Release Dependency Dashboard

The Release Dependency dashboard enables you to identify, analyze and mitigate Release, Phase or Task dependencies and dependents on a gate task that is associated with a Release contributing to unplanned delays that can affect scheduled releases. Delays can impact businesses by affecting the time-to-market and can result in lost market opportunities.

As a Release Manager, you can find answers for some of the key business scenarios such as:

• Understand the impact of task delays on all its dependency releases, phases, or tasks.
• View the critical path across or within releases that have dependency gate tasks to understand the time required to complete a release.
• View Release Tasks that have the highest dependencies and which are delaying the completion of its dependency and dependent Releases, Phases, or Tasks.

This dashboard is built using the Release, Release Dependency, Release Task, Release Dependent, Release Multi Level Dependency and Release Tag iCubes and fetches data based on the filter specified for these iCubes.

You can use the filter in the dashboard to analyze information related to specific Folder, Release Owners, and Release Tag; the dashboard supports a single level of hierarchy in case of filtering results based on Folders.

The Release Dependency dashboard consists of the following pages:

• Direct Dependencies Analysis
• Dependent and Multi Level Dependencies for Release View

Direct Dependencies Analysis

The Direct Dependencies Analysis dashboard page is focused on Releases holding direct dependency on a gate task that is associated with a Release. The valuable insights provided in this dashboard ensure that you identify risks well in advance and be better prepared for the release, such as risk status of the releases, number of gate tasks, details of dependencies under the gate task and so on.

Note: All the KPIs display data of the current month. The graphs display data pertaining to the current month and the previous 12 months.

This dashboard page consists of the following sections:

KPIs

• % Gate Task Releases: Displays the percentage and the trend of release with at least one gate task over total release volume.
• % Successful Gate Task Releases: Displays the percentage and the trend of successful release containing gate task over total number of release containing gate task.
• % Successful Gate Tasks: Displays the percentage and the trend of gate task which are executed successful over total number of gate task.
• No of Gate Tasks: Displays the total number and the trend of gate tasks.
• No of Open Gate Tasks: Displays the total number and the trend of gate task which are currently in open state.
• Avg Gate Tasks per Release: Displays the average number of gate task and the trend present per release.

The KPIs display the growth percentage compared to the previous month. If in green symbolizes a positive impact on growth and if in red symbolizes a negative impact on growth.

A pop-up appears when you hover over the line of the respective graph that displays details, such as percentage of releases containing gate task, percentage of successful releases containing gate task, percentage of gate tasks successfully executed, total number of gate tasks, total number of open gate tasks and average number of gate tasks per release of a particular month.

Releases with Open Dependencies

This Panel gives you details about releases with open dependencies. Displays a grid that provides detailed information and overall view of releases, risk information of release, risk score of release, flag status which indicates if the release needs attention, current status of the release, total number of dependencies, total number of open dependencies and the remaining time left to complete the release. Time to release closure displays the days of time left to complete the release converted in decimal.

You can also click the Link to the Source System icon against a release to launch the source system and view more details about the release, select a particular Release to drive the data displayed in subsequent section and view information only related to the selected Release.

Gate Task Releases Monthly Trend

This panel displays a dual y-axis line graph that shows the trend of percentage of release containing gate task completed within time and percentage of successful release containing gate task over the last 12 months. A pop-up appears when you hover over the line of a particular month and display the percentage of release containing work item completed within time and percentage of successful release containing gate task.

Gate Tasks with Open Dependencies

This grid is driven by the previous section, focused on gate tasks with open dependencies and displays the overall view of gate task associated to a release, total number of dependencies, number of open dependencies, number of open dependencies closing in N hours and number of open dependencies starting in N hours. Select a particular gate task to drive the data displayed in subsequent section.

Note: N is configurable value in hours and can be modified to suit your business requirement.

