Team assignment Polarion configuration

New feature: Team Assignments available from version 23.4.0
In this guide, we are going to cover the key aspects of Team Assignments.

• Intro - User Assignments from Polarion

For years, Polarion has faced a gap in team management. Teams were previously created as Enumeration fields lacking interactivity.

How did we define who is working for a given team before?

-> We defined for what team a specific work package/task is assigned, but there was a lack of understanding of WHO is working for a given team (because a team is just an Enum).

In Polarion, user allocations could be defined via Administration -> Users -> Time-split Assignments, where a specific user works on a specific project with some defined % of Allocation.

The lack of this function is that it works for projects, but not for teams.

The questions that you may think of but didn't get an answer to:

- What to do if there are multiple teams per project? 

- How to define the allocation if multiple teams are involved? 

- What if the allocation is changing over time?

In Polarion the allocation % is statically linked to a user per project, so it is not DYNAMIC. 

• Introducing the Nextedy solution - Teams Assignment Capacity 

Nextedy offers a dynamic assignment feature by introducing a new work item type called "Team." This innovation transforms teams into dynamic work items, enhancing their functionality.

We define 2 new WI types: Team and Team Assignment; 

Teams are no longer simple enumerations, but real work items with all functionality that it may give them. 

Team WIs can have sub-items ->  Team assignments which can specify the assignment period, assignee, and allocation percentage. 

• Configuration:

1.  In the Administration section, define 2 new Work Item types:  "Team" and "Team Assignment"

2. For the Team Assignment add 3 custom fields that will hold the assignment period and capacity:

3. Create a new WI link role: assignment. 

This role will be used to connect Team and Team assignment WIs.

Note: Ensure that each Team Assignment work item is linked to a parent Team work item. Assignments that are not associated with a parent team will be ignored during calculations.

• Example:

- create 3 different Teams: Alpha, Beta, and Gama;

- create Team Assignment child items for each team, using the "assignment" role;

- add Assignee to the newly created Team Assignment;

- specify the period of time and percent of the allocation for each specific assignment;

Team Capacity Modifiers:

For the Team WI, you may also define so called Capacity Modifiers, that represent the % of the time the resource/assignee spends on the unplanned work (e.g. meetings, e-mails, etc.) or uncertainty (for the work planned in future). 

Configuration Properties:

nextedy.gantt.useTeamCapacityModifiers=true 
nextedy.gantt.capacityModifierAField=capaModA 
nextedy.gantt.capacityModifierBField=capaModB 
nextedy.gantt.capacityModifierBFieldDayLimit=10

- capacityModifierBFieldDayLimit specifies the threshold after which capacityModifierBField should be applied. If this has the value of -1 or isn’t assigned, capacityModifierBField is always used.

You may already see the potential of this functionality, but the data is not easily readable in the standard Polarion view. Therefore, in the next article, we will show you how to demonstrate all this data in a user-friendly way using the Nextedy Gantt: click here

See also:

• How to setup a Basic Cross Team Gantt: click here
• How to setup a Release Gantt with Teams: click here

In case of questions, please contact support@nextedy.com