How do I rank by program?

[Legacy User]

We've 2 types of dev teams: pool and dedicated. Right now the Ranking field in Rally (SaaS) is being used by the pool to allocate resources. I'm part of the program that has dedicated resources. My problem here is that I've been told it's impossible to create/use a field for our own ranking purposes except for the Master Ranking field. 

 

So, if I want to rank anything within my program I need to put in a value of 50001, 50002 to establish priority.

 

 The internal Rally Admin says it isn't possible, and it very well may not be, bu this seems like such basic functionality it's almost hilarious if it doesn't exist.

 

Am I crazy? Am I part of the only company in the world that has 2 types of dev teams? 

 

Thanks

 

James

[West Blair]

Hi James,

 

There is only one true Rank field available in Agile Central. However, it is possible for an administrator to create custom fields in Agile Central though. One of the custom field types is for Integers which could work as a makeshift version of the Rank field. It would be possible to sort by the custom field on many of the apps and pages, but there may be places where real rank field is unavoidable. You can find more information about creating custom fields here Create and Customize Fields | CA Agile Central Help. If you were to create a custom integer field to use in place of Rank for your program you would need to name it something other than Rank so that it would not cause confusion. I hope this helps!

[Legacy User]

Awesome. Thanks! I'll check this out.

 

Quick question on that, would I need to create a new field for each program I'd like independently ranked?

 

James

[West Blair]

Hi James,

 

That depends, and is kind of complex. If multiple programs are using the same field to rank items it could just end up replicating your issues with the Rank field. For instance, if you are scoped to where its possible to view items in Program A and B at the same time you would see their items ranked against each other, unless you are also using a page that could filter the for the desired Program. So, if you want Program A to be ranked independently of Program B then they would probably need their own fields. Custom fields can be made visible on a project level though which should help to make sure that only the field applicable to that project is displayed. However, if you ever want to see them ranked together then it would  probably be best for them to share the same field and then filter for project that you want to view at the time, or use no filter to view them all simultaneously. 

[Anon Anon]

From a technical perspective, how are programs defined and setup in your Agile Central subscription? Is a program a type of portfolio work-item? Or is a program a custom drop-down field of program name values? There's ranking options for either implementation.

[Legacy User]

Hi Jerry,

My original question was based on a program being a defined portfolio-type item (with Project>Feature>Story hierarchy under that). 

However, we're apparently changing that to a single program for a larger grouping of products, and sub-program under that (which is essentially a free text field). Practical/best practices friendly, not sure, but I'm just along for the ride. 

So, to answer your question the ranking is going to be based on a free text field called sub-program. I've done some reading on the ranking/custom field blawe01 provided, and I think I understand a potential solution (assuming I can link the ranking to the custom sub-program field). 

Thanks

James