Track Portfolio Items

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Tracking your portfolio items consists of the following topics:

Track portfolio item status
Use the portfolio item timeline
Use the Portfolio Kanban Board app
Create a custom grid on your dashboard

Track portfolio item status

Rally Portfolio Manager helps you visually track your portfolio's progress (% Done), and status (Green/Yellow/Red) with respect to planned end dates.

Where to track portfolio items
What fields to use to track status
Use the % Done By fields
Track with a timeline view

Where to track portfolio items

There are two locations in Rally that you may use to track portfolio items.

Portfolio Items page
Detail pages

Portfolio Items page

The Portfolio Items page allows you to track the progress and status of multiple portfolio items at once. To access the page, click or hover over the Track tab, then select Portfolio Items.

You can do the following:

Reorder columns by dragging column headers with the mouse
Resize columns by dragging the edges of column headers with the mouse
Choose which columns display by using the drop-down menu
Filter the type of portfolio item displayed by using the Type drop-down menu
Filter your view by specific column values.

Detail pages

To see the status of a single portfolio item or all children of a single item, use the detail page. To access the detail page for a portfolio item, select the link underneath the ID column when viewing the Portfolio Items page, or a listing of portfolio items in a dashboard panel or other grid view.

You can do the following:

Use the drop-down menu to edit, copy, print, or delete the portfolio item, as well as create a new portfolio item
Select the Children link that appears in the sidebar to display a summary view of the child portfolio items if the portfolio item has associated children
Select the User Stories link that appears in the sidebar to display a summary view of the stories if the portfolio item has associated user stories
Resize and reorder the columns in the Children or User Stories views in the same fashion as the Portfolio Items page

What fields to use to track status

By default, two tracking fields are displayed on the Portfolio Items and detail pages. Your team's estimating practices dictate what field should be used to see the most accurate status.

If your team estimates the amount of work necessary to complete user stories, and enters data into the Plan Estimate field of stories assigned to portfolio items, use the % Done By Story Plan Estimate field. Because story size may vary, this field will show the most accurate representation of points remaining to complete the portfolio item.

If your team does not estimate the size of user stories and leaves the Plan Estimate field blank, use the % Done By Story Count field. Because all stories are viewed as equal segments of work, you will only need to see the number of stories remaining to complete the portfolio item. The accuracy of this number is dependent on your ability to normalize story sizes across your development teams.

Use the % Done By fields

In addition to the numerical percentage of work done displayed in these fields, more details of the portfolio item's status are displayed through hover callouts and field coloring.

Callouts
Field coloring
Coloring algorithm

Callouts

Detailed callouts appear when you hover your mouse over the % Done By fields. The fields in this callout will vary depending on the status of the portfolio item and user stories associated to it. See the table below for and explanation of each field.

Field	Description
Accepted Points	The number of story points on user stories in an Accepted state and total number of story points. Disregard this value if your team does not estimate the size of user stories.
Accepted User Stories	The number of user stories in an Accepted state and total number of user stories assigned to the portfolio item.
Missing Estimates	Displays if one or more user stories do not have values entered into the Plan Estimate field. Disregard this message if your team tracks with the % Done By Story Count column.
Missing Planned End Date	Displays if the portfolio item does not have values entered into the Planned End Date field.
Actual End Date	Displays when all work has been completed; displays the date that the final story was set to an Accepted state.
Notes	Displays if the Notes field of the portfolio item contains text.

Note: An orange indicator appears in the corner of the % Done By fields if the portfolio item is missing estimates or a planned end date.

Field coloring

Both of the % Done By fields will be shaded with a color, based on the status of the work needed to complete the portfolio item. This status is calculated using data entered into the Planned Start Date and Planned End Date fields of the portfolio item. See the table below for the meaning of each color.

Color	Meaning

Green	Work is being accepted at a sufficient rate to complete the portfolio item before the Planned End Date.
Yellow	Warning: completing the portfolio item before the Planned End Date is in jeopardy.
Red	Work is not being accepted at a sufficient rate to complete the portfolio item before the Planned End Date, and/or the timeframe has already passed.
White, no shading	No work has been accepted.
Light grey	Some or all work has been accepted, but the current date is prior to the Planned Start Date.
Dark grey	All work has been accepted.

