The Roadmap module allows creating Roadmaps to visualize your company and team strategies, plans and communicate major steps and milestones. Create a top-down view of your initiatives and show when the team will work on them.
The Roadmap consists of a series of tasks and milestones that are assigned to different teams or stakeholders. A Roadmap allows decision-makers to plan and track their company's progress at the macro level by combining team-specific roles and business objectives.
Creating Roadmaps
To start creating Roadmaps, open the Roadmaps module page and click the Create Roadmap button. If you have some Roadmaps added already, click New to add more.
In the Create Roadmap window provide the name for your Roadmap, assign a manager, description, start and finish dates, etc.
As the Roadmap is created, a Roadmap dashboard will be opened at once.
Users can view, edit and/or create Roadmaps according to the permissions set on the People Management page.
Creating and Managing Lanes and Labels
All items added to the Roadmap page are added to lanes. Additionally, labels may be added to the items within each lane to combine the items as required (by teams, departments, roles, tasks, etc).
The Roadmap dashboard consists of one page now but has three default views: Roadmaps, Roadmaps with KPI, and Details.
By default, the Roadmaps view is selected. All Roadmaps are created with two lanes: Milestones and Lane 1 (default lane).
To create new lanes or edit the existing ones click Actions -> Manage Lanes.
On the Configure Lanes page, you can edit, delete or hide the existing lanes. You can also change the position of the lanes on the Roadmap page using the drag and drop functionality.
To create a new lane, click the New Lane button. Provide the lane name, pick a color of the lane, decide if this lane is a default one. Click the Create Lane button.
When the lanes are created and items are added to these lanes, you can check information for each lane from the tooltip. The tooltip shows the general Progress of the lane, Estimated Effort, Cost, Benefit, and the number of Roadmap items that are not started, in progress, and completed.
The Progress is calculated by the following formula: (SumActual / SumEffort ) *100.
The Actual for each item is calculated by the following formula: (Progress * Effort) /100.
The Estimated Effort, Cost, and Benefit values are summed up for all items within the lane.
Creating Labels
To create new labels or edit the existing ones click Actions -> Manage Labels.
On the Configure Labels page, you can edit, delete or hide the existing labels. You can also change the position of the labels within lanes using the drag and drop functionality.
The lane color is applied to all imported items (Milestones lane color for key dates and default lane color for other items). To select the required lane and label for imported items, open the item for editing and update the lane, and label as required.
Statuses within each status category can be customized: you can add new statuses, change the default one, change the color, etc. For more details, please refer to the 'How to customize statuses' article.
Creating Items
When the lanes are created, you can add items to these lanes. To create a new Key Date or a Bar click on the New button and select the required item type (the new bar is selected as an example).
On the Create Bar page type in the bar name, select the lane where it belongs, select the label if needed, select the start and finish dates, assign resources, populate the description, add tags.
Click the Create Bar button.
The bars and key dates you create will appear on the Roadmap page in the required lane.
Importing Items
The following PPM Express items can be imported to the Roadmap page:
- Programs
- Projects
- Key Dates
- Tasks
- Ideas
- Objectives
When creating a new Key Date or a Bar you can select the lane as required. When importing items, all Key Dates are imported to the Milestones per default. All other items are imported to the default lane (Lane 1 by default, until another lane is set as default). If the Milestones lane is deleted, all Key Dates will be added to the lane as well.
To import PPM Express items to the Roadmap page click on the Import button, select the item type on top, find the required item and click the Add button.
You can search items by name or ID, or use filters on the Import Items page to quickly find the required item. The filters are different for each item.
The filter option next to the Programs, Projects, Objectives, and Portfolios allows to quickly filter all items by the parent item. For example, if you click the FIlter button next to Program A, the Project tab (as well as Key Dates) will display all Projects within Program A until the filter is cleared.
Once an item is added to the Roadmap and the import items page is closed, this action cannot be undone but the item can be deleted using the Delete options in the item tooltip and edit page. Items that are already added to the roadmap are listed with 'Added' status on the import items page.
