How does the cross-project planning feature work?

Hi Davit, the step of selecting an iteration for the cross project plan itself is a bit confusing, as it does not really take on the same meaning as selecting the iteration for a typical plan - this iteration can currently be anything, and does not need to mesh with the iterations/timelines of linked items. 

The cross project plan is basically used as a tracker, so following the steps in the link that Seth posted, you can set up links to items in properly associated containers. This includes the scenario you mentioned - basically you would be adding the contributes to/tracks link to stories within one project area from different timelines, and that will work fine - the iteration you selected for the cross project plan will not block you from selecting these items.  The schedule information for these items is displayed based on the Planned Snapshot from their respective plans - if they don't have this snapshot then the start/end dates from their respective iterations are used which will not show accurate roll-up information.  Let me know if you have further questions about this.  Thanks

Hi Davit, I don't have any experience with the feature, but there is at least one Help topic about it here:

http://pic.dhe.ibm.com/infocenter/clmhelp/v4r0/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.ibm.team.apt.doc%2Ftopics%2Ft_creating_cross_project_plan_web.html

OK, it seems fairly simple. The Master Plan shows the elements on its timeline directly. Think of them as the top level management items that track all the fiddly bits. E.g a story or an epic.

You can configure a relationship to follow e.g. parent->child or some other that is based on the link types. When loading the master plan will show the work items that qualify underneath the work item on its iteration.

Assume Story1->Task1 (parent child or another relationship) if you configure the plan view display for a relationship (In the new&noteworthy contribute->tracks), the plan will show all those related elements (Task1) underneath the root element (Story1), regardless in which project or which timeline it is assigned to.

This is what you want. In your case the master plan would be for the team/timeline that is used to manage the stories and you pull in child tasks.

PS: You need to play with the parent->child or child->parent directions a bit.

The new CrossProjectPlan is just a new plan template based on the new plan view tree options capability, which allowing to do a workbreakdown not only on Parent/Child but also on other link types and you can also choose the direction of the workbreakdown.

In the CrossProjectPlan the predefined tree is based on link types Tracks/Contributes to.

This new link type is specially usefull, if you want to track work done on different project areas or specially (and unique for this link type) from different Jazz instances. But this new link type has many limitations which makes the usecases today very limited. Specially in the area of Scrum Projects contributing to a System Project. See also work items:

Tracked Work Items in a Cross Project Plan are showing incomplete or missleading informations
https://jazz.net/jazz/web/projects/Rational%20Team%20Concert#action=com.ibm.team.workitem.viewWorkItem&id=216482

Cross project plan does not consolidate progress/load from tracked workitems in the plan details
https://jazz.net/jazz/web/projects/Rational%20Team%20Concert#action=com.ibm.team.workitem.viewWorkItem&id=211799

One great enhancement in 4.0 in this area, is the fact, that one level of outplaced items (e.g. children) are displayed in the plans, and also progress is reported up this links. In 3.0.1 only outplaced parents where displayed and you "lost" the childrens and the progress of them if they were on other timelines or iterations.

This means  you can do plans over different timelines just by using Parent/Child or Resolves/Resolved by. WIth this link types you get all informations you need to track e.g. a system project. This works at least within the same Project Area.

David,

have you looked here: https://jazz.net/downloads/rational-team-concert/releases/4.0?p=news in the browser find "Cross Project plan". It is very few information, if you want to have a closer look, I would suggest to setup a small test system. You can run a test instance e.g. with 10 free developers if you like. I use test systems all the time.

Hi, as far as I can tell from just creating it the cross project plan works also within a single project. I assume the added benefit in this scenario could be tracking work items that are in different timelines. I haven't relly had time to play around with it. What do you need that exceeds the other plan types?

With test system I was trying to suggest to setup a local test server with tomcat/derby for playing around.