First, note that you don't need a separate timeline for each release ...
you only need a separate timeline if the iterations of one release do
not line up (timewise) with the iterations of another release.
And even if you need more than one timeline, you may not need a separate
timeline for each release. For example, suppose that you have one set
of iterations for "new development", and another set of iterations for
"maintenance". Then you only need two timelines ... one for the
development teams, and another for the maintenance teams.

But in any case, for the problem you encountered ... a team area can
only work on a single timeline ... if you want that team area to work on
an iteration in a different timeline, you first have to change the
timeline of that team area (in the team area editor), and then you can
create a plan for that team area on iterations in that other timeline
(but then of course you cannot create plans for that team area on the
original timeline).

There is a workitem requesting that a team area be able to work on
multiple timelines (work item 99436).

Cheers,
Geoff

cbarlock wrote:

Getting back into RTC after some time away....Before today, we were
basically using the Main Development timeline and creating iterations
and plans for each of our releases. After reading more about
timelines, it seemed to me that a better model is to create a
separate time line for each release and create iterations and plans
for each timeline. When I made that change, I see taht when I
configure each plan, I get an error "The selected iteration
doesn't belong to the team area's timeline. I presume this is
related to the fact that we have a single team area defined & it
is associated with a "main" timeline, not these new release
timelines. In the Configure Plan dialog, I see I can change the radio
button from Team Area to Project Area and the error disappears, but
the Finish button is then disabled, so all I can do is cancel the
dialog.

Clearly, I don't know what I'm doing here :?: and would appreciate
some guidance.

Thanks!

Chris

On Tue, 19 Jan 2010 21:07:59 +0000, cbarlock wrote:

Getting back into RTC after some time away....Before today, we were
basically using the Main Development timeline and creating iterations
and plans for each of our releases. After reading more about timelines,
it seemed to me that a better model is to create a separate time line
for each release and create iterations and plans for each timeline.
When I made that change, I see taht when I configure each plan, I get an
error "The selected iteration doesn't belong to the team area's
timeline. I presume this is related to the fact that we have a single
team area defined & it is associated with a "main" timeline, not these
new release timelines. In the Configure Plan dialog, I see I can change
the radio button from Team Area to Project Area and the error
disappears, but the Finish button is then disabled, so all I can do is
cancel the dialog.

Clearly, I don't know what I'm doing here :?: and would appreciate
some guidance.

Thanks!

Chris

Hi, Chris.

Each timeline in RTC has its own hierarchy of teams which works in that
timeline. The team structure in each timeline can be different and so can
the process your teams follow.

For example, some people might be working on a maintenance release while
others work on the next major release or one individual might be
splitting time between both releases. In this case, you can capture how
much of a user's time is spent on each release in the Work Environment
tab of the user editor. There you can say that someone is spending half
their time on maintenance by assigning them to both the maintenance and
major release teams at 50% each.

In situations where you have the exact same teams with the same people
working in both timelines, this means that your team structure will
essentially be duplicated in both timelines. Currently, creating this
team structure is a manual tasks, which we recognize as a gap in the
tooling. We'd like to make this simpler in the future by providing
facilities to duplicate and sync the team structures.

--
Jared Burns
Jazz Process Team