Integrate PPM tasks with Digital.ai Agility projects

The integration between PPM tasks and Digital.ai Agility projects enables project managers, program managers, portfolio managers, or project stakeholders to view real-time status and progress of agile projects that are run in Digital.ai Agility from within PPM projects.

This section details on how to set up and use the integration.

Add a Digital.ai Agility agile instance

A Digital.ai Agility agile instance is an environment where the Digital.ai Agility connector conveys the data from Digital.ai Agility to PPM.

What integrations does a Digital.ai Agility instance support?

When you add a Digital.ai Agility instance, you will see several icons shown next to the instance name. They are indicative of what kind of integrations a Digital.ai Agility instance can support.

Icon Meaning
TS The agile instance supports time sheet integration: you can import effort from Digital.ai Agility to PPM time sheets.
WP The agile instance supports work plan integration: you can link a Digital.ai Agility project with a PPM work plan task.

Add a Digital.ai Agility instance as an administrator

  1. Click the Administration button in the masthead.

  2. From the Administration menu, click Integrations > Agile Tool Integration.

  3. In the Instances area, Digital.ai Agility line, click the Create Instance button +.

  4. Provide the required information.

    Field (*Required)

    Description

    *Instance Name

    Specify a unique name for the instance.

    The instance name should not exceed 50 characters. Do not contain such special characters as <>.

    *Base URL

    URL of the Digital.ai Agility server you want to integrate with PPM.

    Format of the URL: http(s)://<server_address>.

    If you have customized the Digital.ai Agility server, make sure you include the port number in the URL as well:

    http(s)://<server_address>:<port>

    Proxy Host

    Host name of the proxy if you have configured proxy for PPM Server to access the Internet.

    Proxy Port

    Port of the proxy if you have configured proxy for PPM Server to access the Internet.

    Admin Account API Token

    To enable authentication with an API token when retrieving data from projects in Digital.ai Agility, provide the admin account API token in this field. If the admin token is not provided, username and password are used to authenticate.

    Only use Admin API Token (No User Token)

    Select this checkbox to use the admin API token for authentication when retrieving data from projects in Digital.ai Agility. This option applies only when an admin API token is provided in the Admin Account API Token field. If unchecked, users will use their own API token.

  5. Click Save.
  6. Click Test Connection to test the connection with the instance.

    If a message appears stating that connection failed, click OK on the message, and then resolve the connection issue.

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Set PPM project as hybrid project

Only tasks in a hybrid project where only part of the project is done using agile methodology can be linked to Digital.ai Agility projects.

For details, see Set PPM project as hybrid project.

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Link a PPM task with a Digital.ai Agility project

When you link a PPM task with a Digital.ai Agility project, the Digital.ai Agility project becomes a sub-project of the PPM hybrid project.

To link a PPM task with a Digital.ai Agility project as a project manager:

  1. Open the hybrid project work plan.
  2. Open a target task.

    Tasks that can be linked with a Digital.ai Agility project must meet the following requirements:

    • The task is a leaf task.
    • The task is not a milestone.
    • The task has no manually entered actuals. Tasks with actuals only synced from time sheets can be linked with a Digital.ai Agility project.
    • The task is not already linked to an RFC in Service Manager.
    • If the project is already integrated with Microsoft Project, using either MSP plug-in or MPP file, the work plan should be fully controlled by PPM (under PPM-controlled mode) if you want to map the project tasks to Digital.ai Agility projects.
  3. In the Hybrid Project tab, click Start Mapping.
  4. In step 1, select a Digital.ai Agility instance, and click Next.
  5. In step 2: User Configuration, provide the following information to decide what to import to the linked task, and click Next.

    Field Description

    Username

    Password

    The user name and password used to log on to the Digital.ai Agility server.

    • If API token authentication is enabled and the admin API token is set as the default during the Digital.ai Agility instance configuration, you are automatically authenticated with the admin token, and no username or password is required.
    • If API token authentication is enabled but the admin API token is not set as the default token, you must provide your own API token to log on to the server.

    For details, see Admin Account API Tokenand Only use Admin API Token (No User Token).

    Project Select a Digital.ai Agility project to link.
  6. Confirm the user configuration and click Submit.

    The one-one mapping relationship is established, with the mapping information displayed right away.

    The linked task has the Digital.ai Agility logo in the front of its name, indicating it is linked to a Digital.ai Agility project.

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View Digital.ai Agility project data from within PPM

After a Digital.ai Agility project is linked to a PPM task,

  • You wait for the background service External Work Plan Sync to import the agile project's entities to the PPM project. These imported entities are listed under the linked task as leaf tasks.
  • You cannot edit the imported entities in the PPM project. However, their changes are synchronized from Digital.ai Agility to PPM every time after the External Work Plan Sync service runs.

The following table describes the one-one mapping of project process information between PPM and Digital.ai Agility.

Data in PPM Data in Digital.ai Agility
Task name

User story name

Schedule start Schedule start time of user story's parent entity
Schedule finish Schedule finish time of user story's parent entity
Actual start The same as schedule start time
Actual finish The same as schedule finish time
Scheduled effort

Total hours

Percent complete Done hours / (Done hours + To do hours)

Status

  • In Planning
  • In Progress
  • Completed
  • Future
  • In Progress or In Testing
  • Done or Accepted

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Unlink Digital.ai Agility project from PPM task

To unlink a Digital.ai Agility project from a PPM task:

  1. Go to the Hybrid Project tab of the Task Details page for the linked task.

  2. Next to the Digital.ai Agility instance information, Click Unlink.

    A warning message pops up.

  3. Click OK.

    The link between the Digital.ai Agility project and PPM task is cancelled immediately.

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