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4. Creating a Session

User & Administration Guide — Version 1.1.3.44

Guide summary

Start from home, complete the facilitator wizard, name topics or start an open room, and invite the team from the lobby.

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Overview

Facilitators create a session from Create a voting room. Planning poker uses four steps: Basics, Deck, Rules, and Work items. Other formats skip Deck. You then land in the session lobby with a join code and link.

The session summary updates as you move through each step. Nothing is saved until you choose Create session and open lobby. Cancel returns home.

4.1 Start from the Home Screen

On the home page, choose Create session in the Create a room card. Who can create sessions is set in Settings → Governance: Everyone, Members, or Owners only.

  • Join a session is for people who already have a code.
  • Create a room starts the facilitator wizard.
  • Formats: planning poker, confidence vote (1–5), fist of five (0–5), roman vote, dot voting, and quick survey.
Sprint Align home screen with Join session and Create session.
From the home screen, choose Create session to open the facilitator wizard.

4.2 Step 1 — Basics

Name the room and choose the voting format.

  • Session name (required) — for example, Sprint estimation. This appears in the lobby and in history.
  • Voting format — planning poker, confidence vote (1–5), fist of five (0–5), roman vote, dot voting, or quick survey.
  • Sprint tag (optional) — a short label such as Sprint 24 or PI-3. History uses it for the velocity chart.

Choose Continue when the name is filled in. You can also select a later step in the stepper once the name is set.

4.3 Step 2 — Deck

Planning poker asks for a deck. The standard deck is 0, ½, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, ?, ∞, and ☕.

  • Choose Standard planning poker deck or a custom deck. The site default is pre-selected when one is set.
  • A preview shows every card in the chosen deck.
  • Custom decks are created in Settings → Governance → Manage decks.

Confidence, fist-of-five, roman, dot, and survey formats use a built-in choice set and skip this step.

4.4 Step 3 — Rules

These rules apply to the whole session.

  • Auto-reveal when everyone has voted — show results as soon as every participant has voted.
  • Vote visibility:
    • Names visible after reveal (default)
    • Only facilitator can see names
    • Fully anonymous results
  • Timer per item — countdown in seconds. 0 turns the timer off. The control steps by 30 seconds.
  • Allow async mode for distributed teams — people can vote before the facilitator is in the room. Optionally set a reveal deadline in hours from now (0 means no deadline, maximum 168). While a facilitator has the session open, the round reveals itself when that deadline is reached.
  • Pass threshold (confidence only) — minimum score from 1 to 5.
  • Dots per participant (dot voting only) — from 1 to 20.
  • Survey — question, comma-separated choices, allow multiple selections, and allow a free-text response.

4.5 Step 4 — Work Items

Choose how the room starts.

  • Name topics now — type one item per line. You need at least one item. Imported Azure DevOps items keep their references when that integration is on. See Decks & Backlog.
  • Open room — start with no topic list. The same join code stays open. Name each vote in the room, then add the next one without ending the session.

Choose Create session and open lobby. Sprint Align saves the session in lists on this SharePoint site and opens the lobby. The toast shows the join code.

4.6 Open the Lobby & Invite

The lobby stays open until the facilitator starts voting.

  • Join code — six characters participants type on the home screen.
  • Copy link — share the deep link in Teams chat or email. A QR code is shown with the invite.
  • Roster — updates as people join. The host can Make co-host or Remove co-host.
  • Start voting session — the facilitator launches the first round when the team is ready.

An open room keeps that join code for every later vote. Votes stay private until reveal. Continue with Voting & Participation and Reveal & Results.

Tips & Permissions

  • Who can create? Settings → Governance: Everyone, Members, or Owners only.
  • Cancel during the wizard discards the draft. Nothing is saved until the lobby is created.
  • The summary shows name, format, item count or “Open — reuse for every vote,” reveal mode, and live or async mode.
  • Participants cannot see each other’s cards until reveal, unless auto-reveal is on and everyone has voted.
  • Session data stays in SharePoint lists on the host site.