Targetprocess is product management software for digital transformations which brings together all project participants on one virtual platform for online collaboration. targetprocess allows companies to build effective project processes around technology projects, feature releases, business transformations and other initiatives.
Targetprocess is one of the leading online project management tools. Thousands of companies are already using Targetprocess productivity app. We are talking about more than 10,000 organizations on five continents that include some of the largest corporations in the world, as well as the hottest startups on the planet.
TargetProcess
TargetProcess is highly customized software providing complete solutions using Scrum, Kanban or any other pre-set processes. It includes all the important features like user stories, tasks assignment, bugs, and impediments. One of the crucial features which make it significant from others is a visual coding system. This Agile tracking tool assimilates easily with other external software like Mercurial, Git and Subversion. Even it helps to export and import data from Excel.
Its customization structures become beneficial at the initial stage of the project. But some users complain about its speed and scrolling screen and so the user interface tool has to be improved from its current standard.
TargetProcess provides plenty of online help that is accessible directly from the tool. The help system presents articles on main topics and videos on major features. It has an efficient search function. When you start using TargetProcess, there is already a set of example data that allows you to understand how the software works. If you have additional questions, TargetProcess provides help desk support that was very reactive during the time of this evaluation.
Configuration
Setting screens allow to define processes where you can start from scratch or clone an existing (Scrum, Kanban) approach. You can also define the project teams and members, the roles in your projects, business values like the priority of user stories, e-mail notifications. TargetProcess has an open architecture and existing plugins allow to cooperate with external applications like Bugzilla, Selenium, Visual Studio or Jenkins.
Concepts
The concept behind TargetProcess is rather simple: it takes the three main components of a project – the people, the work and the plan – and makes it easy to manage and associate them in a visual way. The work part is based on a classical agile requirements hierarchy that is composed of features, user stories and tasks. Two additional items are provided: the bugs and the impediments. The planning vision is also classical where the project can be decomposed in releases and iterations. On the people side, you manage user with roles and teams. You can have multiple teams working on the same project and they will share the complete view of the project.
The domain model is easy to visualize and understand. The strength of the product comes in its visual management capabilities where you are able to plan and track usually your project with a lot of different perspectives in a flexible way.
Approaches
This flexibility allows TargetProcess to provide initially with two different approaches that have their own processes: Scrum and Kanban. For both cases, you will have a set of predefined visual boards that are specific to each approach. You can define a default process for each new project.
Additionally, you can create your own customized process by cloning an existing one. A process is composed of practices (requirements, test management, bug tracking, …) that can be associated to a process. You can add and remove practices as needed. You can define workflows for specific items in your process. These workflows can take the form of either a visual state transformation flow or a simple e-mail notification when for instance an impediment is created.
Figure 1.Definition of the workflow for the User Story item
The central screen of TargetProcess provides an easy way to interact and a quick access to every functionality. It provides also an easy way to monitor the status of your project and spot problems.
The screen you need for your task is rarely further than two clicks away from your current location. A large “Add” button at the top of the screen allowing to add quickly any item that you need to manage your project. Most screens use a tab approach that allows to manage different aspects easily. The visual boards, called “views” use a simple drag and drop approach.
If the views are visible as “boards” by default, you can also choose to display the cards as a list or as a timeline. This timeline view mode is one of the interesting features provided by TargetProcess, as it is very useful for portfolio management, roadmapping, release and iteration planning. You can also select multiple cards to perform actions on them. Besides the views available for each process, you can create your own views by cloning existing one or working from templates. The cards used on the views can be customized to display more or less information, depending on their type: feature, user story, task or bug. A tagging system is provided to add meta-information to the cards. TargetProcess allows you also to define and limit the access to the different views.
If backlog items are created independently, in the real life there might be dependencies between features, user stories, tasks or bugs. You can manage these relations that are defined as dependency, relation or blocker.
Figure 2. Iteration tracking in Scrum
In addition of its management boards, TargetProcess offer also a list of Agile reports that are useful for visually tracking the status of your project like the burndown chart or the process control chart that shows the distribution of cycle time of all completed entities (user stories, features, bugs, tasks, requests) for a given time frame.
Additional Features
Besides its core Agile project management features, TargetProcess offers a number of additional features that connect it with other tools for software development activities like source control, bug tracking or time management.
Import / Export
TargetProcess features a two-way integration with Excel that allows to import and export data using the csv format. You can therefore load or update data about your features, user stories, tasks or bugs into the tool from an external source. You can also export data about these items to produce specific reports with Excel.
Integration with external software
As far as configuration management is concerned, you can integrate TargetProcess with source control software like Git, Subversion, Microsoft’s Team Foundation Server (TFS) or Mercurial. This integration is managed by plugins and allows sharing information about code updates.
On the software testing side, you can import test run results from NUnit, Selenium and the Jenkins/Hudson continuous integration tools. You can link external test results with an existing test plan and create a new test plan run. This gives you the capability to track in real time your daily build tests in TargetProcess.
Finally, TargetProcess offers integration with two IDE: Visual Studio and Eclipse/Mylyn that allows to share and update todo lists.
Time tracking
The timesheet allow you to consolidate the daily working hours of the team members. It can be managed on one screen with all the tasks linked to a team member or it will be automatically filled when the time spent on a specific task is updated in the task management screen.
Bug tracking
The bug tracking practice is completely integrated in the project management features of the tool. You can quickly add a bug item, which has its specific workflow, and manage it as a user story and task on your planning and tracking boards.
TargetProcess is both a simple and powerful agile project management tool. It is simple because it has an intuitive user interface and provides by default a complete Scrum and Kanban process for software development organizations that are transitioning to Agile. It is powerful as it allows to create a flexible approach to visual project management with the customization of item content, status and workflows. You will be also able to create your own views of your project status. The ‘visual’ aspects of the software and its customization features help the project managers to stay focused on what is specifically important for them and quickly spot problems.
Pricing
Users should reach out directly to Targetprocess for pricing information.
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Target Market
Targetprocess agile project management software is ideal for medium to large companies who are adopting or scaling agile. It can be used in any industry, including non-IT sectors.
Conclusion:
Project management tools continue to be an important part of any web projects. Companies which can complete projects more efficiently and with better results are the companies who make the most money. This is why project management tools like targetprocess are so popular with companies today. They can help you with everything from project tracking to IT monitoring.