Comments on: OnTime V9 Beta: Release Management

By: Eivind

Eivind — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 09:44:09 +0000

Hi, great stuff! Is there any gantt/chart sollution on the way btw?

By: Tom Kelley

Tom Kelley — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 22:20:34 +0000

This is going to be interesting. Based upon other forum posts, we have tied our release management to the project, so the project name is Application 1.6. Then we use columns for internal versioning (pre-releases like 1.5.1 leading to the 1.6 release) and component versions (so we can tie components to the main app). Effectively, we are simulating the release management going into OnTime v.9. The only downside with our method has been handling items that apply to multiple software products; for example, we share our back-end db and several components. I had submitted a ticket item to place a project/item shortcut or link in a project, so we could reference back to the original project where the change was made, but still be able to account for item change in other projects. Currently, we make a copy of the item once we are near final coding. Problem here is QA might have us going back to redesign or change objects, so there is no propogation to the projects the item was copied to. However, the Related Items gives a crumb trail for updating the copied items, just makes for more documentation cleanup work. Like I said, this new feature is going to be interesting, especially for shops that have invented a different mousetrap to handle this shortcoming. I look forward to taking this new feature for a test drive.

By: Patrick Smout

Patrick Smout — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 20:17:37 +0000

Great! The missing step for *Releasing On Time*. (I assume that Releases also have custom fields and email notifications?)

By: Dan Downs

Dan Downs — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 15:52:56 +0000

This has been something thats been a weird make it work kind of thing in OnTime for us, so with a clear separation of project and release its a huge HUGE win. Mixed with the new SCRUM support, which because of the project management blog post we’re now implementing, and I can’t wait for v9 to be released.

By: HL Arledge

HL Arledge — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 14:01:18 +0000

Check out my notes in the Beta forum. I think this is a great step in the right direction, but it is still somewhat of a forced fit for Scrum. I believe this release is an opportunity for Axosoft to open doors to much new business—namely Scrum shops—if this is done right, simply because OnTime offers the Customer Portal and an increase in project transparency not offered by other Scrum products. However, if this release only partially supports Scrum, then they might as well use other Scrum products.

By: Graham Wade

Graham Wade — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 14:27:12 +0000

As a site using Scrum this feature will prove extremely popular with the developers and scrum master.

By: Yvo

Yvo — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 09:42:30 +0000

Exactly what we need. Looking forward to the full 2009 version.