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Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

  • 1.  Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Broadcom Employee
    Posted May 07, 2020 10:35 AM
    Hi All,

    As a challenge prior to last months Hackathon, I decided to have a go at writing a Planning Poker game. The resulting app is available here: 

    https://github.com/nikantonelli/Planning-Poker

    I have had a couple of people go through it and it seems to be doing a reasonable job. It needs one custom field to be created on the Project artefact type (as described in the web page), so you may need to get an admin to set that up. The README is fairly comprehensive, so give it a thorough read before asking me a question, but, of course, I could have missed something!

    The same app is used for both moderator and team member. Get an admin (project or higher) to add it to a page and share it with everyone. Each Project node can have its own moderator, but you do need to set up your team members correctly as these are fetched from the Project node and used to decide who gets to vote.

    Le me know your thoughts - good or bad.

    Thanks

    ------------------------------
    Nik
    Ask me a question, I'm All Ears!
    Rally Sales Engineer
    Rally Software
    ------------------------------


  • 2.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Posted May 07, 2020 11:25 AM
    Playing with this just jumped to the top of my to-do list!


  • 3.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Posted May 07, 2020 11:55 AM
    @Nik Antonelli What am I missing here.  I created a workspace level custom field for user stories that is a text field named PlanningPokerConfig.   I create a custom HTML app and paste in app.html (and later to debug it, app uncompressed) but I only get a blank screen when I load the app.  Am I doing something wrong here?

     ​


  • 4.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Broadcom Employee
    Posted May 07, 2020 12:57 PM
    Did you get any flares come up at the top? If the config is not right, then either a message comes up or there is a barf message on the developer tools console.

    It requires the custom field on the Project artefact not the User Story. You get there by clicking on the hammer and spanner next to the project name in the project dropdown (top left).

    ------------------------------
    Nik
    Ask me a question, I'm All Ears!
    Rally Sales Engineer
    Rally Software
    ------------------------------



  • 5.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Posted May 07, 2020 02:46 PM

    I thought I knew the admin of this tool backwards and forwards, now I feel like a fool.  How do you add a field to a project when not adding it to a type under that project?  I'm in the config for that project and bring up "fields" and have the drop-down to select the type to add a field under.  Am I in the wrong place?




  • 6.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Broadcom Employee
    Posted May 07, 2020 03:10 PM
    The second paragraph in my last post ......😉

    ------------------------------
    Nik
    Ask me a question, I'm All Ears!
    Rally Sales Engineer
    Rally Software
    ------------------------------



  • 7.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Posted May 07, 2020 03:30 PM
    I was dumb.  I got it now.  I had not thought of having to go up to the top level to add it to the child projects.  Got that done and then realized that the Display Name for that field needed to be the same as the field name (it couldn't have spaces in the display name).  Now it's working.  Will play with it. Thanks for bearing with me.


  • 8.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Posted Jun 12, 2020 05:03 PM
    Hey Mitch/Nik,

    Can you help me with this please?
    I have the same question as Mitch, what is the meaning of "creating a field in the Project artifact"?

    Clicking the hammer and spanner in the project picker, takes me to the page that Mitch showed a screenshot of. 

    Feeling lost, help!

    Regards,
    Nivi

    ------------------------------
    Project Coordinator
    John Deere
    Cedar Falls, Iowa
    ------------------------------



  • 9.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Posted Jun 12, 2020 06:44 PM

    @Niveditha (Nivi) Gadamchetty,

    You want to go into Workspaces & Projects in the admin screens.
    Then click your workspace name.
    Then click Fields and choose Project in the drop-down


    Add a new Field under project to look like this:




  • 10.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Posted Jun 15, 2020 08:23 AM

    Wow! Thanks Mitch! @Mitch Goldman
    I never knew that a different dropdown would be visible when I click on workspace instead of projects inside the workspace. 

    I'm still surprised I never knew this!

    Well, good to learn something new :)​​​

    I'll try to set it up today and give it a shot. 

    Regards,
    Nivi



    ------------------------------
    Project Coordinator
    John Deere
    Cedar Falls, Iowa
    ------------------------------



  • 11.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Broadcom Employee
    Posted May 07, 2020 01:15 PM
    Hi @Mitch Goldman

    I added an extra flare when the field is not on the project as needed. New code is now in the repo.

    If that's what your problem is, then you are not the first! 🙂​

    ------------------------------
    Nik
    Ask me a question, I'm All Ears!
    Rally Sales Engineer
    Rally Software
    ------------------------------



  • 12.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Posted May 07, 2020 02:47 PM
    I do get this now on my beautifully plain, white screen.




