Update

Farewell and Gratitude from FeatureMap

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Dear FeatureMap Users,

It is with mixed emotions that we have to share some important news about the future of FeatureMap.

After a decade of serving as your go-to User Story Mapping tool, it is with a heavy heart that we must inform you that we have made the difficult decision to close down FeatureMap. Our platform will no longer be available starting March 31, 2024.

This decision was not reached lightly. Many things happened in 10 years: some of us got kids, new professional opportunities came up, the competition became fiercer, and how could we forget the pandemic that stopped so many projects in their tracks? It’s been a wild rollercoaster; we learned a lot during this time. As our first startup, FeatureMap has been a major part of our lives, and we’ll always cherish these memories and the kind words of support we received from you along the way. But today’s challenging market landscape as well as our own personal aspirations have significantly impacted our ability to continue operating as a viable business, and thus we have to bid farewell.

We want to express our deepest gratitude to you for being an integral part of FeatureMap’s journey. Your trust, support, and valuable feedback have been instrumental in shaping our platform into what it is today. We have seen remarkable projects take shape, teams align, and visions become a reality. It has been an honor to witness the incredible work that you have accomplished using our platform.

As FeatureMap prepares to close its doors, we want to ensure a smooth transition for you. We encourage you to export the content of your maps as archives or make screenshots so that you can have access to your valuable work beyond our closure date. To that effect, all users can now export their maps as files and images. We regret that we won’t be able to provide any ongoing support or data retrieval after March 31, 2024.

While we part ways with a heavy heart, we take solace in knowing that we have made a difference in the lives of so many people. We hope that you will continue to explore and embrace other platforms that can support your future endeavors and help you bring your ideas to life.

If you have any questions or need assistance during this transition period, please do not hesitate to reach out to Julien and Tristan at support@featuremap.co. They will be happy to provide guidance and answer any queries you may have.

Should you be interested in purchasing the source code of FeatureMap for non-commercial use or continuing the adventure by acquiring FeatureMap and run it commercially, please reach out to sales@featuremap.co. Once again, thank you for being a part of our FeatureMap family. We have truly cherished the opportunity to serve you.

FeatureMap 4.0 Update – New Version

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Last week we released the new version of FeatureMap.

We’ve said our goodbyes to FeatureMap 3.4 – which had been valiantly running for over two years with just a few minor updates – and welcomed FeatureMap 4.0.

I’d like to give you some news about what our team has been working on over the past year and our plans for the future of FeatureMap. This update will probably sound unusually technical – I thought for once it would be nice to give you a deeper overview of what we have been doing behind the scenes.

While the changes might not be immediately apparent, as it is still the same FeatureMap you are familiar with, almost all parts of the application have been upgraded under the hood. Our goal with this release was to lay out the necessary foundation to support our plans for the next major features and design of FeatureMap.

One of the main benefits of this background work is that FeatureMap is now faster than ever: we’ve measured load times and request times reduced by over 40%. It is also a lot more stable and more resilient when something goes wrong in the network.

We’ve been constantly working away at improving FeatureMap and throughout the pandemic, we’ve seen the growth of working from home and a wider adoption of user story mapping as one of the best tools for collaborative product management. This has kept us motivated to bring the best out of FeatureMap and strengthened our resolve to make it better.

So, what has changed in FeatureMap 4.0?

Faster everything

FeatureMap boots faster, loads pages more quickly, and can save your changes instantly. Not only does it offer a more responsive user experience, it also improves the overall stability of the application. Plus, it means we can now deploy hotfixes whenever necessary without noticeable downtime.

New application domain name

We have decided to separate FeatureMap’s public website, which presents the application features, pricing and legal terms, from the application in which you can access your maps. Your maps now live under the domain name https://app.featuremap.co, which means the URLs of your maps and cards have changed.

But don’t worry: we’ve made sure all the old links keep working and simply redirect you to the new locations.

Calls to our API will still work with www.featuremap.co as the base domain name for several months. API users are encouraged to use the new app subdomain from now.

Usernames are gone + improved mentions in comments

Another decision we made was to remove all visible usernames from the application. We still use them internally, but we no longer want them to be the default way of referring to a FeatureMap user. Which means it won’t be possible to sign in to FeatureMap using a username anymore: we’ll ask for your email address instead.

This also means we had an opportunity to improve the way users could @mention people in card comments and make it a lot nicer and easier to use. Give it a try: just type @ in a comment, add a few letters to filter users by name or email, and choose the person you’d like to refer to.

Map Layers that are collapsed are remembered

Quality of life updates will be seen frequently as we receive feedback and suggestions.
Already we’ve released a mini addition (now officially on v4.0.1 at time of posting) that remembers the last active setting of your layers or groups.

Now when you collapse, and adjust the views, those layers/groups will remain collapsed when you return to the map or reload.

Layers: Testing and complete are collapsed and will be remembered upon reload. Group Version 0.2 Website is collapsed and will also be remembered.

Sign in with Microsoft or Google accounts

Passwords can be a pain. We get that. Why not just log in to FeatureMap using your existing Google or Microsoft account ?

Linux support

For those of you interested in using FeatureMap on-premises, you can now install and run the application on Linux servers and not just Windows.

Anything else? What’s next?

We made a lot more changes that are not directly visible right now. These will allow us to release some long-requested features in the near future. Here are some of the improvements we are already working on:

  • Custom tags for your cards
  • A more modern look for FeatureMap
  • Quicker actions on cards: copy-paste, move, or update several cards at once
  • Dedicated workspaces for teams
  • Organized dashboard

Please send feedback and get involved with our roadmap.

What features do you want to see?

Keep an eye out for our future announcements. And as always: Happy mapping!