Features of Rally Excel Add-in - Version Comparision

[Maria Keeton]

Hello,

I have been using version 2.4.4 of the Excel-Add in, and I wanted to know if there are any real differences between that version and the add-in for Excel 2016/Office 365.  Does the newer version have any additional features or benefits that version 2.4.4 doesn't have?  We have switched to Office 365 here at work, so we were wondering if it is worth installing the most up-to-date add-in.

Thanks for any input that you can provide.

Maria

[Terry Ginzburg]

I use both regularly.  The biggest differences I see are:

The 'old' add-in lets you query the Project object, which is not in the Excel 2016/O365 version.

The Excel 2016/O365 version lets you query Milestones, which is not in the old version. This is especially helpful since Milestone visibility can be challenging in a large organization.

From what I understand, the Excel 2016/O365 version works on Macs while the old version usually doesn't.

From a usability point of view, the newer Excel 2016/O365 add-in makes it a little easier to create queries.  You can easily see what child attributes are available to add to a query.  For example, if I want to include the Formatted ID of a parent feature in a user story query in the original version, I have to type 'Feature.FormattedID' at the end of the selected fields.  In the new add-in, when I am creating a user story query, if I type Feature in the Columns field, I see what attributes of a Feature I can include in my query.  It makes it a little easier to get the data you really need.

I hope that helps!

I would love to know if any further updates are planned for either of these tools.  I wish they both included Projects and Milestones as options.

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Terry Ginzburg
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[Pat Cousins]

The new Excel add-in is much easier to install.  We had our Office 365 administrator add it as an Admin-managed add-in, so all employees can simply add it from Excel itself.  No files to download and install (which we can't do on our Windows 10 laptops anyway).  As Terry said, the Queries are much easier to create.  The flipside of that is we can no longer use queries that traverse multiple objects, like "PortfolioItem.Parent.Parent.FormattedID = PGM123".  Also, there is an intermittent issue where you load a Saved Query and the add-in goes blank.  A defect is open on that.