Rally Office Hours:
December 4, 2025

Summary

Product Announcement

The product announcement was for a new and improved Release Tracking page, which offers a new user experience to help track the status of teams and features within a common release and increase visibility of the work.

Key improvements and changes to the Release Tracking page include:

• Rollups now include defects that are parented directly to features.
• There is a small change in the definition of "features in release," where visibility for items previously considered as "derived features" is now categorized under "features in release". Features in release now include features that are part of the selected release and within the current project selector scope, as well as features in the release but outside the project selector scope.
• The new view gives an overview of the number of features and derived features and makes it easier to filter unparented user stories and defects.
• Defects are now visible in the breakdown, and the filtering has an improved view.
• Derived features are listed with a new yellow 'D' icon.
• Dependencies are shown with an icon and the predecessors will show up to help track them.

Q&A

The Q&A session addressed several user questions:

• An attendee asked why the color "red" is not available as a color option for work items in the UI, and how to set a specific color if it's not available. The user interface dropdown doesn't allow entering a hex code directly. However, a hex code can be specified for the "Display Color" field when importing items into Rally, which is the only known way outside of the UI. The available colors are based on recommendations from UX designers for accessibility.
• Another attendee asked about dividing the capacity planner tag by team type, such as "DE" or "DS". It was suggested that trying to categorize different user types to set capacities differently might over-complicate things, as each team already has the ability to set its own capacity, and point values are meaningful within the context of that specific team. The Team Status Board was suggested as a better way to view team capacity.
• A user asked about the work view page size limitation, where grouping by owner limits the page size at the bottom to 10 per page with no edit option, forcing the user to switch pages. The 10-row cap on group rows is likely to allow users to see more items within the groupings. The user was encouraged to submit this as an enhancement request.
• The discussion moved to reporting on revision history, with an attendee asking if there is a way to report based only on information in the revision history, such as the date and time a story changes flow states. It was noted that this information is shown in charts like the cumulative flow chart, but a custom report is not known. The Lookback API can be used to access this data, though this requires a deeper dive than a custom report.
• An attendee questioned whether it's possible to limit user access by role so that high-level managers can see portfolio pages and higher-level rollups but cannot access stories and lower-level records. The current mechanism relies on project permissions, assuming that higher-level portfolio items live at a different project level than team-level work. The best approach suggested was to create a custom view or dashboard focused on the content managers need, such as using the new custom board widget, to simplify the view.
• A question about adding widgets, specifically the cumulative flow diagram and iteration burndown, to a custom Rally board was answered. It was confirmed that you can have an iteration-scoped custom board of stories and defects (with columns by schedule state) and add the iteration cumulative flow and iteration burndown charts as separate widgets.

Event News

Finally, the event news included announcements for the following:

• The recording of the Rally roadmap session (Q4 updates) is available on-demand.
• The recording for the "Bridging the Gap" session, which covered connecting strategy and execution, is also available on-demand.
• Attendees were invited to contact their Solution Engineer (SE) or others for the ValueOps Insights design partnership.
• The ValueOps Academy offers free Rally classes for all experience levels.
• Attendees were invited to "Be Our Guest" at Rally Big Room Planning, with the next session scheduled for February 2nd through the 5th. Attendees can use the QR code to nominate themselves and can observe and participate in ceremonies, as well as discuss business agility.

Note: This summary was generated with the assistance of an artificial intelligence language model. While we strive for accuracy and quality, please note that the summary may not be entirely error-free. We recommend independently verifying the content and consulting with a product expert for specific advice or information. We do not assume any responsibility or liability for the use or interpretation of this content.

Ready to join the next Rally Office Hours session? Click the button below to sign up now!