Project Planning and Tracking (PPT) releases

This task describes how to define releases, release scopes and milestones, and how to track release scope status in the Releases module.

In this topic:

PPT releases overview

Project planning and tracking (PPT) enables quality assurance managers to track application readiness by defining goals for activities of an application release.

Release scope items	For each release, you define release scope items. A release scope item refers to a subdivided section of a release, such as a new feature, a change to an existing feature, or a new theme. For each scope item you define the related requirements, tests, test sets, and defects.
Milestone	To measure the progress of the release scope items, you associate them with milestones. A milestone is a point in the timeline of a release that signifies the completion of a deliverable. It enables you to track and validate the progress of the release. A milestone can be associated with one or more release scope items.
KPIs	PPT collects and analyzes the data from the defined milestones using key performance indicators (KPIs). A KPI is a quantifiable measure designed to track a critical performance variable over time, and measure the essential outcome of quality assurance activities. For each KPI, you define threshold levels to set warning limits. PPT uses the KPIs to analyze a milestone's readiness data, and to show the overall health and deployment readiness of a release in the form of a scorecard. The scorecard monitors and tracks how well each milestone is being met on a daily basis. To further analyze your output, you can generate dashboard reports and graphs.

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Define release scope items

When working with PPT releases, you create release scope items and add requirements, tests, test sets, and defects to the content of release scope items. Based on this content, ALM calculates scorecards, which indicate the readiness of a PPT release.

To add release scope items:

1. From the releases tree, select the target release.

2. In the Release Scope tab, click New Scope Item. Enter a name for the scope item.

   ALM Editions: The Release Scope tab is available for ALM Edition only. For information about ALM editions and their functionality, see ALM editions. To find out which edition of ALM you are using, ask your ALM site administrator.

3. In the Content tab of the scope item, add requirements, tests, test sets, and defects to the release scope items.

   • Requirements tab. Displays the requirements tree. Expand the tree and select the folders/requirements to include in the release scope item.

   • Tests tab. Displays the test plan tree. Expand the tree and select the folders/tests to include in the release scope item.

     To only include tests covered by the requirements selected in the Requirements tab, select Tests covering selected requirements.

   • Test Sets tab. Displays the test set tree. Expand the tree and select the test set folders to include in the release scope item.

     To only include test sets that contain tests selected in the Test tab, select Test sets containing the selected tests.

   • Defects tab. Displays the defects grid. Define a filter to determine the defects to be included in the release scope item.

     The tests and test sets that you include can affect the defects available for inclusion.

     The following table describes how ALM determines the associated entities to include with defects for release scope items, based on the content selected for tests and test sets.

     Test Selection Option	Test Set Selection Option	Defects Included when Selecting the "Defects linked to selected requirements, tests, and test sets (and their associated entities)" Option
     Tests in selected folders, with or without a filter	Test sets in selected folders, with or without a filter	Defects linked to selected requirements, tests, and test sets (and their associated test instances, runs, and run steps)
     Tests in selected folders, with or without a filter	Test sets containing the selected tests	Defects linked to selected requirements Defects linked to selected tests, or defects linked to test sets that have test instances for those selected tests, or defects linked to those test instances’ associated runs and run steps
     Tests covering selected requirements	Test sets in selected folders, with or without a filter	Defects linked to selected requirements, or defects linked to tests covering those selected requirements Defects linked to selected test sets (and their associated test instances, runs, and run steps)
     Tests covering selected requirements	Test sets containing the selected tests	Defects linked to selected requirements, or defects linked to tests covering those selected requirements Defects linked to test sets that have test instances for those selected requirements’ linked tests or defects linked to those test instances’ associated runs and run steps

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Define milestone

To measure the progress of the release scope items, you associate them with milestones.

To define milestones:

1. In the releases tree, right-click a release and select New Milestone.

2. Enter the milestone name and specify the due date.

3. In the Milestone Scope tab of the milestone, associate the milestone with release scope items.

   1. Click Select to display the release scope tree.

   2. Select the target release scope items, and click Add Scope Item.

4. In the KPIs tab of the milestone, configure related KPIs and set boundaries for performance against those KPIs.

   1. Click Add KPI. From the KPIs pane, select target KPI types.

      The following table describes the system defined KPI types:

      KPI Type	Description
      Authored Tests	Calculates the number of tests whose planning status is set to Ready.
      Automated Tests	Calculates the percentage of automated tests.
      Covered Requirements	Calculates the percentage of requirements covered by at least one test.
      Defects Fixed per Day	Calculates the number of defects fixed per day.
      Passed Requirements	Calculates the percentage of requirements whose covered tests have an execution status of Passed.
      Passed Tests	Calculates the percentage of tests whose last run has an execution status of Passed.
      Rejected Defects	Calculates the percentage of rejected defects.
      Reviewed Requirements	Calculates the percentage of business or functional requirements that have been reviewed.
      Severe Defects	Calculates the number of defects with the status of New, Open or Reopened assigned a severity level of 5-Urgent or 4-Very High.
      Test Instances Executed	Calculates the percentage of executed test instances.
      Tests Executed	Calculates the percentage of executed tests.

