Preparing for Backlogs

Backlog views enable users to organize and prioritize work items based on backlog feed content. Backlog views and feeds are only available in SBM Work Center.

Backlogs are available to users without additional setup, but the following sections provide guidance on administrative changes that will enhance users' experience with backlog views and feeds.

Add Fields for Tracking Estimates and Actuals

To help users capture planning estimates and actual effort spent on each work item, add Single Selection fields with weights or Numeric fields to your workflow. Information from these fields is shown on the backlog list. "Estimates" are also used on progress reports and to calculate burn up and burn down charts.

Users can select these fields when they create feeds for backlog views. Since all Single Selection and Numeric fields are available when users create backlog feeds, use the field display name setting in SBM Composer to guide users on which fields provide the most benefit for backlog feeds.

For example, you can create two Single Selection fields:

Field Name	Value	Weights
Estimates	Small	50
	Medium	75
	Large	100
Actuals	Small	50
	Medium	75
	Large	100

Be aware that by default, "none" values are treated as 100. If you want "none" values to be treated as 0, change the value in the Default weight for new values setting to 0. This ensures that calculations are accurate for backlog items that have not been estimated or given "actuals" values.

Fields changes to support backlogs are made in SBM Composer.

Add Resource Teams for Easy Backlog Sharing

Resource teams enhance backlog use by enabling users to:

Share backlog views with members of specific teams.
Include teams when defining backlog feeds. This helps limit the work items that are returned by the feed to specific teams.
Show team statistics on progress reports.

For guidance on creating resource teams, refer to About Resources.

Create Notifications for Backlog Changes

To notify users of changes to items in backlogs, create notifications that fire when:

Items are added to backlogs
Items are removed from backlogs
The priority changes for an item in a backlog

Use the "Any item" object to create rules pertaining to backlogs.

You can use a single rule for multiple notifications in a workflow, but you must create a separate condition statement for each backlog.

For details, refer to Creating Rules.

Viewing Logging Information

Log information about backlogs views and feeds can be found in the agile.txt file in this location on the SBM Common Services server:

installDir\SBM\Common\Tomcat 7.0\server\default\logs