Direct Open Dependencies

This grid is driven by the previous section and displays details such as, type of dependency, title of the dependency release, phase of the dependency, title of dependency release task, description of the dependency release, owner of the dependency release, status of the dependency release, risk information of dependency, status of dependency phase, description of the release task, flag status which indicates if the release task needs attention, status of dependency task, and time left until dependency planned end and start date.

You can also click the Link to the Source System icon against a dependency release to launch the source system and view more details about the release.

Dependent and Multi Level Dependencies for Release View

The Dependent and Multi Level Dependencies for Release View dashboard page is focused on Releases holding dependent and dependency involving many levels. The valuable insights provided in this dashboard ensure that you identify risks well in advance and be better prepared for the upcoming release, such multi level dependency release, status of multi level dependency release, dependent release and so on.

Releases with Open Dependencies by Criticality

This panel displays a bar graph that represents releases which includes open dependencies on y-axis and criticality factor on x-axis, where criticality factor is the sum of dependent tasks and dependency task. The magnitude of horizontal release bars indicates the criticality factor. A pop-up appears when you hover over the line of a particular month that display the name of the release, criticality factor, count of dependent release task, total number of dependencies and total number of open dependencies.

Select a particular Release to drive the data displayed in subsequent section and view information only related to the selected Release.

Release Network Chart

This panel displays a release network chart and provides detailed information of release having direct dependency, dependencies involving many levels and dependents. You can select a particular release to know all the release dependencies and dependents or select an arrow to know the dependency release of a particular release.

Note: For a particular release, outgoing arrows indicate dependencies and incoming arrows indicate dependents.

For example, consider test4, test5, and test6 to be the three planned releases, of which test5 is the current release. The outgoing arrow from test5 indicates; test5 has a dependency on test6 and the incoming arrow to test5 indicates; test4 is dependent on test5.

Multi Level Open Dependencies

This grid is driven by any release selection made from the previous panel and displays dependencies involving many levels. The panel displays information such as type of dependency, release name of dependency, phase of dependency, task of dependencies, description of dependency release, assigned owner name of dependency release, status of dependency release, risk of dependency release that indicates if the release needs attention, status of dependency phase, description of dependency task, flag status which indicates if the release task needs attention, status of dependency task, release name of linked dependency, and time duration left to start and end until the planned start and end date.

Dependents Overview

This grid is driven by any release selection made from the previous panel and displays dependents of the release involving many levels. The panel displays information such as task of dependent, status of dependent task, phase of dependent, release name of dependent and assigned owner name of dependent release.

You can also click the Link to the Source System icon against a dependent release to launch the source system and view more details about the release.

Metrics used in this dashboard

Metric Name	Description
% Gate Task Releases	Percentage of releases with at least one gate task over total release volume
% Successful Gate Task Releases	Percentage of gate task releases which are successful over total no of gate task releases
% Successful Gate Tasks	Percentage of gate tasks which are successful among all the gate tasks
Number of Open Gate Tasks	Count of gate tasks which are of status open
Average Gate Tasks per Release	Average number of gate tasks per release
Number of Dependencies	Total number of direct dependencies, which can be release, phase or release task
Number of Open Dependencies	Total number of direct open dependencies, which can be release, phase or release task
Time to Release Closure (Days)	Time duration left until projected planned end date or planned end date of release (in days)
% Gate Task Releases Completed Within Time	Percentage of Releases which are completed within time and have at least one gate task among all the gate task releases
Dependencies Closing in N Hours	Number of dependencies where time remaining till dependency closure is less than or equal to next N hours
Dependencies Starting in N Hours	Number of dependencies where time remaining till dependency commencement is less than or equal to next N hours
Time to Closure (Hours)	Time duration left until the dependency planned end date (in Hours)
Time to Start (Hours)	Time duration left until the dependency planned start date (in Hours)
Criticality Factor	Determines the criticality of a release in terms of sum of total number of direct/indirect dependencies and dependent tasks on it