      Note: You can modify system defined KPIs and add additional user-defined KPIs to your project. For details, see Customize project planning and tracking KPIs.

      To create a KPI based on an existing KPI, select the KPI column and click Create As KPI.

      Note: The number of KPIs that can be defined per milestone is controlled by the MAX_KPIS_PER_MILESTONE parameter in Site Administration. For details, see Set configuration parameters.

   2. To define threshold values for a KPI for a scope item, select the KPI cell, expand the Thresholds pane, and click Add threshold value.

      Note: The number of threshold values that can be defined per KPI is controlled by the MAX_THRESHOLD_VALUES_PER_KPI parameter in Site Administration. For details, see Set configuration parameters.

      Field	Description
      Date	The threshold value date.
      OK Above	A value lower than OK Above and higher than the warning limit, indicates a warning KPI state. A value lower than the warning limit indicates a critical KPI state.
      OK Below	A value higher than OK Below and lower than the warning limit, indicates a warning KPI state. A value higher than the warning limit indicates a critical KPI state.
      % Warning Range	Determines the KPI's warning range. A value lower than OK Above and higher than the warning limit, indicates a warning KPI state. A value higher than OK Below and lower than the warning limit, indicates a warning KPI state.

   3. View the Threshold Preview graph to see a visual indicator of the thresholds of the selected KPI over the duration of the milestone.

To reschedule a milestone:

1. From the release tree, right-click a milestone, and select Reschedule.

2. Enter the new start date and due date.

   When rescheduling a milestone, the related KPI thresholds are rescheduled accordingly.

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PPT release scorecard

The Scorecard tab of a PPT release displays KPI calculations that enable you to determine the status of your release. You can view a detailed analysis of each KPI cell and display the calculation as a graph. You can also view details of the entities that contributed to the KPI data.

Prerequisite:

To view progress in the Scorecard tab, you must run calculations for your project. You can schedule to run calculations automatically or manually. For details, see Project planning and tracking (PPT) calculations.

To configure the layout of a release scorecard:

Configure the following options to set the scorecard table:

UI Element	Description
Rows	Lists rows that are currently displayed in the scorecard table.
Columns	Lists columns that are currently displayed in the scorecard table.
Up and down arrows	Sets the order in which row or column names appear in scorecard table.
Left and right arrows	Moves selected names between Rows and Columns.
Group Scope Items by Field	Groups the scorecard table according to a specified scope item field.
Display Planned KPI Target	Displays the OK value of a KPI's threshold in the Planned column of the scorecard table. The Planned column is displayed only when this option is enabled.
	Enables you to narrow and sort the Milestone, Scope Item, or KPI data according to your chosen criteria. For more details on filtering, see Filter dialog box.
	Clears the defined filter.
Restore Default Filter Settings	Restores default filter definitions.

To view a release scorecard:

In the releases tree, select a release. Click the Scorecard tab. Hover over a KPI cell to view a tooltip containing the KPI's threshold values.

Show KPI Analysis	To view calculations of a KPI: Select the KPI cell and click Show KPI Analysis. The KPI Drill Down Graph page opens. Hover over a graph segment to view a tooltip containing additional information. To refresh all the graphs on the page, or the selected graph, click Generate All Graphs in Page or Generate Graph respectively. Note: The graph page can contain up to two additional graphs. You can customize this page and determine whether or not to display these additional graphs. For details, see Customize project planning and tracking KPIs. To drill down to the graph's data and show specific points during a period of time, at the bottom of the graph, click the Breakdown Over Time link.
KPI Numerator KPI Denominator	To view the numerator or denominator value contributing to a KPI result (either count or percentage result): Select the KPI cell and click either KPI Numerator or KPI Denominator (if the KPI is a percentage type). The Drill Down Results dialog box opens, displaying the most up to date information for each entity, even if it has changed since the original KPI calculation. Therefore it is possible that the information displayed may contradict the KPI value. Entities that have been deleted from the system are not displayed. Example: If your release scope item contains 50 defects, of which 10 have been rejected, then the value for the Rejected Defects KPI will be 20%. To view details of the rejected defects only, click KPI Numerator. To view details of all the defects, click KPI Denominator. To open a particular record, double-click a record. To export the records as a text file, Microsoft Excel worksheet, Microsoft Word document, or HTML document, click Export and select All to export all records or Selected to export selected records.
Save Graph Image	Saves the scorecard table as an image.
Generate	Refreshes the scorecard table, so that it displays the most up-to-date information.

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See also:

• Project Planning and Tracking (PPT) graphs