  • 13.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Posted May 07, 2020 06:18 PM
    @Nik Antonelli, I have a suggestion. When loading team members, could you have it ignore the users that are disabled? ​


  • 14.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Broadcom Employee
    Posted May 08, 2020 02:37 AM
    @Mitch Goldman, done. New code in the repo. ​

    ------------------------------
    Nik
    Ask me a question, I'm All Ears!
    Rally Sales Engineer
    Rally Software
    ------------------------------



  • 15.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Posted May 08, 2020 10:08 AM
    That looks better. Thanks. Will report back when I have had a chance to get some people to experiment on it with me.


  • 16.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Posted May 08, 2020 05:47 PM
    Could we get a way to choose to add and/or remove members from the poker session? If I want to include someone who is a Rally admin, I don't have the ability to check them off as a team member, so they can't join planning poker. If I want someone to do work on my team that is normally on another team, I would need to make that change in their profile. Find for me in a small organization, but in a large enterprise that might be tough or impossible to get done.  

    Any way to get the tool to have you give it a list of work item numbers to show, instead of it loading the entire set from the project?  The load times are pretty long.


  • 17.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Broadcom Employee
    Posted May 11, 2020 04:31 AM
    Mitch, the app is set to only load the first 50 items. It will fetch them based on the priority in your backlog (DragAndDropRank). I added a filter to the config panel so that you can ask it for particular stories, but it shouldn't take more that a second or two to start up​ for a team member and an extra second or two for the moderator.

    Last week, I had two customers mention that apps were running extraordinarily slowly as well as experiencing this myself. It was if the WSAPI access started to transfer data and then just paused mid way through, only to complete some random length of time later.

    Can you try it again and let me know if it is still giving the same issue? If so, I will raise it with the support team.

    The original idea of the app was that it would only get the top priority, unscheduled, unsized stories........

    ------------------------------
    Nik
    Ask me a question, I'm All Ears!
    Rally Sales Engineer
    Rally Software
    ------------------------------



  • 18.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Posted May 11, 2020 09:27 AM
    @Nik Antonelli, The "team members loaded" toast message comes up in a couple of seconds, but it takes over a minute for the stories to load. I just ran two tests using different projects; one smaller, the other larger.  The load times from the toast message until the stories appeared were 1:08 and 1:09, respectively.


  • 19.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Broadcom Employee
    Posted May 12, 2020 11:05 AM
    Hi @Mitch Goldman, would you be able to do me a favour and capture the network accesses whilst reloading the page with the app on in the browser dev tools? It's the waterfall timing chart I am after. If you are using Chrome, then you could just export the log as a har file and email it to me at nik.antonelli@broadcom.com.

    I am seeing an odd thing in my system where everything is fetched and then there is an strange long access that gives a 403 error that is not related to my code. I want to see if it is just me or others are seeing the same thing.

    Thanks,

    ------------------------------
    Nik
    Ask me a question, I'm All Ears!
    Rally Sales Engineer
    Rally Software
    ------------------------------



  • 20.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Posted May 12, 2020 12:54 PM
    @Nik Antonelli   I have a HAR file from when the page finished loading.  Do you need the HAR file from the load still in progress?

    Also, total file size is 48mb.  So it's a bit hard to email.  I might need to zip across multiple files. First answer the question above before I proceed.​​


  • 21.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Broadcom Employee
    Posted May 12, 2020 01:01 PM
    The HAR file after it has finished loading is the most relevant. If you can screen-grab the entire timing waterfall diagram, that might be enough to start with. That shouldn't be too big

    ------------------------------
    Nik
    Ask me a question, I'm All Ears!
    Rally Sales Engineer
    Rally Software
    ------------------------------



  • 22.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Broadcom Employee
    Posted May 13, 2020 05:46 AM
    Hi @Mitch Goldman, I found an 'anomaly' in the artifact store config that might be causing an issue. I have uploaded a fix to the repo for it. It seemed to be ignoring the 'limit' of 50 records and fetching everything.

    Hopefully you can get time to give it a go.

    Thanks in advance.​

    ------------------------------
    Nik
    Ask me a question, I'm All Ears!
    Rally Sales Engineer
    Rally Software
    ------------------------------



  • 23.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Posted May 13, 2020 09:42 AM
    Edited by Mitch Goldman May 13, 2020 09:46 AM
    Hi @Nik Antonelli, that's great now.  The time between the "Team Members Loaded" toaster and the stories coming up is now about 3.5 seconds. Great job at finding that "anomaly" ;-)

    I was playing with the filtering in the config, and I can't figure out the syntax if I want to limit the load to only user stories (Type = "User Story" didn't work).  I looked in the docs for building queries but don't see that variable.  Can you point me in the right direction?  Thanks!​​


  • 24.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Posted May 13, 2020 09:48 AM
    @Nik Antonelli, I found the next anomaly for you to squash. If you edit the config in such a way that no data is returned on the load, then the config button is no longer available to fix the criteria and the app is forever dead to you on that project. Oops!





  • 25.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Broadcom Employee
    Posted May 13, 2020 10:42 AM
    I came across that one already and hadn't got around to dealing with it. I have now. Code on repo. I also fixed another 'anonaly' on clearing the filter.

