Live and async rooms

You choose the mode when you create the room; it cannot change afterwards.

Live (default)

The team is together, on a call or in a meeting. The host opens a task, everybody votes, the host reveals. Because everyone is there, you can also use:

• A round timer: when it reaches zero the cards are revealed.
• Auto-reveal: reveal as soon as everybody who is online has voted.

Async

For distributed teams across time zones. There is a voting deadline, required when you create the room. Until then each person opens any task and votes whenever suits them. The room shows "3 of 5 voted" per task, and "you voted" for your own.

• Nobody sees a vote before the host reveals the task.
• When the deadline passes, voting closes. The deadline is counted by our own clock, so a wrong time on someone's computer changes nothing.
• The host reveals task by task when they are back, before or after the deadline, and accepts the estimates.
• To reopen voting, the host or a moderator moves the deadline forward in the session settings.

Which to pick

Live for a refinement meeting; async when you cannot get everyone in the same hour, or when you want people to think before they see anyone else's number.