IBM Engineering Workflow Management Reviews

Backlog management is a valuable feature.

It helps in managing my backlog by having a consolidated view of stories, priorities, sprint, story point owners and statuses.

There is a lot of scope for improvement, namely:

• Loading of content as it is extremely slow.
• Customizing attributes like story points since it is not available.
• Page refreshes are erroneous which need to be corrected.
• An ability to write stories in rich text.

We have used this product for two years.

There are stability issues that I have encountered.

I have not encountered any scalability issues.

I would give their technical support a rating of 2/10.

We used a different solution prior to this one and made the shift due to licensing issues.

The learning curve was high as the setup was not quite intuitive.

You should use this product only after the issues mentioned above are resolved.

• Task planning
• The possibility to link to DNG
• Easy way to see the status of the project: What was done, why, and when.

Before RTC, the project plan was in Excel. The project lead periodically asked the team members for their updates in the plan. There was no actual status, no connection to the requirements, and nobody knew why something was done.

Team Planning in RTC

1-  RTC allows to set up parallel or overlapping iterations. It is possible, to assign a user to tasks, which are assigned to different, overlapping iterations.
For 

example, one iteration is for product A and the second one for product B and both products shall be created in the same time range, e.g. the same month.

A developer has to do some work on both products, so maybe several tasks exist, assigned to the specific iterations for both products. If a product manager now opens a plan, that is only based on the iteration of the specific product, the developer is loaded with its total capacity to this plan.

RTC ignores in this case, that there are other tasks in other parallel iterations. This may cause a user to be overbooked. IBM states this in the documentation (it is recommended to create a plan on an iteration, that is on a higher level and includes both product iterations), and warns there to use parallel iterations – but RTC does not warn when this situation occurs, so users may encounter this issue without knowing.

2-  A plan in RTC is created always when a user loads this plan, using the actual status of the work items in the plan. There is no possibility to save a state, e.g. for documentation or to create different versions, like MS Project does. 

I have been using this solution since 2013.

We did encounter stability issues, but all of them were solved by the system admins.

Sometimes there were scalability issues, but they were handled and mainly resolved by the system admins.

We started out directly with a standard process template, Scrum, and made adjustments on the run. Therefore, the start was easy.

However, later on we needed to change from the standard template to a custom template and this was somehow complex.

The pricing is supposed to be competitive.

We evaluated PTC Integrity and Polarion ALM.

• Check the planning, and see if RTC fulfills all of your needs.
• Check if your other tools can connect to RTC.
• RTC does not come with many interfaces. However, OSLC and an internal API are what you can program for your interfaces for your tools.
• It may be necessary to migrate your existing data from another SCM tool, or for the standard process flow afterwards. It is nice to have some automated helpers which create and update work items for the user.

We primarily use the solution to help us implement Scrum.

All of the features work together to provide a powerful holistic solution - from the dashboard all the way through to security. 

We are currently using version four, but we looked at versions five and six and they are getting better and better. They're making planning easier. In version six they have something called a Quick Planner which would be nice to have in our version. In fact, if many of the features they have in five and six could be offered in four as well, that would be beneficial to us.

Some administrative tasks are difficult to perform. These could be simplified. For example:   setup sprint/iteration period - start and end. It may be simple to have a button to End Sprint / Start new Sprint and the application handle setup and definition. Another example in user holiday's handling to have one click to apply general holiday that applies to all team members.

I've been using the solution for six years.

The solution is stable. The level of performance you get out of it makes the workflow smooth.

We only have about 20 users; I can't really judge the solution's ability to scale. We do plan to increase usage in the future.

Technical support is good. We are now dealing with the local vendor here in Jordan. They are responsive and they have the skills and knowledge to help us to solve issues. Usually, we do try to solve issues internally, but sometimes we need local support. 

We didn't previously use another solution.

For us, the initial setup was a bit difficult. We had to learn the setup by practicing. An expert may have been able to lessen the difficulty and the time needed to set up the solution. The first time we did the setup we didn't have a good understanding of Scrum and the terminology used in the Scrum process, and the corresponding terms. Once we understood everything the process became simple.

We handled the implementation ourselves.

We see the solution as cost-effective. You get what you pay for.

We are using the on-premises deployment model.

I would advise others considering using the solution to have expertise in the solution from the beginning. Have someone who understands the tool and can help you utilize its features and you'll get an ROI right from the start.

I would rate the solution eight out of ten.

The customization features.

Transparency in project progress tracking.

RTC allows us to customize different processes to fit the best projects
requirements.

• Source management
• Widgets
• Queries
• Plans presentation

I've used this solution for four years.

No.

No.

Five out of 10.

JIRA.

Complex.

No, only RTC.

Look for guidelines and YouTube videos before starting to use RTC (too complex for new users).

It's easy to plan work.

Easy collaboration between several development teams such as design, development, and testing. It's also simple to get an overview of a project's status.

• SVN integration
• The ability to change project templates for projects in-progress

I've used it for three years.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

There were issues, but they have been solved.

No previous solution was used.

It was easy.

We did it in-house.

Project realization has been carried out much faster.

No we didn't.

Be careful when selecting suitable project templates, as there's no way of changing it later.

Execution of the Agile software development methodology.

It gave us the platform to implement Agile methodology immediately.

Agile templates give us a standard methodology for every Agile project. Also, the ability to create our own object types and linkages to features/epics allows us to enhance the verification of feature readiness.

Upgrades, even minor versions, seem too labour intensive, especially with the enhanced objects, which is why the Jazz platform should be so good.

One to three years.

E2E tool for SCM, features like customization of CR and IR flow is valuable.

We moved our entire SCM on IBM RTC and integrated IBM Rational DOORS and IBM Rational RPE.

Permission logic is a big issue as it is very difficult to provide permissions at individual level.

2+ years

No

No

No

Customer Service:

Good

Technical Support:

Good

Yes we used IBM Synergy

It was simple

It was in house

It can be realized over 5 years

Not Sure

NA

It is very complex tool and require a lot of expertise to manage. Anyone opting for IBM RTC should first get a through training

Change management fully integrates with configuration management. Also, this product can work with almost any software development process you use: agile or traditional.

The search functionality for files in branches (streams) is very weak.

I have used Rational Team Concert for five years.

The product runs very nice and is stable.

We have not had any scalability issues. The product is as ready for small, centralized projects as it is ready for complex projects.

IBM usually has decent technical support.

We previously used SVN, Mantis, and others. The main reason we switched is integration. RTC has many functions integrated within a single product.

Initial setup is a bit complex. You need to install and configure the WebSphere application server, create databases, setup some environment variables, and then finally run the product setup. To be fair, the product setup is straightforward, but until you get there, you have to do a lot of adjustments.

It’s not cheap, but it is worth the price. ROI is almost guaranteed.

We did not evaluate alternatives.

I recommend this product. But it is very important that you define your software development process very well before starting to use this tool. Otherwise, you will be automating a problem.