ALM: User Guide

At company level, the key characteristics of projects are tracked: dates, progress on primary requirements and tasks, and effort spent. These indicators are tracked with the module "Projects and activities".

Projects are often grouped around one product line, one customer, or one line of business. It is more convenient to track the progress of such projects, and to control dates and results, through a project portfolio: a set of projects combined by some property.

A project portfolio is a filter that lets you view data spread across different projects on one screen, in one module, or on one report. One project can belong to one or several portfolios.

A shared issue board or a shared task board at portfolio level lets you plan work on requirements across projects and, if needed, move issues and requirements from one project to another.

The project plan at portfolio level lets you synchronize the plans of each project in the portfolio.

Portfolios are created manually, but the system provides two built-in portfolios: My projects and All projects.

The "My projects" portfolio contains every project in which the current user is a participant. In this portfolio it is convenient to view the "My tasks" module, which contains every requirement and task assigned to the participant in the projects they take part in.

The "All projects" portfolio is used by management, and access to it can be regulated separately in the application's administrative access settings. If a user has access to this portfolio, they can view project data even if they are not a participant. Managers do not need to be added to every project in order to control what is happening: it is enough to give them access to the "All projects" portfolio.

Creating and configuring

To create a portfolio, follow the "+Portfolio" link

On the portfolio creation form, list the projects that should be included and click "Save".

To change the contents of a portfolio, open its settings:

Large projects in which several teams take part are called programs and consist of subprojects. A program contains the requirements, test documentation, and other project documentation shared by all subprojects. At program level you can define a release plan that is the baseline for all subprojects.

At program level you can manage the incoming stream of requirements, which is then redistributed across subprojects using the shared issue board. In the program you can also manage tasks that relate only to managing the program.

You can fine-tune the visibility of project artifacts between the program and the subprojects: propagate shared requirements to the subprojects, see test reports from the subprojects at program level, and so on. Otherwise, a project program offers the same capabilities as project portfolios.

A project program and its subprojects can restrict participant access to the tasks and project artifacts of related projects (teams). For example, put an external team (or even a single participant) in a subproject and configure artifact visibility so that subproject participants see only their own tasks.

A project program is used when customizing a standard solution, on implementation projects, to organize support and maintenance of software products, and so on.

Creating and configuring

To create a project program, you can create a project that will be the program, and then add subprojects to it with the "+Subproject" button:

If you want to organize a program and subprojects for projects that already exist, go to the project settings, to the "Programs and subprojects" menu. There you can add a subproject or include the project in a program.