    ------------------------------
    Nik
    Ask me a question, I'm All Ears!
    Rally Sales Engineer
    Rally Software
    ------------------------------



  • 26.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Broadcom Employee
    Posted May 13, 2020 09:50 AM
    Unfortunately, that can't be done from the filter. I will have to add a selector for that. I will let you know when I have done it.

    ------------------------------
    Nik
    Ask me a question, I'm All Ears!
    Rally Sales Engineer
    Rally Software
    ------------------------------



  • 27.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Posted May 13, 2020 01:22 PM
    Just got the latest code.  Thanks also for the Stories/Defects check boxes.  
    Will play with this with my teams tomorrow since I can't see the full experience on my own.


  • 28.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Posted May 14, 2020 10:01 AM
    @Nik Antonelli, I have a PO that have given the team a list of stories to point today.  This team project has multiple releases defined in Rally. When I load the planning poker app ​it is loading stories from a release that I do not want to look at. I tried configuring the custom app to use a release drop-down but it ignores that.  I tried using a config statement of something like this (Release = "TBD") but nothing loads.  Is there a syntax I should use for releases in the config statement or any other way you suggest to look at specific stories on the agenda?  The app grabbing what it thinks are the top 50 stories isn't working for me with a team that has hundreds of unpointed stories in the backlog.  Thanks!


  • 29.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Broadcom Employee
    Posted May 14, 2020 10:09 AM
    Hi Mitch,

    Have you tried (Release.Name = "TBD") ?

    https://community.broadcom.com/HigherLogic/System/DownloadDocumentFile.ashx?DocumentFileKey=bf9867f6-7e70-4633-b8c7-f23055c40c9d

    The 50 limit is only a page size. If you get to resize all 50, then hitting 'reload game' will get you the next 50 unsized stories in the backlog. In talking with a couple of coaches when designing this app, that was the tradeoff. We came to the decision that the backlog should be prioritised and therefore the important stuff is already at the top for the next planning session.

    Let me know what sort of alternative scheme would work. I am open to adding options if they make sense.

    ------------------------------
    Nik
    Ask me a question, I'm All Ears!
    Rally Sales Engineer
    Rally Software
    ------------------------------



  • 30.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Posted May 14, 2020 10:29 AM
    Ok, Just figured out that "unscheduled" is null in the query string. Will play with it further. Thanks for quick reply this morning.


  • 31.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Posted May 14, 2020 02:34 PM

    @Nik Antonelli

    Backlog grooming went well. Took a few stories for the team to get used to the UI on the tool. One member said she couldn't vote, despite others explaining in detail what to do. Since we are at home at this point, I couldn't look over at her screen to figure out what her issue was.

    One team member had some suggestions that I agreed to pass along to you. He thinks a user's voting ability should be disabled until you select a story and a point value. He also suggested that when the moderator selects another story, the votes for the players should reset to disabled.  He also thought that the voting cards part of the UI could be made smaller.  I really don't have an opinion in that matter since I cannot see that screen. 

    That brings me to my own issue.  As a subscription admin, I could never be able to join a session as a voter.  In my own case, that's not an issue, but I can imagine where a delivering team member might also be an admin, and thus unable to be populated in this game. The game will only populate people who are checked off in their profile as being a member of a project. Since subscription admins in Rally have overarching authority, that section of the profile is not enabled. Ideally, I would like to see the ability to ad-hoc add other users to a session.  So, it's great that it pre-populates team members, but others should be able to be added it at the discretion of the moderator.

    Finally, I would like to see the ability to directly key in a work item ID number to add it to the game. I have situations where conversations in grooming lead to bringing in unexpected work or lead to the creation of new stories on the spot, which need to be pointed.  It is too process heavy in a large backlog to then create, identify, re-prioritize in a queue, and reload the game, just to get that voted on in the planning poker page. If the moderator had the ability to type in a story/defect number to import it into the game, that would be great!

    Overall, the team was happy with the experience. It was better than using an external tool and getting everyone on that.

    Thanks for you efforts!




  • 32.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Broadcom Employee
    Posted May 15, 2020 05:13 AM
    Hi Mitch,

    Even though the "Vote" button looks enabled, it doesn't actually fire off a vote until you have selected a story and chosen a size for it. I could always change that.

    The main design constraint I have with the app is that there is no way to communicate between moderator and team members in a synchronous way. When the moderator does something, the changes are put into the custom field and then the team members have to reload to get the new set-up. The nearest I could get is to poll the field regularly to find changes, but that might generate a lot of unnecessary network traffic - but then, traffic is usually free! Then I will have the issue on how to deal with all the possible changes that the moderator might make.

    When thinking through the useability, I thought the best solution for voting was to allow the team members to go through all the stories on-screen and choose the sizing they thought appropriate for as many stories as they wanted before having to vote on anything. As the discussion progresses, they can modify their size choice without actually voting. When the moderator says: "right, let's vote on US1234", the team click on that story and hit 'Vote'.

