Planview Blog

Your path to business agility

Enterprise Agile Planning

How to Use Connections

Published By Planview Blog

In Planview AgilePlace, connections help you track and manage the execution of company initiatives by providing the right level of visibility to the right people. This allows you to visualize your plans at a high level and dig deeper into the implementation details as needed.

Learn how to set up and use connections at the portfolio, project and team levels to ensure that everyone in your organization has access to the information they need, when they need it.

Portfolio-Level Boards

Portfolio boards are used to visualize an organization’s high-level strategic initiatives. In the example below, the board provides an overview of the organization’s project roadmap, helping executives visualize — and prioritize — which initiatives are being worked and during which quarter. Each Card represents a separate project and has a connection that makes it easy to see additional details as needed.

Project-Level Boards

A Project Board is where a project manager and/or team leads can manage the overall status and health of the project. Card types (card color) help identify and track key project activities such as deliverables, issues and risks.

Team-Level Boards

A Team Board is where project execution details are broken down even further, e.g. tasks or features. This example shows how a software development team is managing work items as they move through design, build, test and release.  Each specific team’s Board may include work delegated to them from multiple project Boards, plus any routine non-project work.

Creating a New Connection

To create a Drill-Through connection from a Card to a different Board, right-click the Card and select Breakout or Delegate.  Then either 1) choose to create a new Board to connect to or 2) connect to an existing Board.

This will open the connected Board, automatically filtered to show only the Cards that are “children” of the Card you just connected.

Establishing Parent-Child Associations

To easily track child Card activity at the parent Card level, it’s important to establish parent-child associations. Once a new connection is made, it’s possible for you to designate Cards on the connected Board as child Cards.

Please note that creating a connection doesn’t automatically make all of the Cards on the connected Board children of the Parent Card, since more than one Parent Card can have a connection to a single Board.

Connections can also be seen and managed in the Details of each Card.

You can quickly establish Connections from multiple child Cards to the Parent Board by clicking on a Lane header and selecting Menu > Mass Edit > Set Parent Card. This updates all of the cards in that lane with the connection.

Navigating a Connection

When a Card has connections, the Card shows a miniature image of connection hierarchy. To see a progress overview, open the card and select Connections in the card menu. To see detailed work, select the name of the board that is connected at the top of the progress detail.

Remove a Connection

To remove a connection, simply right-click the Parent Card, select Connections > Remove Connection. This action will only delete the connection, not the associated Board.

Get Connections

In Planview AgilePlace, connections are available in our Select, Advanced and Enterprise Editions. Try a free 30-day trial or contact us to upgrade your account.

Related Posts

Written by Planview Blog