When importing items, the following fields are copied to the Roadmap item from the original one:
- Title
- Start Date (applies to bars only, since key dates have no Start Date)
- Finish Date
- Status (for Programs, Projects, tasks, key dates, and objectives)
- Progress (for key dates, tasks, and objectives)
- Assigned to (for tasks and key dates)
- Story Points (for Projects, ideas, and tasks)
- Estimated Benefit (field Benefit from Project, and Expected Benefit from Idea)
- Estimated Effort (field Effort from tasks, and Expected Efforts from Idea)
- Estimated Cost (field Expected Cost from Idea)
The original field shows where this item was imported from.
In case any field has no values in the original item, it will be empty on the Roadmap item as well.
Once the item is imported, all field values can be edited.
To perform actions to the item: edit, delete, create dependency, move to the backlog, clone it, select the item by clicking on it and then select the required action from the list in the top right corner of the item bar.
You can change the start and finish dates, progress, and status for the imported items on the Roadmap page. In case the item was imported and the values for these fields were changed in the Roadmap or in the original, the Apply link will appear on the Edit Item page. The link is clickable and allows applying the original dates (status or progress) to the item.
It is also possible to use the Update button to update the values for the imported items according to their source values faster and in bulk.
To update several imported items at once, hold the Ctrl button and click on the required items on the timeline to select them, then hit the Update button. Choose the information you need to update for the selected items and click Update. The Dates, Progress, and/or Status values will be updated for all selected items at once according to their source values.
Also, if there are any items imported to the Roadmap dashboard and their start/due dates, progress and/or status was changed (differs from the original item) a warning will be shown for such items both on the timeline and table view of the Roadmap dashboard. The warning number will indicate if all three values differ from the original ones or only one/two. The warnings can be hidden from the bar on the timeline view using the Style menu.
The total number of items with warnings will be shown at the top of the page.
If the original item is deleted, the item will not be deleted from the Roadmap page, a warning will appear on the Edit Item page and on the tooltip that the original item no longer exists.
Managing Items
When the items are added, you can add them to the required lanes, and change the position of the items on the timeline using the drag-and-drop functionality.
It is also possible to change the timeframe for the item by dragging it to the required date on the timeline directly.
To add the item to the required lane or apply a label click on the required item to open it for editing and update the information as required.
To perform actions to the item: edit, delete, move to the backlog, create dependency, clone it, select the item by clicking on it and then select the required action from the list in the top right corner of the item bar.
To review detailed information for the item, navigate to it and wait until the tooltip is shown. The tooltip fields can be adjusted from the Style menu.
If the item is imported, you can also click the Original Value link to open the original item. The same information is available on the Edit Item page.
You can filter the Roadmap lanes using the filter button and select the date range for the Roadmap.
Style option allows configuring the style of the Roadmap bars. You can make the bars larger, show or hide Dates, Progress, Assigned to, Status, Dependencies, Warnings, Links (show if the item was imported or not), and Tooltips from the bars, key dates and lanes.
Roadmap dashboard allows viewing and editing all the information about a specific Roadmap.
There are three views on the Roadmap dashboard: Roadmap (is opened by default) Roadmaps with KPI, and Details. You can switch between these views and review the information accordingly using the Views button on the left. You can pin the views to the header to navigate between them quickly.
Clicking on the ellipsis button, you can share the Roadmap by a certain view, apply the layout, clone, or delete it. Please refer to the 'How to create and apply layouts' article for more details.
Clicking on the stage button, you can change the stage for the Roadmap.
Create Dependencies
It is possible to establish Dependencies between Roadmap items and visually display them on the Roadmap Timeline.
To establish dependencies, click on the required item to open it for editing, switch to the Dependencies page and assign dependencies as required. Save the changes.
Also, you can create dependencies from the timeline bars directly without opening the item for editing.
Click the 'Create Dependency' button on the required item and select the item it should depend on.
The ‘Show Dependencies’ option on the ‘Style’ menu allows showing the dependencies on the Roadmap Timeline.