    You other points are ones that I have considered - some are reasonably easy, others not so. If you add a 'watch' onto my repo, you will get pinged if I get around to adding them. Just firing up my dev environment right now.... ;-)

    ------------------------------
    Nik
    Ask me a question, I'm All Ears!
    Rally Sales Engineer
    Rally Software
    ------------------------------



  • 33.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Posted May 15, 2020 09:48 AM
    Thanks for the insight. I wouldn't go crazy trying to keep both sides in sync. I was just passing along one person's feedback.  My stuff however, that's important!  😉


  • 34.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Posted May 15, 2020 09:51 AM

    @Nik Antonelli




  • 35.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Posted May 18, 2020 11:56 AM
    Hi Nik,

    Thanks for writing the App!

    I got some great feedback from one of my teams that just used it for sprint planning. The PO and SCM had been struggling with getting all the team members involved, and for the first time they said everyone was engaged and having some fun, and they got through the session with all the work estimated. 

    One enhancement request they asked for was to display an average of the votes on the moderator page once the votes have been revealed.

    Thanks again!
    Vince Murphy


  • 36.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Broadcom Employee
    Posted May 19, 2020 01:33 PM
    @Vince Murphy, @Mitch Goldman, new code up on repo:

    ​​

    ------------------------------
    Nik
    Ask me a question, I'm All Ears!
    Rally Sales Engineer
    Rally Software
    ------------------------------



  • 37.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Posted May 19, 2020 01:46 PM

    @Nik Antonelli

    Playing around with the new build and I have a few questions/issues:

    1) If I enable the iteration selector, does that mean it will be sensitive to the iteration drop-down if I add one to the custom app?
           a) If this is the way this is intended to work, can we have a similar function for releases?

    2) If I add a user to the game with the new "Extra user" function, I cannot seem to remove them afterwards. I added a single additional users but when I go back into the config screen, that additional user is displayed in the list box with just a period. It's not selectable and cannot be removed.  If I search on that person again in the drop-down, remove has no effect (didn't think it would, but I was just trying different possibilities)




  • 38.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Broadcom Employee
    Posted May 19, 2020 03:58 PM
    Hi @Mitch Goldman, not sure I understand the first question. The app does not respect the Iteration filtering that you can put onto a page. If only respects the Query box (Artefact Filter) and the Iteration​ selector in the config panel (if enabled).

    For the second question: I had that too, but it went away and I couldn't trace it down. Can you reload the app and see if it now works? If so, then it is an intialisation problem and that will help me narrow down where to look.

    ------------------------------
    Nik
    Ask me a question, I'm All Ears!
    Rally Sales Engineer
    Rally Software
    ------------------------------



  • 39.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Posted May 19, 2020 04:05 PM

    @Nik Antonelli

    Just reloaded it and still I get the period in the extra user box.

    In regards to iteration, when I choose that checkbox should something else appear? I didn't see anything, so I assumed I would need to add an iteration drop-down.  Are you inferring that I should see one inside the config screen?  Should I add it to the query?

    Here's my current config screen:




  • 40.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Posted May 19, 2020 04:24 PM
    Hi,

    One point with regard to Iterations...  When you select the Iteration selector in the config panel, the Iteration button is then enabled. Only current/future Iterations that are defined in the current project scope will be selectable, not any past Iterations.

    I was having a problem with loading the "extra users" from the config. I could add them but then they would disappear when refreshing the page. Turned out that they were disabled users. Once I tested with active users that had "edit" permission to the project the app worked fine.

    I am still having an issue with removing any "extra users" that were added -- doesn't appear to be turned on.


  • 41.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Broadcom Employee
    Posted May 19, 2020 04:57 PM
    Ok, I will look into that tomorrow. It was unstable, but I couldn't make it go wrong again. I will clear out everything and start form scratch. I will ping folks tomorrow if I find anything concrete.

    ------------------------------
    Nik
    Ask me a question, I'm All Ears!
    Rally Sales Engineer
    Rally Software
    ------------------------------



  • 42.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Broadcom Employee
    Posted May 20, 2020 03:43 AM
    The 'dot' is actually a comma and it shows that Carole S has a 'DisplayName' set to nothing. I will change that so that it shows the username instead - which cannot be unset.

    I will do that at the same time I get around to fixing the removal of the users.

    ------------------------------
    Nik
    Ask me a question, I'm All Ears!
    Rally Sales Engineer
    Rally Software
    ------------------------------



  • 43.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Posted May 20, 2020 03:57 PM
    Thanks!


  • 44.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Broadcom Employee
    Posted May 20, 2020 04:06 PM
    Hi @Mitch Goldman, I posted a new version into the repo. There were some odd things that I didn't see before​, but adding and removing users seems to be better.