Coloring algorithm

Rally uses an algorithm that takes the number of stories, story points (if applicable), current date, dates work is set to Accepted, and Planned start/end date fields into account to generate a colored status indicator. The full algorithm is provided below:

// Inputs
// percentComplete (real)
// startDate (days since the epoch or date type where Tomorrow()-Today() = 1.0 (real))
// endDate (same type as startDate)
// asOfDate (same type as startDate)
// acceptanceStartDelay (real representing days, computed as 10% of the time between the startDate and endDate)
// warningDelay (real representing days, computed as 10% of the time between the startDate and endDate)
// inProgress (boolean)

// Returns
// statusColor (enum):
// White (work is not expected to have started yet)
// Green (progressing well)
// Yellow (warning)
// Red (in trouble)

// Assumptions
assert percentComplete >= 0.0
assert percentComplete <= 100.0
assert acceptanceStartDelay >= 0.0
assert warningDelay >= 0.0
assert startDate + acceptanceStartDelay + warningDelay < endDate
assert inProgress or
(not inProgress and percentComplete = 0.0) or
(not inProgress and percentComplete = 100.0)

// Special cases
if asOfDate < startDate:
  return White

if (asOfDate >= startDate) and
  (asOfDate <= startDate + acceptanceStartDelay) and
  (not inProgress):
   return Orange

if asOfDate >= endDate:
  if percentComplete >= 100.0:
     return Green
  else:
     return Red

// Red
redXIntercept = startDate + acceptanceStartDelay + warningDelay
redSlope = 100.0 / (endDate - redXIntercept)
redYIntercept = -1.0 * redXIntercept * redSlope
redThreshold = redSlope * asOfDate + redYIntercept
if percentComplete < redThreshold:
  return Red

// Yellow
yellowXIntercept = startDate + acceptanceStartDelay
yellowSlope = 100 / (endDate - yellowXIntercept)
yellowYIntercept = -1.0 * yellowXIntercept * yellowSlope
yellowThreshold = yellowSlope * asOfDate + yellowYIntercept
if percentComplete < yellowThreshold:
  return Yellow

// Green
return Green

Use the portfolio item timeline

Use the portfolio timeline to track initiatives, enhancements, and goals from a high level. The timeline provides a visual rendition of a portfolio item's progress over time. The timeline is an interactive view that gives you the big picture on how things are progressing in your portfolio.

To access the portfolio timeline:

Select a workspace and a project.
From the Track tab, select Portfolio Timeline.
From the Type drop-down, select the Portfolio Item Type you wish to view.

Plan items are ranked in ascending order. Planning dates do not roll up within a hierarchy.

You can add the Portfolio Item Timeline as a panel on your dashboard.

Today's date displays on the grid with a vertical bar. The view defaults to the current timebox so you can see the immediate past and future.

The Actual Start and Actual End Date fields cannot be changed or dragged. These values are calculated by associated user stories that are moved from In-Progress to Released states.

The portfolio timeline is best viewed with Firefox or Chrome browsers. Internet Explorer may produce rendering issues.

Portfolio Items must have a Planned Start and Planned End Date in order to display on the portfolio timeline. Actual Start Dates for portfolio items with work-in-progress before November 19, 2011 will be null until another associated user story goes into progress, then the Actual Start Date will reflect that user story's in-progress date.

The Portfolio timeline loads only the first 200 portfolio items filtered.

Zoom on the timeline

You can zoom in or out on the timeline to get a better view of your work. Use the - and + buttons on the zoom bar to adjust your view. The default zoom factor is from months to weeks. You can adjust the zoom factor from years to quarters and from weeks to days.

The zoom factor defaults to the last factor you used for each type.

Note:

Zoom settings are not saved on the dashboard.
The zoom feature is not currently supported in Internet Explorer.

Timeline hierarchy

You can view a portfolio item hierarchy and expand the portfolio item to see its children. Click the arrow to the left of the portfolio item name to expand and contract the hierarchy.

Use the Portfolio Kanban Board app

The Portfolio Kanban Board app provides visibility into work-in-flight in the context of your idea-to-delivery (concept-to-cash) workflow.

The board is made available as a catalog app which allows you to place the Kanban board on any of the Rally menus in a custom page, or directly on your Dashboard page.

You can create Kanban boards specific to each of your portfolio item types with the Type drop-down menu at the top of the app.

Each card displays how many days or weeks the portfolio item has been in its current state column. Cards indicate age in days for the first 20 days in a given column, and in weeks after the 21st day. Age data is calculated for existing cards beginning April 28th 2012, and does not include historical data. The next time a portfolio item is moved on the board, the WIP age counter is reset. All seven days of the week are included in the aging calculation.

Click here for full instructions on using the Portfolio Kanban Board app.

The Portfolio Kanban Board app relies on the State field for portfolio items. Click here to learn how to administer the field to set up state column names and work-in-progress (WIP) limits on the board.

Create a custom grid for your dashboard

You can customize your dashboard to include a custom grid that tracks your status. For example, you can create a grid that tracks all Feature types.

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