Managing mutiple projects with Bluemix DevOps Track and Plan - ibm-cloud

We have several closely related DevOps projects each with their own jazz git repositories in our Bluemix DevOps account. Each project has its own stories/tasks/defects etc.
What is the current best method to gain a single view of the cumulative backlogs of all projects so we can have one place to prioritize items and plan sprints across all projects. If DevOps Track and Plan can not do this. Is there a 3rd party tool that can integrate with DevOps/Bluemix that will do this for us?

Not a perfect solution, but I asked a very similar question and have had success using the approach described for several projects:
How to manage multiple components with IBM Bluemix Track & Plan

This isn't a supported capability at the moment.
I've passed your question on to DevOps Services' developers. We're adding features to Bluemix and Bluemix DevOps Services all the time.

Related

Is there any tool what can analyze work items/code in Azure DevOps for security issues, leaks or violate data laws

We are using Azure DevOps. We are using it for repos, pipelines, tests, and task management.
We have hundreds of projects, and we assume that there are a lot of ignored violations not only in the repo but also in work items.
Manually go through all projects, kind of not fun job.
Maybe someone has experience with challenges like this.
We want to find a tool that can automatically scan our Azure DevOps work items, repo, etc., and send notifications if he found some violations.

Azure DevOps Organization setup with cost at project level

I want to setup Azure DevOps organization wide. For that, we have decided that we will set up a single Azure DevOps organization and every team will work underneath this organization as separate project. The only challenge which I am getting is to determine the cost incurred by each project. Azure DevOps generates bill at organization level however we want to know how much a specific project incurred cost so that we can charge that team accordingly. I am not so much aware about azure devops billing prospects. Any insight would be very useful to me.
Currently there is no way to determine the cost incurred by each project, As you know the paid services(eg, paid basic access for users, paid ci/cd, paid test plan, etc) in azure devops are billed at organization level.
You can submit a suggest for such feature to be developed. Hopefully the development team will consider it and develop this feature.
You may have to manually calculate the paid resources(paid users, ci/cd(I found the build usage extension can be used to analyze ci/cd cost), paid test plans) that used by each project, and calculate a rough cost until the cost view for each project is developed.
You should be able to set unique custom tags, using the same per each specific project. Then from there you should be able to have cost propects based on tags specified by grouping on tags [1].
[1] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cost-management/quick-acm-cost-analysis

Which is better for task management?

Microsoft Planner or Azure DevOps
We need to keep a track of tasks assigned to DevOps teammates.
I checked Azure Devops.
Azure DevOps gives you tasks and issue so that you can assign it to the members.
Not sure what MS Planner offers and should we chose that over Azure DevOps
Microsoft Planner is a task planning tool integrated in Office 365.
The level of capability from low to higher is corresponding task management to project portfolio management.
For a detail tutorial you could take a look at this link: Microsoft Planner - Step-by-step guide for users
Azure DevOps is a cloud-side source code management system also offering project management features as part of Microsoft's application life cycle management solutions. More project management features are accessible.
In Azure DevOps, you could also track work with Kanban boards, backlogs, team dashboards, and custom reporting.
Combine drag-and-drop sprint planning and flexible work item tracking with comprehensive traceability to have the perfect home for all your ideas–big and small.
You could also use the visualization options provided by Delivery Plans to review the schedule of stories or features your teams plan to deliver. Delivery Plans show the scheduled work items by sprint (iteration path) of selected teams against a calendar view.
Delivery plans is also interactive. You can change the assigned sprint of a work item by dragging it to a new sprint as shown in the above image.
I couldn't directly give you an accurate answer which one is better, it's all based on you and your team's requirement. They are totally two different products. Please kindly select the one suitable for your sides.

VSTS kanban board to manage multiple projects

I recently inherited the management of a few legacy applications and the associated development team of 3. Currently, the team manages work visa emails. There is no central place to see all work. Some of the projects have their own VSTS sites.
I would like have a single/ unified intake process, work board. Is there a way to have a VSTS site sit on top of other VSTS sites to provide this view. Other option I can think of is to bring in these applications as separate repositories under a single VSTS site ( assuming VSTS allows this).
Anyone with prior experience, please suggest other ways to do it. Yes, I am stuck with VSTS - corporate standard
If you are using git in VSTS, then you can have multiple repositories.
This would be a good approach. https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/willy-peter_schaub/2014/11/19/many-git-repositories-but-one-team-project-to-rule-them-all/
Then you can create teams within the same team project to separate backlogs, sprints, kanbans for each team. See https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/vsts/work/scale/multiple-teams?view=vsts
You will also be able to see a kanban/backlog for the full team and you could even use the Plans hub to group all your teams together in a unified view. See https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/vsts/work/scale/review-team-plans?view=vsts and https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/vsts/work/backlogs/backlogs-boards-plans?view=vsts

Shared Deployment Groups across team projects in VSTS

Is it possible to share Deployment Groups across team projects in VS Team Services?
I have a few logically different team projects sharing the same servers. I would like to create one instance of deployment groups and share it across team projects
Currently, there is no way for this to span projects. In VSTS, very little spans projects for a variety of reasons such as security and pipeline management. Due to the way the pipeline works in VSTS, I don't think they will ever let this span multiple projects. You could always suggest it in the VSTS User Voice forum or get a more detailed explanation as to why not.