    I changed it to display a name that is not necessarily the login username, mainly because of an 'anomaly' with the usersearchcombobox - which I will look into another day. I am just looking into your idea of adding stories on the fly.....

    ------------------------------
    Nik
    Ask me a question, I'm All Ears!
    Rally Sales Engineer
    Rally Software
    ------------------------------



  • 45.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Posted May 20, 2020 04:44 PM
    Thanks Nik. I tested the new version and it works just fine, will let you know if the teams have any additional feedback...  Vince


  • 46.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Broadcom Employee
    Posted May 21, 2020 02:23 AM
    @Mitch Goldman, new version is up on github.

    Thankyou so much for being the 'guineapig' and testing this app out for me. It is much appreciated.


    ------------------------------
    Nik
    Ask me a question, I'm All Ears!
    Rally Sales Engineer
    Rally Software
    ------------------------------



  • 47.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Posted May 21, 2020 09:27 AM

    @Nik Antonelli

    No thanks needed.  I'm more than happy to help you out. This has been a sorely missed feature in the tool and I am so grateful that you have taken up this effort.

    Just played a bit with the new version.  Brav-o!  Add/remove of users and stories worked greate.  Could not add a story outside of the project, which was expected. I like the new color of the config screen compared to the original color.

    I do think I found one bug that was not there before. I noticed in my testing that my votes (after I added myself as a player) do not show up in the moderator's screen. I had someone else join the game who was a preloaded player based on team assignment in Rally, and it turns out there votes are also not appearing.  In the voting screen, the story card shows us that we voted and what point value we voted for. But in the moderator screen, the reveal votes button does not reveal any votes, neither before or after the countdown timer runs out. I thought in my testing last week that votes in progress showed up as a dash on the player's line in the moderator's screen, but I can't remember exactly if that's true or not. If it was the case, please know that those dashes are no longer appearing (in case this help in your debugging).




  • 48.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Broadcom Employee
    Posted May 21, 2020 10:14 AM
    Hi @Mitch Goldman, I just ran through what I think was the scenario you described:
    1. Set up user 'Nik' as moderator but is not a team member
    2. Start game, select config and add user 'Nik' as a voter.
    3. Switch view (to voter)
    4. Select an existing story (didn't try it after using the AddNew button yet), vote size and click vote
    5. Switch view (back to moderator)​
    6. Click Refresh Votes
    7. Click Reveal Votes

    When I do that sequence I am seeing the votes. Did I do the right sequence? No votes appear unless you have selected a story and there is a different bit of code for whether you are in Voter view or Moderator view - so that might be a potential place for error.



    ------------------------------
    Nik
    Ask me a question, I'm All Ears!
    Rally Sales Engineer
    Rally Software
    ------------------------------



  • 49.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Posted May 21, 2020 12:12 PM

    @Nik Antonelli

    That wasit, more or less. Just played with it a bit more and I think the issue is that there was a delay after pressing refresh votes and having anything show up. It lead me to believe nothing was there. It's operating better now. I think I'm good now and will proceed with a live team tomorrow and see how that goes. Thanks!




  • 50.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Broadcom Employee
    Posted May 21, 2020 12:50 PM
    Ah, that's good to hear. I was stumped as to what might have been the bug. I have noticed that the access times to the WSAPI have been varying quite a lot recently (last couple of weeks) and I've also got a theory that Chrome 81 is a bit wonky - but can't prove it. I started to use Firefox the other day and it did seem a lot quicker to render at times.

    ------------------------------
    Nik
    Ask me a question, I'm All Ears!
    Rally Sales Engineer
    Rally Software
    ------------------------------



  • 51.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Posted May 21, 2020 12:56 PM
    Good idea.  I'll run some A/B tests between the two browsers. I probably should throw in Edge there for good measure.  I prefer Firefox,but use Chrome since it integrates better with some of our internal things like SharePoint.  The Chrome extension "Rally Mailer" is also a powerful tool that keeps me on Chrome, even though the recent UI changes in Rally broke some of the functionality of that abandoned extension.


  • 52.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Broadcom Employee
    Posted May 22, 2020 05:44 AM
    Mitch, I found out that the 'panel' type that I am using to display the voting and the userstories takes an age to render if you do them individually. I have added a couple of 'speed-ups' which means you probably want to get the latest code up on my repo.

    ------------------------------
    Nik
    Ask me a question, I'm All Ears!
    Rally Sales Engineer
    Rally Software
    ------------------------------



  • 53.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Posted May 22, 2020 09:16 AM

    @Nik Antonelli

    Nicely done! That does seem like an improvement over the UX yesterday.Thanks for your continued efforts.​




  • 54.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Posted May 22, 2020 05:53 PM
    Edited by Mitch Goldman May 22, 2020 05:54 PM
    One annoyance, but probably unavoidable is that the votes modify the story. So, if I load the story, we talk about it as a team,I ask for votes, then I put a value in the plan estimate and hit save, I will get a message saying the story has been updated since I loaded it. Took me a bit to realize why that was happening. Now I just ignore that and keep my version.

