Order of Operations for preparing your first PI Session
Before clicking the Prepare new PI button in the RTE Cockpit > SAFe PIs, follow the steps below as a sort of order of operations:
Ensure all necessary team-level nodes are set up in the Organization module, i.e. the Teams, ART, and Solution Trains.
Ensure the ALM Connection is setup with all tabs completed for the Authentication, WebHooks, Team Mapping and ART Mapping.
Note: The ART Mapping tab on the ALM Connection is only required for supporting Solution Train PI Sessions. PI Sessions that support a single ART do not need to complete the ART Mapping tab on the ALM Connection page. That configuration is completed in the actual PI Session setup when configuring the #5 ART Backlog Board.
Know the PI event dates and Iteration cadences, i.e. start date, number of Iterations, and the duration of each Iteration in calendar days.
Login with either the Admin or PI Admin roles. Navigate to the RTE Cockpit > SAFe PIs page. Note: Alternatively directly navigate to setup.piplanning.io.
Once you have setup the PI Session, then it is a good time to invite and onboard all the people (Users) to their Teams, so when they login they will see the newly active PI Session.
Note: Prepare a new PI session without the ALM tool sync, if one of the options below suits your needs:
Teams (business teams, dev teams, etc.) do not use an ALM tool but they want to leverage the collaboration and facilitation tools piplanning.io provides.
Teams use another ALM tool (e.g. Apptio TargetProcess, GitHub, ServiceNow, etc.) and you will perform a manual sync using the CSV Import and XLSX Download utilities. Details on the CSV Import utility are here.
Quick Links
Navigate to the Help Articles that provide step-by-step instructions and guidance for setting up the PI event best suited for your context.
Please keep in mind, that are a few factors truly determine the context for setting up the PI Session, and some architectural constraints that impact the PI Session, these are:
Organization:
Configuration Factor: Wether the PI Session will support a single Agile Release Train (ART) OR will it be a PI event that coordinates multiple ARTs in a Solution Train (ST) setup?
Constraint: Once you setup a PI Session with the appropriate ST or ART, no changes can be made to the ARTs or Teams participating in the PI Session. If there are organizational changes e.g. an additional Team, reordering the Teams swimlanes on boards, or removing a Team, then you will need to create a new PI Session and we advise you to use the Duplicate functionality to do this as it takes just mere seconds to accommodate for those changes. Note: you would then archive or delete the original PI session that is now obsolete.
ALM Connection: What ALM system are you connecting to: Jira Software, Azure DevOps, or Rally Software?
The piplanning.io Team/ART to ALM tool mapping is straightforward and the Help Articles are meant to guide you through these mappings based on best practices for the ALM tool.