Visualize your plan with the Rally timeline.
The Rally Timeline page provides an easy way to visualize
At a glance
your organization’s plan for the portfolio items that you’ve decided to fund.
It also shows the progress of execution on that plan by the team of teams in your organization.
Portfolio managers, program managers, product managers and other stakeholders
can use the Timeline page as an internal roadmap for a specific time period
such as a quarter or a year.
You can use the Timeline Page to show committed plans, intended plans, or both
—with committed plans showing closer to the present time
and intended plans laid out on the timeline into the future.
Teams can use the Timeline Page to show their planned work for a given period.
Viewing the start and end dates for the work you’ve planned across teams
makes it easy to see unintended impacts, and to replan work to better address dependencies.
Access the Timeline Page from the Portfolio tab in Rally.
Choose a place in your organizational hierarchy that focuses your view on the teams
to include so that you can understand the
full scope and impacts of their work.
You’ll need project viewer permission to view a team’s portfolio items,
The type of portfolio item you’ve selected in the Work Type field
determines the type of portfolio items displayed on the Timeline page.
Expand the project list to see the child projects.
You’ll see each of the portfolio items in your view
stretched on the timeline according to the color,
start date, and end date
that are specified in the portfolio item details.
To view the details of
Portfolio Items on your timeline directly from the Timeline Page,
hover over the portfolio Item
until a pop-up window appears with summary information.
Progress is measured by the total number of story points accepted
divided by the total number of story points assigned to stories associated with the portfolio item.
Show milestones
—target dates that are important to the business
—by selecting the Milestones Icon to the right of the page.
Choose whether to show Project Milestones,
Workspace Milestones, or both.
Milestones appear as vertical lines on the Timeline page.
Hover over the diamond at the top of each milestone
to view the milestone date and name.
If the milestone diamond is hollow,
this means there are multiple milestones associated with this date.
You won’t be able to see milestones associated with projects that you do not have permission to view.
There are several ways to view the progress of work for a portfolio item on the timeline.
The color shading on the portfolio item shows the progress of the acceptance of stories for the portfolio item.
The darker shade
shows a graphic depiction of the percentage of story points that have been accepted in time.
The lighter shade shows the remaining story points to be accepted.
As previously mentioned,
If you hover your mouse over the Portfolio Item to view the pop-up window,
the progress value will tell you the percentage of story points accepted
versus the total plan estimates for stories
associated with the portfolio item.
For additional information,
select the FormattedID or Name
of the portfolio item to open the Detail Page to see the Percent Done fields
and the other work items that are associated with the portfolio item.
There are a variety of ways to filter and adjust your views on the Timeline page.
The Work Type
allows you to select the porfilio item type you want to see.
Choose the start and end dates for the timeframe you want to view.
For the best experience, show a timeframe that is a little earlier and later than the one you really want to view
so that you can get some context for what’s happening before and after that timeframe.
Note that if a portfolio item doesn’t have a planned start date and a planned end date,
it won’t appear on the Timeline Page.
You can use the zoom feature to see details of a specific point within your timeline.
You can also pan on the timeline to view the progress of time,
and scroll up or down to see the plans and progress of other teams in your scope.
The part of the view that’s outside your filtered timeframes will show a hatch pattern
and a lighter color gradient.
You can also use the timeline to show dependencies among portfolio items and teams.
Select the Dependencies Icon in the Tools section and then select Show All.
You’ll see the arrowed lines
showing the predecessor and successor relationships between features.
Since the Timeline represents the work of your larger organization,
filtering is a great way to reduce the noise when you’re focusing on a subset of work.
As with other pages in Rally,
select Show Filters to further refine your view.
When you change a portfolio item on the Timeline page,
updates are saved automatically and without a confirmation message.
Select Edit Mode to switch between edit mode and view-only mode
You’ll see an indicator
when
edit mode is turned on.
Until you navigate to a different page or log off,
you can revert your most recent changes by selecting the Undo Icon.
This is helpful when you’re using the Timeline
in a steering meeting,
making changes in real time.
Let’s adjust date ranges on the Timeline page.
You'll need project editor permissions for those teams
to change start and end dates
or to change any other information associated with the portfolio items.
When you select the Portfolio Item with edit mode turned on,
the ends of the Portfolio Item become handles.
Hover over the portfolio item to see the Move indicator.
You may now move the portfolio item on the timeline from its middle,
preserving its scheduled number of days.
To change the start date or end date of a portfolio item,
select the handle and drag to the appropriate date.
To make any other changes to the portfolio item, select the FormattedID
or the Name to navigate to the Detail Page,
and make further changes as appropriate.
Congratulations!
Congratulations! Now you’re ready to start using the Timeline page in Rally.