    But the voting went well.  It took a bit to get one person to understand the UI mechanics of the game, but after that I think everyone enjoyed the experience with this tool.




  • 55.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Broadcom Employee
    Posted May 26, 2020 03:19 AM
    Hi Mitch, yes, I can see how that would happen. The concurrency checking in the system would flag that up. The only way I can suggest is that when you want to set the vote, click the icon on the card in the app to open a 'new' version of the story rather than going to an existing open one.

    I suppose I could add a 'set vote' button or something so that the app does it for you. I will look into that in the next few days.

    ------------------------------
    Nik
    Ask me a question, I'm All Ears!
    Rally Sales Engineer
    Rally Software
    ------------------------------



  • 56.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Posted May 26, 2020 09:41 AM
    It's ok. I don't think you need to make a change. I understand how it works now and I'm fine with it. I tend to right click on the story card and open the story in a new tab to view the contents in a larger context and make sure we are all ok to vote before proceeding of see if anyone has any objections or discussions that would warrant booting that story from the session. It's easy enough for me to just hit refresh on that story before entering the planned estimate value.


  • 57.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Posted Jun 01, 2020 04:46 PM
    @Nik Antonelli  Hi Nik, I continue to get great feedback on this App, really useful. One request was to be able to do some sizing for Features using the preliminary estimate field. From a lead product owner that thought they'd like it to help with PI planning and building our capacity plans. Have you gotten any other requests for this? ​Thanks! Vince


  • 58.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Broadcom Employee
    Posted Jun 04, 2020 02:22 PM

    I'm not thinking about making this a full blown capacity planning app, but I have just uploaded a version that will allow you to do the same thing with portfolio items (of any level).

    It was a bit of a challenge as it introduced all sorts of issues to do with the type hierachy and keeping everything in sync......

    Let me know if it does the right thing or not.



    ------------------------------
    Nik
    Ask me a question, I'm All Ears!
    Rally Sales Engineer
    Rally Software
    ------------------------------



  • 59.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Posted Jun 05, 2020 10:33 AM
    Can't wait to take a look at portfolio items

    Amy K Meyers  |  Senior Product Manager
    GLOBAL RISK, FINANCE TECHNOLOGY & TRANSFORMATION
    American Express
    O: 602-766-2982 |  E: Amy.K.Meyers@aexp.com
    For Rally Assistance, create a case using this link:  https://jira.aexp.com/jira/browse/EPMO-8808


    American Express made the following annotations




    "This message and any attachments are solely for the intended recipient and may contain confidential or privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient, any disclosure, copying, use, or distribution of the information included in this message and any attachments is prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us by reply e-mail and immediately and permanently delete this message and any attachments. Thank you."


    American Express a ajouté le commentaire suivant

    Ce courrier et toute pièce jointe qu'il contient sont réservés au seul destinataire indiqué et peuvent contenir des renseignements confidentiels et privilégiés. Si vous n'êtes pas le destinataire prévu, toute divulgation, duplication, utilisation ou distribution du courrier ou de toute pièce jointe est interdite. Si vous avez reçu cette communication par erreur, veuillez nous en aviser par courrier et détruire immédiatement le courrier et les pièces jointes. Merci.







  • 60.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Posted Jun 12, 2020 05:03 PM
    Hey @Nik Antonelli, just wanted to check in and say I used this with three teams yesterday, for the second time with each team. With the learning curve behind us all, it was quite a good experience and there were several compliments directed back at you for delivering this product. Thanks again for your hard work!​​


  • 61.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Broadcom Employee
    Posted Jun 13, 2020 03:12 AM
    Thank you for the positive feedback. It is good to know that it is proving useful. I have to also thank you for helping me debug and improve it.


    ------------------------------
    Nik
    Ask me a question, I'm All Ears!
    Rally Sales Engineer
    Rally Software
    ------------------------------



  • 62.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Posted Jun 17, 2020 02:09 PM
    Edited by Niveditha (Nivi) Gadamchetty Jun 18, 2020 03:02 PM
    Hey @Nik Antonelli,

    I'm having trouble with the app - maybe I'm using it wrong? But here are my questions/observations:

    I picked a story, hit Start on the timer,  switched the view to a team member view, voted on it and had a team member vote on the same story. Then switched back to the moderator view. I clicked 'reveal votes', nothing happens.  
    Am I supposed to be clicking something else?

    The second thing I noticed is, I have used Iteration setting to set the current iteration and I see only 5-6 stories which are in this sprint. But  the team member is seeing a lot of stories. It looks like the iteration filter didn't get applied to the team member. Is this how it's supposed to behave?

