Data Model and Hierarchy

In general, the data model includes three types of entities: Work, People, and Plans.

People are Who is doing the job, Work is What we are working on, and Plans are When things are supposed to happen.

The Targetprocess data model is shown in the diagram below.

All the items mentioned here can be used as cards or lanes when building views in Targetprocess, or as a basis for building custom reports. You can also rename the items based on your preferences and working methods.

People

Every person in your company will have a User account in Targetprocess.

It can be a User with a full license (with access to Targetprocess) or an Integration User - an active user in Targetprocess who can be assigned work and used for capacity planning, but who has NO access to Targetprocess.

People form Teams. Teams can be cross-functional or organized around a specific business area.

Teams can be a part of Agile Release Trains and Solution Trains if you practice SAFe.

Work

Portfolios contain all the work items, such as Portfolio Epics, Epics, Features, User Stories and Bugs, in Targetprocess. On a Portfolio level, we decide on an item's terminology, workflow, custom fields and other process settings. People get access to Portfolios to see and edit work items based on the permissions granted. If needed, Program (or Group) is used to organize Portfolios by any parameter, such as Type or Portfolio, Line of Business, Organization, etc.

Portfolio Epics represent Epics in SAFe, high-level initiatives or projects in a traditional work management approach.

Epics represent solution capabilities, service initiatives or large features. They are big enough to span several product releases or program increments.

Features are program-level work items, which represent new product features or smaller activities. Typically it's something too large to be implemented during a single iteration, but small enough to fit inside a Program Increment or a Release.

User Stories and Bugs are Team level items, representing a distinct piece of work in the system that fits into a single team iteration.

Portfolio Epics, Epics, Features and User Stories can exist in a Portfolio without a parent item (for example a User Story can be created in a Portfolio with no Feature or Epic).

There are two types of work items in Targetprocess: Global (don't require a Portfolio when created) and Non-Global (need a Portfolio when created). The work items mentioned above are non-global native items in the Targetprocess hierarchy and this classification cannot be changed, which means they require a Portfolio to be selected when created.
Most of the other items are new items created via an Extended Domain. They can be global or non-global based on customer requirements.

For each Work Item, we can define Key Milestones, Definition of Done (DoD), Acceptance criteria (AC), Measurements, and Personal Tasks.

Key Milestones – special dates in a work item life cycle. It can be an MVP release or any other important milestone.

Definition of Done is an agreed upon set of items that have to be completed before an item is considered done.

Acceptance criteria are the conditions that an item has to meet to be accepted by a user, a customer, or other systems. They are unique for each item and define the behavior from the end-user perspective.

Measurements are tracked metrics relating to a work item. It can be used for KPIs or to capture essential updates.

Personal Tasks - are your personal tasks related to the work item.

Plans

Planning items in Targetprocess are Releases used as Program Increments or Planning Quarters, Team Iterations, and Milestones.

Releases or Program Increments represent a timebox during which a group of teams deliver incremental value in the form of working, tested software or systems. It has predetermined start and end dates, during which progress is monitored and compared with planned velocity.

Team Iterations are shorter fixed-length timeboxes, used by Agile Teams to plan work and track progress.

Milestones in Targetprocess represent important company events such as upcoming trade-shows, a new regulation or a meeting with a strategic committee. It is visible as colorful flags on a timeline view.

Request Management

Requests are used to represent incoming requirements, questions or ideas from internal or external people - Requesters.

Use them for idea management, work intake or customer support. Requests are a way to communicate an idea or a question and manage related work once a request is processed.

Risk Management

Risk Management is the process of identifying, assessing, and controlling threats to an organization's capital and earnings.

Risk Actions are taken to reduce either the likelihood of the risk occurring or the impact that it will have.

OKR

Objectives and Key Results framework is a tool to create alignment and engagement around measurable goals.

Objectives are memorable qualitative descriptions of what you want to achieve. Key Results are a set of metrics that measure your progress towards the Objective.

In Targetprocess we support three levels of Objectives: Ultimate, Strategic, and Tactical. The names of these levels can be renamed to suit your terminology.

Capacity Planning

Work Allocations help define people and team demand and allocations on specific work items, such as Portfolio Epics or Capabilities.

Work Allocations can be in percentage, hours or FTEs for a User or Team. It can also represent a User allocation to a Team if a person is a part of multiple teams, and his capacity needs to be planned carefully.

Dependency Management

Impediments and Dependencies represent anything that keeps teams from getting work done.

An Impediment is a less powerful object than a Dependency; for example, you cannot assign people or create a workflow for it. Use Dependency if you either need people assigned or a workflow created.

Custom relations can be created between work items directly. They can be of a dependency, blocker, or duplicate type. These relations are visible on a work item view and visualized as colorful arrows on any board, list, or a roadmap view.

Goal Management

PI Objectives are a summary of the business and technical goals that an Agile Team or train intends to achieve in the upcoming Program Increment.

During PI Planning events, teams create Team PI objectives, which are later organized into Program and Solution PI Objectives.

Iteration Goal is a high-level summary of what a product owner and a team would like to accomplish during a sprint.

Retrospectives

A Retrospective is a look back at events that took place or work produced in the past.

Feedbacks are collected from each team member during a retrospective and converted into Action Items, which are later implemented during the upcoming sprints.

Release Management

Release Packages represent global product or solution releases happening on a scheduled or unscheduled basis, or versions of software delivered to production. Builds are intermediate development builds.

Incident Management

Incident Management solution allows you to capture service interruptions and track the time needed to restore the service to its operational state. Incidents can be created manually, as well as automatically in the system.

Time Tracking

Time Tracking is a process of recording time spent and remaining when working on a User Story or Bug. It's used in Time Sheets as well as for capacity and budgeting purposes.

Test Management

There is an additional set of items that belong to the Test Management area in the Targetprocess data model.

For every work and planning entity, you can create a related Test Plan which contains a set of lower-level test plans and individual Test Cases. Then you can execute a Test Plan multiple times by creating related Test Plan Runs.

Read more about the Test Area in Targetprocess.

Overview video

• Data Model Video