Administer Rally Portfolio Manager

Manage portfolio item fields

Administrators can modify and manage the work item fields related to portfolio items. All changes are done at the workspace level and apply to all projects in the workspace.

To manage portfolio item fields:

1. Click the Setup mode link in the upper-right corner of the page.
2. Click the Workspaces & Projects tab.
3. Select a workspace.
4. From the sidebar, click the Work Products & Fields link.
5. From the Work Product Type drop-down menu, select Portfolio Item.

There are several fields you can modify:

• Portfolio Item Type
• Preliminary Estimate
• Investment Categories
• State

Portfolio Item Type

You can create portfolio item types based on the terminology your company uses to organize them in a hierarchy to group marketable features. There is one set of types per workspace.

Types display in descending order, for example, by default the highest level (3) are themes, level 2 are initiatives, and level 1 are features. You can add new portfolio item types at the top of the hierarchy.  

      

You can only delete a type that has no associated portfolio items.

Types with children or parents are constrained by hierarchy rules.

You can modify the description and name of a type, but not the values. There are several scenarios under which you can modify types:

• Use all new type names
• Add level 4 and higher type names to the type list and change the names for the lower-level types
• Re-assigning type levels
• If you wish to move an existing type to a different level, for example, to change level 2 to level 3:
1. Change the Level 2 type's name to the new name.
2. Change the Level 3 type's name to Level 2's original name.
• Insert a new level and move existing levels
  1. Add the new level.
  2. Change type names for the existing affected levels to a unique, temporary name.
  3. Change the temporary names to the permanent names.

The Ordinal Value is assigned by the system, and you cannot change it. Changes made to the Name or Description are saved immediately when you hit Return or move to a different cell. If there is a validation error when you modify types, the grid cell has a red mark in the corner and an error message displays above the grid. If there is a validation error on a value, the value will not be saved.

Because you may not hide this field nor change it as a requirement, you do not need the Save buttons to save Portfolio Item types.

Preliminary Estimate

Use preliminary estimates to gauge the size of a portfolio item during planning. Use values that align with your organization. Rally coaches recommend using relative sizes and values. The default options are:

• Extra small (XS)
• Small (S)
• Medium (M)
• Large (L)
• Extra Large (XL)

Fibonacci values are provided for each by default.

You can add, modify, or delete preliminary estimate sizes and their associated numeric values. Values must be whole numbers.

When you edit the Name or Value fields, they are updated throughout the workspace after a page refresh.

There is no relationship between preliminary estimate and plan estimate. If you want these to be related you must assign values accordingly. Preliminary estimates will not roll up.

• To add a new preliminary estimate, click the +Add New button. Enter a name, then click Add.
• To add or edit the value and description, double-click in the Value or Description field for inline editing.
• To delete a preliminary estimate, click the corresponding gear icon and select Delete.
• You will receive a message to resize any features that are assigned to the deleted value.

Investment Category

Assign portfolio items to investment categories for features and initiatives to ensure they align with business goals. The default values are:

• Short term growth
• Strategic growth
• Cost savings
• Maintenance

You can change these values or add new values; however, you cannot delete investment categories that are already assigned to portfolio items.

• To add a new investment category, enter a name in the blank Values field, then click Add Value.

• To edit an investment category, select the value in the list, then edit the value in the text field. Click the icon to save your changes.

• To delete an investment category, select the value in the list, then click the trash can icon.
• To change the hierarchical level of an investment category, select the value in the list, then click the up or down arrows .

State

The State field specifies the state of the portfolio item in its idea-to-delivery workflow. If you use a portfolio Kanban, portfolio item states are  shown as columns in the Portfolio Kanban Board.

The State field also displays on the Portfolio Item detail page, and can optionally be added to the Portfolio Item summary page. From the Portfolio Item summary page, you can then sort portfolio items by state or filter by state.

If you edit a portfolio item that already has a state value that has since been disabled, that value will continue to show as an option in the editor until the value has changed. This allows you to edit the portfolio item yet keep historical data.

Rally Portfolio Manager provides default values for state – the same default values for each portfolio item type. However, as part of your portfolio management process, you likely will define different values from the default we provide, as well as default value set for each portfolio item type. You may choose to not have any values for the State field.

Click the +Add New button to create a new state value. There is a limit of 20 state values per type.

To edit existing state values, double-click the field you wish to edit. You can edit the following fields:

Field	Description
Name	The default values for this field for each type are Discovering, Developing, Measuring, and Done. You can change these names to suit your business needs. State names are unique for a single type. State names are not unique across types.
Order Index	The value in this field determines column order in the kanban. For example, 1 is the first column, 2 is the second column, and so on. Reorder the column order by changing the values of each. Click the arrow immediately next to the field name to sort by ascending or descending order.
WIP Limit	Set WIP limits to determine how many portfolio items should be in each state. Set a WIP limit of -1 for no WIP limit. A value of 0 means anything you put in the state column generate an error. You can set a maximum of 200 portfolio items per column. The No Entry column has a maximum of 50 entries. WIP is administered by type for each workspace. If WIP is exceeded in a state column, the column turns red. Specify a WIP limit for each state in each portfolio item type.
Description	Enter a textual description of the State values. This field is optional and does not display on the Kanban board.
Enabled	Specify whether the State value displays in drop-down menus on editors and in the kanban board.
Hidden	Specify whether the State field should be hidden.
Required	Specify whether the State field should be required.

To delete a Statue value, click the gear icon next to the value you wish to remove and click Delete.

Additional fields

The following fields can be used in portfolio items:

Name	Type	Required
Description	Text	N
Name	String	Y
Notes	Text	N
Owner	Drop-down list	N
Parent	Chooser	N
Planned End Date	Date	N
Planned Start Date	Date	N
Portfolio Item Type	Drop-down list	Y
Preliminary Estimate	Drop-down list	N
Project	Drop-down list	Y
Rank	Decimal	N
Risk Score	Integer	N
Tags	Drop-down list	N
Value Score	Integer	N
State	Drop-down list	N

Computed fields

These fields' values are based on the data entered in other fields. You can hide these fields.

Name	Type	Required
Actual End Date	Date	N
Actual Start Date	Date	N
Creation Date	Date	Y
Formatted ID	Integer	Y
Percent Done by Story Count	Decimal	N
Percent Done by Story Plan Estimate	Decimal	N

Custom fields

You can create and use custom fields for portfolio items as you do for other work items. Custom fields are not copied from a user story to a portfolio item when the user story is converted.