    Regards,
    Nivi

    ------------------------------
    Project Coordinator
    John Deere
    Cedar Falls, Iowa
    ------------------------------



  • 63.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Posted Jul 02, 2020 03:28 PM
    Hi @Nik Antonelli, We used the app for some Feature sizing and it worked out well -- the only issue is with the values. Would it be possible to be able to use the ​preliminary estimate field when sizing Portfolio Items? Or provide a checkbox to use preliminary estimate? I have about 4 teams using the app consistently -- they really like it -- improved collaboration quite a bit. Thanks, Vince


  • 64.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Posted Jun 17, 2020 02:13 PM
    Hi Nik, 
    so I have been playing with this- thank you for doing this. 
    Sorry to ask this: I got it to work once and now I can never get the timer to stop nor can I get the votes to reveal. I followed the steps below too.

    My team and I are all system admins
    I am a voter and moderator, but I had them voting too (not moderator)
    For me: 
    select Story
    select Switch view
    Vote  (it shows I voted )
    click switch view to be on the moderator view
    If I start the timer (at any point), it just flashes when done.  If I select "stop" during the timer, it won't restart, but I don't think the timer is required to use this app 
    Highlight story again
    I choose Refresh votes and nothing happens. Reveal votes never enables.  It never shows my or my team's votes 
    What am I doing wrong? I know I had this working once when testing it and now it is like it won't work no matter what.  Does not matter if Chrome or FF. 

    thanks!  Excited to use this !​

    ------------------------------
    Lynn
    ------------------------------



  • 65.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Broadcom Employee
    Posted Jun 17, 2020 03:56 PM
    Hi Lynn,
    Let me have  a look at this tomorrow - it is 8.55pm right now. A few different companies have used it so far and not had this problem, but that doesn't mean there isn't one. I will ping you if I find anything pertinent.

    ------------------------------
    Nik
    Ask me a question, I'm All Ears!
    Rally Sales Engineer
    Rally Software
    ------------------------------



  • 66.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Posted Jun 17, 2020 04:31 PM
    @vtleogal, FWIW it may not be you.  I have used this successfully a few times, but one of those times I had that experience where it just didn't respond or work.  I gave up and we voted a different way. Then another day last week it worked just fine with multiple teams. I wonder if there's a backend issue in those instances where the app just doesn't respond.  Also, you are right, the timer is not needed to use the app.  I gave up using it as it provided no value in my particular case.​


  • 67.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Posted Jun 17, 2020 04:38 PM
    Thanks Mitch! Nice to know I am not crazy. Sad though that such a wonderful opportunity may not work. 
    I will search other ways as well. 

    thanks Nik too for reviewing it. No rush. 


    ------------------------------
    Lynn
    ------------------------------



  • 68.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Broadcom Employee
    Posted Jun 18, 2020 11:07 AM
    Hi Lynn, I have noticed a few times during this app development that the Rally servers have periods where that are liable to fail to respond. I put a lot of debug messages into the app to help diagnose. If it seems to happen a lot, then can you fire up the browser developer tools and capture the console output? If there is a big red message after it sitting doing nothing for 30 seconds, then that is the access to the servers timing out. If there is a random big red message, then that might be a bug.

    The timer is not essential for voting. I put it in there for a number of reasons. The first being to give a definite period of: "Let's vote".The second reason, and this was equally as important for a couple of users, was to give a way to control those people who like to talk forever without making a decision. For example, you might have a product owner that has to give a 3 minute presentation of the why's and wherefore's of the current story. You can then decide whether to give them a second batch of minutes if the team agrees. You can also give team members a timebox for 'thinking' time.

    ------------------------------
    Nik
    Ask me a question, I'm All Ears!
    Rally Sales Engineer
    Rally Software
    ------------------------------



  • 69.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Posted Jun 18, 2020 12:22 PM

    Thanks Nik

    This is the browser console screenshot.

    Shows this when first landing on the app as well as if it just sits idle.  I don't know what "notifier" means as I don't see that as a setting in the config.

     

    • I do use additional voters (incl myself)
    • I am the only moderator
    • Stories only
    • Filter set to read only null plan estimate
    • No other filters used

     

     






  • 70.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Broadcom Employee
    Posted Jun 18, 2020 01:18 PM
    Oh so cool! You found a bug in an error path for me! I can't spell 'notify' consistently - I put 'nofity' in a debug message in an error path that you have hit because the app couldn't load the team members or 'extra' users

    Have you got team members set up or are they all added as 'extras'?

    ------------------------------
    Nik
    Ask me a question, I'm All Ears!
    Rally Sales Engineer
    Rally Software
    ------------------------------



  • 71.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Posted Jun 18, 2020 01:25 PM

    We are all system admins, so I entered them as the additional voters in the config only.

    They are not team members on the project, since, again, they are system admins like me.  I can't set them to have team membership on a project. I hope that makes sense. [I assume that is what you mean as in the team member box checked on the project, which is not an option for system admins].

