Integrate with Rally (version 1.0)

Aha! Roadmaps

We have updated this integration to version 2.0! 2.0 integrations have all the same functionality of a 1.0 integration, plus expanded capabilities and support.

This bi-directional integration allows you to push features and requirements from Aha! Roadmaps to Rally (also known as Broadcom) and keep the feature status up to date in Aha! Roadmaps as engineering does their work.

All new Aha! Roadmaps integrations are now 2.0 integrations. If you are ready to update your integration from 1.0 to 2.0, please follow these steps. You can also learn more about the 2.0 Rally integration.

Click any of the following links to skip ahead:

Features of the integration

  • One integration is associated with one Rally project. The integration supports configuring multiple integrations with different workspaces.

  • All features and requirements in a release can be sent to Rally server using the Integrations dropdown on the releases page.

  • Releases in Aha! Roadmaps will create releases in Rally.

  • An individual feature and its requirements can be sent to the Rally server using the Integrations dropdown on the Aha! Roadmaps record.

  • A change in Rally will be immediately reflected in Aha! Roadmaps via the webhook. Aha! Roadmaps will automatically install the necessary webhook when the integration is configured.

When you have completed your roadmap and feature planning in Aha! Roadmaps you can move features into Rally for the engineering team to work on. You can send them individually or in bulk.

This integration supports sending the following items:

  • Name

  • Description

  • Tags

  • Attachments in one direction from Aha! Roadmaps to Rally

  • Rank in one direction from Aha! Roadmaps to Rally*

  • Status information in one direction from Rally to Aha! Roadmaps**

  • Feature start date and due date (map to Rally as portfolio item planned start date and planned end date)

*Portfolio items are ordered based on their corresponding rank in Aha! Roadmaps which is determined by their sort order in the Features → Board view. This is done by using the rankAbove/rankBelow parameter in Rally. Changes to the rank in Rally are not reflected back into Aha! Roadmaps but sending updates to Rally from Aha! Roadmaps after using Aha! Roadmaps' re-rank functionality or manual drag-and-drop rank changes will change the order of portfolio items in Rally after each sent update.

**Status updates flow from Rally Online to Aha! Roadmaps only. This is because once sent to development, the status of the feature should be owned by development, not product management. This ensures that product management won't inadvertently change a feature status while engineers are working on it.

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Advanced mapping options

The advanced mapping options for features and requirements include the following Rally portfolio items:

  • Feature → User Story, Requirement → User Story

  • Feature → Feature, Requirement → User Story

  • Feature → Initiative, Requirement → Feature

The integration will also continue to support existing Rally integrations that use the Feature → User Story, Requirement → User Story (child of Feature User Story) mapping.

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Configure your integration

The integration automatically installs the webhook in Rally to enable the two-way workflow, thus minimizing the likelihood of setup-related usability issues.

You must be a workspace owner in Aha! Roadmaps to configure this integration.

Adding the webhook for existing installations will require making a change to the integration page (even if it is only a temporary change) to invoke the webhook install process.

  1. Choose the workspace where you want to create the integration from the workspace hierarchy dropdown in the upper left of your screen.

  2. Next, navigate to Settings ⚙️→ Workspace. Click on the + button next to Integrations.

  3. Select Rally from the list of integration options.

  4. Enter your Rally username and password.

  5. Click the Test connection button.

  6. On success, you should be able to choose a workspace. Select Test Connection after selecting a workspace to retrieve a list of projects for that workspace.

  7. Once this second Test Connection completes successfully, select one of your Rally projects that this Aha! Roadmaps workspace should integrate with.

  8. Specify the feature and requirement type mapping.

  9. If you have required fields defined in Rally, specify default values for those Rally fields for both features and requirements in Aha! Roadmaps.

  10. Enable the integration.

  11. Test the integration by going to one of your features in Aha! Roadmaps and using Integrations dropdown on the features page and selecting Send to Rally. You should then look at your project in Rally and see that the feature (and any requirements) were properly converted to user stories.

Note: You can add the integration multiple times if you want to integrate multiple projects with a single Aha! Roadmaps workspace. Once you have added an integration, you may change the title to specify the project this integration belongs to by clicking on the title at the top of the integration set-up page.

