PKRbot: In-Depth Instructions

1) Install PKRbot Into Your Team or Chat

First, ensure PKRbot is available in your Microsoft Teams environment. If your organization’s Microsoft Teams tenant allows custom/marketplace bots, follow these steps to install:

1. In Teams, open the chat or channel where you want to run planning poker.
2. Click the + icon or the “Apps” / “Get bots” option.
3. Search for “PKR” and select it.
4. Choose Add to a Team (or Add to Chat) if prompted. You may need to confirm or grant permission for the bot to post messages.

Once added, you should see PKRbot listed among the participants in your chat or team channel. You’re ready to go!

2) Begin a Round of Planning Poker

To begin a planning poker round in a Teams channel or group chat that includes PKRbot:

PKRbot will respond with a round configuration card, typically titled “Configure the planning poker round”. This card lets you:

• Link a Jira Issue — If you’ve connected PKRbot to Jira, enter the issue key (e.g., ABC‑123) and click Link Issue. This pulls the issue’s summary in as the round title and enables commenting results back to Jira.
• Set a Round Title — Use this if you aren’t linking a Jira issue or want to override the title.
• Select Estimation Scale — Points, T-shirt sizes (XS–XXL), or Fibonacci numbers.
• Round Timer — Usually 15–60 seconds.
• Enable or Disable Confidence — Optionally gather how confident each participant is in their estimate.
• Anonymous Responses — Hides voter names in the final results if “Anonymous” is checked.

Note: You can choose where PKRbot sends these configuration cards. In your @PKR config settings, set the “Bot Reply Location” to either Current Chat (everyone sees the card) or Personal Chat (only you see it). The round itself still happens in the channel or group chat.

After you complete these fields, click Start Round. PKRbot will confirm by posting a “Submissions” card that displays all participants in the chat.

3) Submitting Estimates

When the round starts, PKRbot posts two key cards:

1. Submissions Card: Lists each chat member. As people submit, you’ll see their status updated (e.g., a filled circle).
2. Estimation Card: Each individual sees a card with an input box or drop-down to select the estimate. If you enabled confidence, a numeric confidence (0–10) input also appears.

The timer (e.g., 30s) counts down in the background. Once everyone has submitted or the timer ends, PKRbot finalizes the round and posts the final Results.

4) Viewing the Results

The final results card shows each participant’s estimate. If you chose a numeric scale (points or Fibonacci), PKRbot calculates:

• Mean (average)
• Standard Deviation
• Confidence mean/std dev (if confidence was enabled)

If you selected T-shirt sizing (XS–XXL), PKRbot simply lists each user’s chosen size. If “Anonymous” was on, the participant names are replaced with “Anonymous.”

5) Re-Estimate, Comment to Jira, and More

The results card includes optional buttons if certain features are enabled, such as:

• “Re-estimate Ticket” — Creates a brand new round with the same config (title, scale, etc.).
• “Comment results to Jira” — If you connected PKRbot to Jira, you can post these results directly into an issue’s comment.

You can also view old rounds using:

PKRbot will display a history card or a set of search results, from which you can re-visit (and optionally re-estimate) older rounds.

6) Additional Tips & Advice

• Slash commands or short text commands:
  @PKR help, @PKR config, @PKR begin, @PKR history.
  The bot also supports CLI-like commands with flags. See the command reference for details.
• Fibonacci vs. T-Shirt Sizing: Choose Fibonacci if your team is used to story points like 1,2,3,5,8… T-shirt is simpler for less formal tasks.
• Confidence: Helps gauge how sure a user is about their estimate. A lower confidence might indicate areas needing more discussion or clarity.
• Anonymous: Great if you want to avoid bias or “anchoring” from seeing who picks what, but you lose direct attributions in the final results card.
• Integration with Jira:
  @PKR config → “Connect to Jira.” Once connected, you can link rounds to your Jira issue key and even comment the final results directly on that issue.

Need More Help?

If you run into any issues, check out our Support Page, or type @PKR help in Teams for a quick list of commands. You can also reach out to your Microsoft Teams admin if you have trouble installing or granting permissions for PKRbot.

Thanks for using PKRbot, and happy estimating!