Product themes group related stories into areas of investment, so you can see how development effort is distributed across your priorities. While an epic groups the stories for one specific goal, a theme is a broader area that can include stories from many epics, team backlogs, and workflow steps. Only stories can be added to product themes, and each story can belong to one theme at a time.

Manage product themes

To open the Product themes page, click your workspace's name at the top left of Atono, then select Product themes. The list is sorted by last activity, newest first.

Workspace Owners, Administrators, and Product Managers can create, edit, and delete product themes. If no one in your workspace has the Product Manager role, everyone can. Once someone has the role, other users can still view product themes, but they can't create, edit, or delete them. The role doesn't affect who can add stories to a theme or remove them.

Create a product theme

Create a product theme for an area of investment whose stories you want to track together, even when they're spread across teams.

On the Product themes page, click Create product theme.
In the 'Create product theme' dialog, enter a name and, optionally, a description. Theme names must be unique, regardless of capitalization.
Click Create product theme, or click X to cancel.

Names can be up to 100 characters. Descriptions can be up to 2,000 characters, with links counted by their full URL. To format a description, highlight the text and select bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, code, or link from the toolbar.

You can also create a product theme from a story's details panel, if you have permission to create themes. For more details, see Assign a story to a product theme.

Search for product themes

On the Product themes page, click the search (magnifying glass) icon above the list.
Enter part of the theme's name.

Search ignores capitalization and doesn't match descriptions.

Sort product themes

Click the Name or Last activity column header to change how the list is sorted. Sort by last activity to see which themes have had recent changes to their stories.

What counts as activity?

A theme's last activity updates when:

It's created.
Its name or description is edited.
A story is added to it or removed from it, including when a story moves to it from another theme.
A story in it moves to a different workflow step, team backlog, or sprint.

Other changes to its stories, such as edits to their titles or descriptions, don't count as activity.

Preview the stories in a product theme

On the Product themes page, hover over a theme's story count to preview up to five of its stories, with each story's Item ID, title, and workflow step, without leaving the list. Stories on private team backlogs you're not a member of are included, with their titles hidden.

Open a product theme

Do one of the following:

On the Product themes page, click the theme's name.
In a story's details panel, hover over the story's product theme and click the arrow (→) icon.

Edit product theme details

Renaming a product theme changes its name everywhere it's used, including on stories, team backlogs, and timelines.

Do one of the following:
- On the Product themes page, hover over the theme, click the ellipsis (...) icon at the far right of the row, and select Product theme details.
- On the theme's details page, click the ellipsis (...) icon next to its name and select Product theme details.
In the 'Edit product theme details' dialog, update the name or description.
Click Update details, or click X to cancel.

Delete a product theme

Deleting a product theme can't be undone.

Do one of the following:
- On the Product themes page, hover over the theme, click the ellipsis (...) icon at the far right of the row, and select Delete product theme.
- On the theme's details page, click the ellipsis (...) icon next to its name and select Delete product theme.
In the confirmation dialog, which shows how many stories the theme will be removed from, click Delete product theme to confirm, or click X to cancel.

Atono removes the theme from all of its stories, including stories on private team backlogs you can't see, and adds an entry to each story's Activities. The stories themselves aren't deleted. Saved views that filter by the theme stop filtering by it, and earlier activity entries show the theme's name followed by '(deleted)'.

View a product theme

A theme's details page shows its name, description, and stories, so you can review the theme's scope and change which stories belong to it.

The 'Stories with this product theme' list shows each story's Item ID, title, size, workflow step, and team backlog (or 'No team'), ordered by Item ID. Stories on private team backlogs you're not a member of are included with their titles hidden, and you can't remove them from the theme.

View stories on the Everything page

Open the theme's stories on the Everything page when you need more details than the details page shows, such as assignees or timeboxes, or want to update the stories in bulk.

Click the View stories (→) icon next to 'Stories with this product theme'. The Everything page opens in a new tab, filtered to the theme's stories.

Add all stories in a product theme to a timebox

To plan when a theme's work will be delivered, view its stories on the Everything page, select them, and add them all to a timebox at once. You can also start from the Everything page and filter it by product theme. For more details, see Add items to a timebox.

Add or remove stories

Anyone who can edit a story can add it to a product theme or remove it, whether or not your workspace has a Product Manager.

To add a story:

On the theme's details page, click the Add a story field.
Search for or select a story.

The story is added right away. If it's already in another product theme, it's moved to this one without a warning, since a story can belong to only one theme.

To remove a story, click the X at the far right of its row.

Adding a story to a theme, removing it, or moving it between themes is recorded in the story's Activities, under the 'Product theme' type. For more details, see Filter by type.

You can also add a story to a product theme, or remove it, from the story's details panel, and add several stories at once from the Everything page. Stories you duplicate or split keep the original story's product theme. For more details, see Assign a story to a product theme and Add stories to a product theme.

See a story's product theme

A story's product theme appears in several places in Atono, so you can see which area of investment work belongs to while you plan:

Story details panel: The 'Product theme' field shows the story's theme.
Team backlogs: Select 'Product themes' in the backlog settings to show each story's theme on a Kanban or Scrum team's backlog. For more details, see Kanban backlog settings and Scrum backlog settings.
Story refinement: Select 'Product themes' in the list or board view settings to show each story's theme. For more details, see Show product themes, pull requests, and timeboxes.
Everything page: Add the 'Product theme' column to see each story's theme.
Timelines: Hover over the product theme icon in a timebox to see the themes of the stories in it. For more details, see View associated product themes.

Filter by product theme

Filter by product theme to focus on the work in one area of investment, or select 'No product theme' to find stories that don't have a theme yet. You can filter by product theme in these places:

Everything page: Show stories in the selected themes. For more details, see Available filters.
Team backlogs: Show stories in the selected themes on a Kanban or Scrum team's backlog. For more details, see Kanban backlog filters and Scrum backlog filters.
Story refinement: Show stories in the selected themes. For more details, see Available filters.
Timelines: Show only the timeboxes that include stories in the selected themes.