    Thanks

    Lynn

     






  • 72.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Broadcom Employee
    Posted Jun 18, 2020 03:00 PM
    Hi Lynn,

    I have just posted a fix up into the github repo. It should allow for no team members (and also no extra users, but that isn't much fun) and the timer should work better.

    ------------------------------
    Nik
    Ask me a question, I'm All Ears!
    Rally Sales Engineer
    Rally Software
    ------------------------------



  • 73.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Posted Jun 18, 2020 04:52 PM
    Thank you Nik
    I updated the app with the changes
    I did not change my user settings (still admins only, not team members, and still left all as additional voters) and it Works great when I test it on my own. I can see my vote :)

    I will have to setup time next week to try it again with my team. 

    Looking forward to it.

    ------------------------------
    Lynn
    ------------------------------



  • 74.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Broadcom Employee
    Posted Jun 18, 2020 02:09 PM
    Edited by Nik Antonelli Jun 18, 2020 02:53 PM
    Hi Lynn,

    Even though you are all admins, you can still add yourselves as team members onm the project you are working in. This will remove the error for now, but I will code the app to handle the case of no team members and all extra users just in case someone else hits the same scenario


    ------------------------------
    Nik
    Ask me a question, I'm All Ears!
    Rally Sales Engineer
    Rally Software
    ------------------------------



  • 75.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Posted Jun 18, 2020 02:20 PM
    @Nik Antonelli, when you are an admin the whole part of the user screen where you would choose a team to belong to is no longer there. Under the UI rules, admins cannot be part of a team.





  • 76.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Broadcom Employee
    Posted Jun 18, 2020 02:56 PM
    Hi Mitch, see the image I added to my answer to Lynn's post (before I saw this one)

    ------------------------------
    Nik
    Ask me a question, I'm All Ears!
    Rally Sales Engineer
    Rally Software
    ------------------------------



  • 77.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Posted Jun 18, 2020 03:05 PM

    Hi Nik, 
    I do not have team member as an available column in my user summary screen.  Thoughts?




  • 78.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Broadcom Employee
    Posted Jun 18, 2020 03:10 PM
    Mitch, on the project itself (hammer and spanner in the project picker), you don't get this view when you click on users?



    ------------------------------
    Nik
    Ask me a question, I'm All Ears!
    Rally Sales Engineer
    Rally Software
    ------------------------------



  • 79.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Broadcom Employee
    Posted Jun 18, 2020 03:16 PM
    I don't get the team members as an option if I go in through the normal admin route of clicking Users in the top menu bar and clicking the hammer and spanner icon on the "RIGHT' hand side (near my avatar).

    I do get it as an option if I go to the project picker in the top bar, go to the project and click the hammer and spanner to the right of the name in the list and then clicking on users.

    ------------------------------
    Nik
    Ask me a question, I'm All Ears!
    Rally Sales Engineer
    Rally Software
    ------------------------------



  • 80.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Posted Jun 18, 2020 03:27 PM
    Ok, I see that now going in that way.  Gotta love that consistent UI design!


  • 81.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Posted Aug 20, 2020 05:07 PM
    Hi @Christopher Hackett, I think we found a bug in this app Nik wrote. Is anyone taking this over from him?

    Thanks​​


  • 82.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Posted Aug 25, 2020 09:18 AM
    @Sagi Gabay, is this app now abandonware with the departure of Nik?​​


  • 83.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Posted Jun 18, 2020 04:19 PM
    @Nik Antonelli Thanks for the app​ !!

    Do have a question on the countdown timer. We have saved the time in min:sec format in config for ex-- 00:05 and the project settings show the voting time as well but the countdown timer does not show the setting, always shows 00:00. It keeps blinking in red when I hit start. It resets to non blinking mode when click re load game. 

    I have deleted the config, cleared cache etc. How can I make the timer to work?


    Thanks,
    Aparna Gupta



  • 84.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Posted Aug 20, 2020 10:11 PM
    Edited by Divya P Aug 20, 2020 10:14 PM
    Hi Aparna,

    We observed similar issue.
    There is a pattern to get your issue that is what
    1. set the config timer to 00:20 sec
    2. start the timer
    3. stop the time at 00:10 sec
    4. It shows the default config value 00:20 sec on the timer
    5. But when select any card and start the timer it takes the value from 00:10 sec
    Basically it is taking the value from previously stopped time.

    One work around is to click reset button before hitting start button for next game (mainly when you stop the timer while timer is still running) -this resets the timer to config values which is 00:20 sec otherwise it takes 00:10
    other option is to wait until the timer ends all by itself.





  • 85.  RE: Planning Poker App for Rally now available.

    Posted Aug 24, 2020 04:11 PM
    Add button next to Priority artifact is not working for me. Is it working for anyone?What is the expected functionality of this button?

    ------------------------------
    Thanks,
    Divya
    ------------------------------