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Use SSO in your integration

Aha! Roadmaps accesses Rally through Rally's API. You will need to use a username and password that are valid for the API. This will need to be a password configured in Rally and not a password that is provided via SSO since the API doesn't support SSO.

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Use integration templates

The ability to create Rally integration templates makes it easy for teams to roll out their Rally integrations across their portfolio of workspaces. With configuration templates, you can save any Rally integration you create as a template and then apply that template to future Rally integrations. Changes made to this template will update all other integrations using it — making it easy to administer to a large number of integrations.

This is particularly helpful when managing credentials because a Rally admin can create the first integration with the Rally username and password filled out. From that point on, Aha! Roadmaps workspace owners can use the template without entering credentials every time a new integration is added. If the username and password need to be updated in the future, updating the template will refresh the credentials for all integrations utilizing that template.

When a template is applied to a new Rally integration, the user that created the integration is able to edit any of the configuration options for their instance. This allows teams to quickly configure multiple integrations while maintaining the flexibility to have unique integrations per workspace.

Create a template

You will need to be a workspace owner in Aha! Roadmaps to create a Rally integration through the Settings ⚙️→ Workspace page of your account. Once on the integration configuration page, click the More options menu.

Selecting Use as a template will save the configuration you are working on as a new template.

Once saved, it will be available to use for future integrations your team configures.

Use an existing template

If you choose to use an existing template, its configuration will be applied to your new integration. Each configuration option will have a checkbox next to it allowing you to uncheck and apply a unique configuration on a per-field basis. For example, you can inherit user credentials and feature mapping from a template but choose to define custom field mappings unique to your workspace.

Security considerations

Since the templates allow credentials and Rally access that is to be used throughout an Aha! Roadmaps account, only users with access to the workspace containing the template will be able to apply the template.

If someone creates a template for "workspace A" in your account, and you do not have access to "workspace A," you will not be able to use the template when you configure your own "workspace B" integration.

In order to use a template defined on another workspace, you need at least viewer access on that workspace. Without full workspace owner access, the user will be able to use the template but will not have access to edit it. This is particularly important because it allows templates to be configured without the concern of other users editing it and impacting integrations across the account.

Remove a template

To remove a template or delete an integration serving as a template, you first need to switch any integrations using it to a different template. When viewing the template, there will be the option to view all integrations currently using it.

Once all integrations using the template have been removed, the More options menu will allow you to delete the integration or remove it as a template.

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Sync tags

Tags are a powerful way to capture additional detail about features such as priority, associated components, customers who requested the feature, and more. Tags are easy to use but play a big role in helping teams communicate and implement what customers need and want.

The integration between Aha! Roadmaps and Rally supports the two-way syncing of tags. This helps keep the team in Aha! Roadmaps and the team in Rally aligned with the data each team is capturing within tags in their respective tools.

To enable tag syncing, simply check the check box on the Rally integration configuration within Aha! Roadmaps. The integration configuration will be located at the bottom of the page within Settings ⚙️→ Workspace which requires owner access.

Enabling tag syncing for existing integrations

Many teams get started with an integration and then adopt new workflows over time. If your team is considering enabling tag syncing with an established integration between Aha! Roadmaps and Rally, there are key considerations in order to get the systems caught up and in sync with each other.

  • Existing tags in Aha! Roadmaps that do not exist in Rally: You will want to use the Features → List view to perform a bulk update in Aha! Roadmaps and update Rally. This is important because if Rally updates Aha! Roadmaps before you do this, you can risk having whatever value Rally has in the tag field overwrite Aha! Roadmaps.

  • Existing tags in Rally that do not exist in Aha! Roadmaps: While you cannot trigger an update from Rally to Aha! Roadmaps in the same way you can update Aha! Roadmaps to Rally, you can use the bulk edit functionality within Rally to cause the integration webhook to update Aha! Roadmaps with the data. A simple change such as adding a new tag across your data and then subsequently removing it will force an update. This is important because if users in Aha! Roadmaps update features, the Aha! Roadmaps feature tag value will overwrite the tag value in Rally.

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