Run a successful Aha! trial

Where to go

What to do

Best practices

Account settings

User menu -> Settings -> Account

These settings apply to your entire Aha! account — though you can choose which settings you want to apply to individual workspaces.

• Open the account-level workspace settings. You created a workspace when you started your trial. Think about how you might want to map your company's product offerings to your Aha! workspace hierarchy.

Think intentionally about how you want to define workspaces in your Aha! account.

It may not be as simple as one workspace per product component. In fact, it is often better to create workspaces based on the value you deliver to your customers.

Explore a demo workspace

Quick start guide

We created Fredwin Cycling as a demo company, full of data you can use to trial Aha! Roadmaps.

• Open the quick start guide at the top of your page and click Tour demo workspace to try out Fredwin Cycling in your account.

Click through the top level navigation in Fredwin Cycling to get a sense for how you might structure your own workspace.

Where to go

What to do

Best practices

Strategy

Strategy -> Models

Strategy -> Positioning

Strategy -> Personas

Strategy -> Competitors

Define strategic records like strategic models and competitor profiles. These records help define the strategic landscape where you will pursue your roadmap.

• Create a strategic model

• Create a competitor profile

Use Elle as a collaborative partner to generate key strategic records.

Elle will work with you to create and refine any business model, positioning document, persona, or competitive profile through a series of guided prompts. Click Add model then Draft with AI to get started.

Strategy

Strategy -> Goals

Strategy -> Initiatives

Define your goals and initiatives. These records help frame the why behind the work your team will build later on.

• Create four goals and chart them against each other. To do this, click the Change view type dropdown in the top left corner of the goals page and select Chart. Remember, you can rename the axes on the chart.

• Create four initiatives and chart them against each other. To do this, click the Change view type dropdown in the top left corner of the initiatives page and select Chart.

• Open an initiative and click on the Related tab. From here, add some releases, epics, or features to create those records and link them to your initiative.

Use Elle to help you generate goals and initiatives.

• Use Elle to create goals.

• Once goals are defined, break them down into initiatives.

Where to go

What to do

Features board

Features -> Board

First, we need to create and populate a release. Releases are containers for work oriented around a specific date.

From the features board:

• Click Add release to create your first release.

• Populate with features.

• Adjust feature details. Try to link every feature to an initiative — so you can track how your work affects your strategy.

Releases are best leveraged when the contained work is themed. Think about how work should be brought to market and what phases need to be tracked.

• Build a release template

Ask Elle to generate user stories to populate your release

Prioritization page

Features -> Prioritization

Next, we need to prioritize the work. From the prioritization page you can give features an objective product value score, and sort them into a custom priority order. This way, everyone on your team can focus on the most valuable work at all times.

From the prioritization page:

• Adjust the product value score of several features in your release.

• Click and drag to stack rank features into a custom prioritization order.

Ask Elle to suggest feature priority to kickstart your prioritization discussion

Features board

Features -> Board

Let's get to work! Take the features in your release through the default workflow. You can involve your team here if you want a more accurate trial.

From the features board:

• Open a feature and Assign it to yourself (or a teammate).

• Click the Status button to move your feature to In progress.

• Pretend this feature is real work your team has committed to. What would you do next? You can break down the feature into requirements, start conversations in comments, or assign to-dos.

• As you work on the feature, move it through its Status workflow. Repeat this for each feature in the release.

Gantt chart

Releases -> Gantt

Finally, let's visualize the release in a Gantt chart. From here, you can adjust dates and details, and add critical dependencies to check whether you are on track to meet your release date.

From the Gantt chart:

• Hover over a feature, then click and drag the circle to create a dependency between two features.

• Drag features left and right to adjust their Start and Due dates. Notice how the dependency line turns red when there is a conflict.

• When all features are complete, click the release's Name, then click the Ship release button to ship it.

Congratulations on your first shipped release! Now it is time to let your team and customers know what has been launched.

Use Elle to help draft release notes for you.

Where to go

What to do

Best practices

Analytics

Roadmaps -> Overview

• From the Overview page, click Example reports in the top left corner, then choose from any one of over 75 example reports. For starters, click the Features folder, then select List table: Feature status.

• From the list report, click the Change view type dropdown in the top left corner to Pivot your list report. You now see the same data organized differently.

• From the pivot table, click the Change view type dropdown again to Chart your data.

You can always create your own reports based on the data you have imported or the demo workspace you have enabled.

Use Elle to summarize roadmaps or dashboards with key insights

Where to go

What to do

Best practices

Roadmaps

Roadmaps -> Starter

Roadmaps -> Overview

• Create a Starter roadmap. This roadmap is deceptively simple: drag records onto the roadmap to create them or to adjust dates and dependencies. When you do, you actually create these records in your Aha! account, ready to be assigned and implemented.

• Choose one of the example Strategy roadmaps from the Overview page. Start with the Strategic roadmap by status. This shows you all of your strategic initiatives and their current workflow status. Click and drag to create dependencies between initiatives, or Save your view to share it with stakeholders.

Use Elle to check roadmap alignment, or ask it questions about your roadmap — the page you ask from will automatically be added as context.