PTC Windchill RV&S vs. Rally Software

We enjoy doing requirement mappings. The enhancement in transferring them between models is great. It is for innovation all the time a challenge to conduct them. We have two major scenarios for that task set. One is to integrate already well-validated models into greater sets. The other is defining totally new ones. We developed new strategies and refined the existing ones. We rate the synching requirement configurations as comfortable. The processes of synching the items back to the models. The major advantage is to optionally synchronize all-important and intended traceability relationships from Modeler so that both can be given the correct right the right group of uses while others only see the structures. We too prefer the handling of deletion and creation. It is a real advantage how the mapping and relation are implemented. The implemented integration to third-party tools for requirements definition and management is a plus. We like the profiling features and the high compliance to industrial standards as well as the module variability modeling.Windchill RV&S makes us perform better and let us take over control. It enhances our return-of-investment efficiencies to the top. The only drawbacks are the high skill levels needed and the necessary relation in businesses to make the profits. Another topic is the resources that are needed.

Rally is well suited to help outline the specific tasks of a project, create timelines, indicate progress/status of tasks and provide views of team members' workloads. My team used it for our weekly stand up meetings in order to update one another on our progress, and our manager used it as a way to determine who had capacity for additional tasks. It facilitated our transition to a more agile work environment and we used it to implement 2 week "sprints".

Incentivized

• It allows the user the ability to link all aspects of the SDLC together so that there is only one source of documentation and information rather than having to search in multiple places.
• It is very customizable to suit a particular businesses needs.
• It is helpful for all areas of software development.

Incentivized

• The ability to tailor the tool for each product. For example some simpler projects can be managed with simple user stories, a Kanban process and board. Large projects are managed with iterations, releases, tasks and burn down charts.
• Create a home dashboard and customize it to show user stories and tasks assigned to you and a personal burn down chart.
• A portfolio management capability where you can link and view the entire hierarchy from theme to initiative to feature to user story(s) and finally to tasks.

Incentivized

• Main trunk is not protected and has no pre-conditions before committing a fix or feature to it.
• Conducting reviews is not possible. there is no avenue for people to comment on a check in
• When working with multiple snadboxes, the client seems to freeze up and needs to be started.

Incentivized

• the service was intermittently down, sometimes for several hours.
• Rally is a very large powerful tool, and that also is the reason why it can't be a good fit for small teams who want simpler interfaces and way less features.
• loading pages is slow, add to that if you (like me) keep it open all day after signing in, the systems logs you out automatically.
• pening multiple windows (on separate tabs) has some problematic issues esp. when your sessions expires, and you will need to sign in to all other tabs one by one. Also if you attempt to sign in again on one tab, all the other tabs redirect to the same page of the first tab you signed in.
• a steep learning curve for agile beginners/novice team member - leaving those members to use the tool without any training makes it almost impossible for them to know what they must do to get by their daily tasks
• not enough free documentation online

Incentivized

I do not make decisions on what tool my company uses. I am just the user of the tool and such decisions are not handled by me. If I were to make such decisions, I would definitely renew MKS, considering the amount of data we have stored in MKS and the current number of users who are familiar with the system

Incentivized

Assuming we were paying - right now my group gets it for free as the broader engineering organization pays for it. There would be switching costs. There would be pretty minimal data migration, but the biggest cost is getting people to learn a new tool and starting off on the right footing. Evaluation and identification of the right product is a big part of switching too

PTC Integrity comparatively could be considered a nice Source code management, Version controlling tool and could be compared with tools like StarTeam. If the integration to move/migrate code could be integrated into this tool, it would become an extremely powerful tool.

Incentivized

Great UI, recent refresh was terrific. Great graphs and metrics, inline editing for updates, and a multitude of views on sprint progress make for a great team collaboration experience. There is also an active community and forums so that if you do need help, it is readily available

Don’t recall ever being unavailable.

The screens render relatively quickly but many actions that you would expect to require a single click require multiple clicks and pop-up windows. The extra windows and clicks make the product feel ponderous.

PTC Integrity administration can be somewhat daunting. They have been able to help with every question that I have submitted. Their support website is very easy to understand and submit questions and their phone support is wonderful

Incentivized

I've had to use support only one time and my issue was eventually resolved but not because of my ticket--because others complained about the functionality taken away so they brought it back. My ticket was never answered or addressed. So I can't really say much for the support factor for Rally.

Incentivized

It more or less confirmed that we are using it the way they had in mind. We were hoping for a epiphany in terms of how we could use it better.

They also want to be a go to source for agile processes and have an online resource center. It’s not that great but had a couple of nuggets. It hasn’t really helped us too much and we are not too far off from the classical interpretation of agile.

I would recommend training, in particular for organizations that multiple on-going projects. The product seems optimized for larger, more complex teams and getting proper training on how to configure, administer and use the system would be beneficial

I wasn't involved in implementation.

Incentivized

Implementation of RALLY services and program satisfaction among various group,... 1) Dev Outcomes: How were our resiliencies, development, learning & practitioners “make them do the work,” but that they ask you to do it “in a way like before. 2) The Ops group: Just wish to make sure any change won't break current production envirements All the stake holders has to be on the same page

Incentivized

There are some tools which are available for free like GitHub. I've used StarTeam when it was a product of Borland, and while using PTC Integrity, I feel PTC Integrity has most of the features which were available in StarTeam. Although there are some other free tools like Tortoise SVN, it's always better to stick with tools which are licensed and supported in case of any issues/problems.

Incentivized

Rally Software and Jira are both good. Rally Software is better at handling large scale projects. It offers advanced reporting, release tracking and portfolio management. Jira is more flexible but Rally Software is definitely better for large organizations. We selected Rally Software because our organization needed robust support for our Safe framework with detailed tracking across multiple teams and enterprise level reporting. Rally Software's ability to offer visibility into progress at all levels gave it the edge.

Incentivized

• Better requirements through PTC Integrity - which will equate to better products and less warranty costs (very large savings).
• Better efficiency ....PTC Integrity can help keep track of a globally managed project structure. This will go far in helping keep repeat and duplicate efforts from happening multiple times.
• Better products for our customers through a more attentive corporate ear. PTC Integrity can help make customer wants and needs a reality.

Incentivized

• We has improved our accuracy in estimating release capacity and timelines and tracking team throughput.
• Team collaboration has improved which is critical for us as teams were distributed at three locations. The Big Room Planning feature allows teams to identify the work to be done as well as dependencies and challenges. It helps team members to stay on the same page.
• CA Agile Central has customized dashboards to view information in Scrum, Kanban or custom views. It helps senior management in closely tracking their releases & helps them in taking corrective action in case they feel milestones will not be met.
• We are able to deliver every sprint into production since Continuous Integration environment has been setup with ease using github integration with CA Agile Central.