Releases

Releases

What is the difference between Product Release and Master Release

CA Clarity™ Agile has the following release types:

• Product release

  Allow you to track and manage user stories specific to a single product. This release type indicates an update or change to a product and therefore must be associated with a single product.

• Master release

  Allow you to track and manage user stories across multiple products. This release type can be associated with multiple products and their releases. When you assign a product release to a master release, all user stories and requirements within the release are automatically assigned to the master release.

If the product is associated with the master release, you can associate individual user stories or requirements.

Note: If your CA Clarity™ Agile product is integrated to a Clarity project, you can associate the Clarity project to a master release in CA Clarity™ Agile. Doing so allows you to manage all user stories and tasks that are assigned to the master release from Clarity.

Prerequisites

Become familiar with these terms before working with releases:

• Target Cost

  Defines the total planned cost for the release. This value is a high-level estimate that can be entered and edited. When integrated with CA Clarity PPM, planned cost information comes from CA Clarity PPM and this field is read-only. This field is a way to enter and track original rough estimates directly.

• Target Effort

  Defines the total planned effort for the release in hours. This value is a high-level estimate that can be entered and edited. When integrated with CA Clarity PPM, planned cost information comes from CA Clarity PPM and this field is read-only. This field is a way to enter and track original rough estimates directly.

Manage a Product Release

If you are the product owner or the system administrator, you can create a release for a product.

Follow these steps:

1. Click Requirements, and from Detailed Planning, click Releases.
2. Click New Release, and complete the required fields.
3. Save your changes.

After you create the release, edit the release details to add complete information about all aspects of the release.

Note: To edit or delete a product release, select the release from the release list, and click Details or Delete.

Manage Master Release

As an administrator, you can create master release.

Follow these steps:

1. Click Administration, and from Application, click Master Releases.
2. Click New Master Release, and complete the required fields.
3. Save your changes.

Note: You can click the Details link on the master release list, and edit the details on the Master Release Details page. To delete, click Delete from the Master Release Details page or from the master release list.

Associate a Product Release with a Master Release

Follow these steps:

1. Open the releases list page and click Details in the Actions column of the release you want to associate with a master release.
2. In the Master Release field, select a master release.
3. Save your changes.

What are the Effects of Deleting a Release

A user with super user privileges can delete a release. This action is performed on the Release Details page. Once the delete is confirmed, it cannot be canceled.

Deleting a release has the following results:

• All sprints that are associated with the release are also deleted.
• All user stories that are assigned to the release and sprints become unassigned.
• The release and sprints no longer appear in the view filters.
• The release and sprints cannot be selected for association with the product or any objects of the product.
• Users cannot view charts for the release or sprints.

How to Set Release Baselines and Compare

A baseline is a snapshot of requirements at a specific point in time. Baselines are static, and changes you make to the requirements for a release after the baseline is created do not automatically appear in the current baseline.

You can create a second baseline to include newly entered or changed requirements. You can also do a comparison of the two baselines.

Follow these steps:

1. Click Requirements, and from Detailed Planning, click Releases.
2. Click Details in the Actions column for the release you want to work with.
3. Create Baseline.
   • In the Baseline section, click New Baseline.

   Today’s date and time are added to the record as the baseline date.

4. Compare Baselines.
   • In the Requirements section, highlight the two baselines you want to compare, and click Compare Baseline.

   The result shows a comparison of the requirements between the two baselines.

How to Recalculate Release Burndown Charts

You can recalculate the release burndown charts in a sprint. Recalculating is recommended if you have mapped the custom values for status to either Open or Closed and to burn down hours or points for charts.

When the custom status for user stories or requirements changes, the actual total points and hours in the charts change. For example, consider the "Completed" status value is open for a user story. Recalculate Sprint burns down the hours and points that are associated with the user story when you change the status to closed. The recalculation uses the latest status of the user stories in the sprint.

The remaining points for user stories are calculated by subtracting the points for closed stories. The remaining points on tasks are calculated by subtracting the hours that are logged on tasks. You can recalculate the burndown charts only within active sprints, and if the release burndown involves less than 1000 user stories.

The following lines are recalculated:

• Burnup line - show the daily gain rate of work units that are required to attain your goal for the sprint.
• Estimation line - the original estimate, in hours, for the sprint.
• Hours Completed line - the number of hours that are completed for the sprint.
• Velocity in the velocity chart.

Reference