log by:
Content Scope: Sticky Type (User Story, Task, Bug), Iteration
Change Type: Assignee, Iteration, Text, Links, Stickers, Story Points, Creator, Creation, Deletion
Here's a representative way on how to use the Board History Log
Select a period of time
Filter for Sticky Types or Iterations
Filter for Change Types (such as Assignee, Link, Status, etc.)
Select a specific Sticky Note to see the details and "pull" from the board
Compare
Compare Mode lets you select two points in time, such as Now vs. Start of Iteration, or Now vs. End of PI Planning, to see a snapshot of what changed between those two moments.
It’s like a "diff view" that summarizes changes across sticky notes, making it easy to track:
Progress since the start of the sprint or PI
Deviations from plans
Reassignments, re-scoping, or new links and stickers
Compare Mode is ideal for structured reviews, planning retrospectives, or executive reporting.
You can use the Board History Compare Mode the same way as the Log:
Select a period of time
Filter for Sticky Types or Iterations
Filter for Change Types (such as Assignee, Link, Status, etc.)
Select a specific Sticky Note to see the details and "pull" from the board
Let's look at the "As a new parent, I want to track my sleep ..." User Story. Based on the configuration on the screenshot this has to be read as.
On May 1st that User Story
was in Status "To Do"
was NOT linked
On May 31st that User Story
was in Status "Work in Progress"
was linked to the Feature "Sleep Cycle Detection"
When to use Log vs. Compare
Log (Chronological Order)
On Team Board
Unexpected Changes: A bug disappeared? See exactly when and who removed or changed it.
Mid-sprint Check-in: What has been added, reassigned, or updated so far this sprint?
Audit or Coaching: Review how frequently stories are rewritten, reassigned, or carried over.
On ART Planning / Backlog Board
Dependency Analysis: Track when dependencies were added or removed during the PI.
Scope Changes: When and by whom were Features moved, edited, or broken into Stories?
Feature Movement Tracking: Understand if changes were frequent or last-minute (indicator of planning maturity).
Post-Mortem Audits: Construct a timeline of events leading up to delivery failure or priority shift.
Compare
On Team Board
Daily Stand-up Prep: What’s changed since yesterday? Who created/edited/moved something?
End-of-Iteration Review: Compare Now vs. Start of Iteration, what was added, removed, or changed.
Sprint Planning QA: Compare now vs. yesterday to confirm that re-prioritization or re-estimation happened.
Progress Drift: Compare Now vs. Start of PI to see if the team is sticking to the original commitment.
On ART Planning / Backlog Board
PI Planning Review: Compare 2nd vs. 1st PI Planning Day to see how scope, estimations, or iterations changed.
Mid-PI Sync: Compare Now vs. Start of Iteration. Has the delivery trajectory changed?
Portfolio Alignment: Business stakeholders compare Now vs. PI Start to validate roadmap delivery alignment.
Compliance Checks: Validate if unauthorized changes occurred between milestone approvals.