Rally Software Reviews

Most valuable to us is being able to communicate without everybody having to be in the same room. Also the ability to capture information and distribute it to team members. We have people overseas or people working from home or in a different office building and they can all communicate via Agile Central.

I think it is an excellent tool for tracking agile scrum activities. It's one of the best tools on the market, if not the best.

Primarily, it has given us a more structured approach than doing some kind of scrum using white boards and other manual methods. It's a very helpful tool. The push for Agile Central came when we asked the company to go agile and do scrum. This required us to go ahead and purchase a tool to unify us across the company.

My personal agile maturity is about medium. Company-wide, some facets are medium to high and others are just starting. Our scrum masters also use it for coaching. Some of the best practices we use are keeping the tool updates timely and making sure stories are well defined and broken down in the right unit of work.

I would like to see greater ability to manage common teams that are working across projects and how that common team has tasks to do in both projects or in multiple other projects. I want to see more common services.

The project might require common services, but if I'm a common services team and I have tasks in all of these other projects, it’s better to manage the common services team itself and their tasks; because they have tasks in multiple other Agile Central projects.

As far as I can tell, it has good stability.

I can't comment about scalability.

I have not used technical support personally. I haven't had to, so that's good.

I was not involved in the initial setup.

I know of some people that were trying to use JIRA, but I don't believe that had near the capabilities that this does.

I would advise potential users to get in touch with CA and have a representative sit down and show them the tool and how they can use it.

There are a couple things that our company found really good. One is that it’s scalable, and a lot of the other products on the market for us don't scale. We have close to 20,000 people using Agile Central. So that was one of the keys. Within the company developers, they all have their preferences. So some like JIRA, while some like Agile Central. But from a backend environment standpoint, Agile Central can actually scale for the whole business.

Agile Central helps in terms of Agile management, especially with our scrum teams. It's designed to be used from an Agile standpoint, so I think the teams that have struggled with it are the ones that aren't really set up for Agile. Agile Central is really founded as an Agile tool, so if you're not doing Agile, the tool doesn't work all that well for you.

Our company is large and we've got a very wide gamut of Agile maturity. We have some teams that are very expert in Agile and we have others that are still Waterfall. It's a 100+ plus year old company, so it runs the full gamut. Personally, I have been using Agile for a couple of years, so I'd say I'm pretty familiar with it at this point.

We've been asking for a couple of things. A big one for us has been on the administrative side. Again, I'm coming from a very large company so these are the things that are, at that scale, very important to us, such as access. How do we get access to people? How do you move a large number of people?

The other big one that we've been requesting for years is the ability to move people between workspaces. For us, that's really important. Every time we've had to do this, we have to get technical support involved and it's just a big pain in the butt. Within Agile Central, each workspace is very independent and one workspace can't talk to another workspace.

We have multiple workspaces set up and when a team wants move from one to the other it's very difficult to do. For instance, with a big organization you're always going to have organizational changes. So you may have set the things up perfectly when you first set it up, but things change. Now when they go and change, since we can't move workspaces easily, the new teams that are together can't collaborate because they're in different workspaces. There's no easy, functional way of doing it.

I also think the UI could use some improvement. I believe they're working on it. Also, it's not the most developer-friendly tool. So while management tends to like it, I don't know if developers are huge fans of it, at least in my business, from what I've seen.

I think stability has been fairly good. I don't know whether to attribute the issues that we've had to Agile Central or to our own network. And we have had issues, but they've been pretty quick to respond and try to come to the root cause of what's going on.

We've had some scalability issues but, to be honest, because it's a SaaS product, I'm not sure if it's a function of our network or Agile Central. Sometimes it's difficult to tell, because we've got a lot of internal networking that we're doing in terms of security, etc., that slows things down. So when we have had complaints about it, a lot of times it may be us that's at fault and not so much Agile Central. But, an important factor in choosing Agile Central was scalability.

We actually offer both JIRA and Agile Central within the company. So we try to somewhat make it a user choice as well. What we typically recommend is that if it's a very small project and it's a quick turnaround, JIRA's probably your best bet. If you have something longer term, Agile Central is probably going to be an easier tool for you to use.

I wasn’t involved in the initial setup.

We didn't evaluate anything other than JIRA and Agile Central.

I think you have to think through how you're going to organize, especially if you have a large company. We've struggled with the structure of our teams and the way they're set up. So that's something you need to consider. And I don't know if they've done a great job of it. They actually call teams “projects”, which is a bit of a naming issue.

You definitely need to have some foresight when you set it up in terms of how that's going to work. You also need to think about how you're going to do workspaces, because there's no functionality there to change it once it's set up. You've got to get that right from the get-go or you're going to have a lot of trouble going forward.

The ability to extract data to provide feature and release metrics for our executives and our customer stakeholders is very important. It provides reports on the cycle time from the time that feature requirements are initially defined to when they are available for release. Release in this case does not mean production, because it does not include that capability.

For me, it's important that it supports both an agile scrum and a Kanban implementation. I've had responsibilities for operations in the past in which people were trying to force the operations team into a scrum implementation or methodology, that doesn't work in an interrupt-driven world that you have sometimes have in production when you have to deal with production issues. 
 

• By using this extracted data, it provides a real picture, instead of a perceived picture, of the amount of work the team is doing, the time it's taking to get new changes out, ready to put into a user acceptance test area, and production, which is really where our problems are. It's not solving those problems right now; but it is providing data that I use to present data on the deployment delays. For example, we can see that we’re finished at point A, but we're not actually deploying it to a production environment until point B, which is sometimes only three months later. So there is a delay in getting the features that customers want to production. This is because we lack a DevOps culture. CA Agile Central is giving me real data to show that for many features. 
• Our company implemented the scaled agile framework. I believe they've created a heavyweight bureaucratic implementation, and I think they have some work to do there. It’s putting wear and tear on our team. We just did a total pivot. With scaled agile, we work in three-month program increments. I'm actually used to planning out that long, but we had a business situation that came up in which our whole department did an immediate pivot; so we are pretty agile. I just think that we have some work to do on the wear and tear on the team.
• I think I have a great handle on agile methodology, but I haven't done any portfolio management using agile tools. 
• Our team’s agile knowledge is intermediate, but they're learning; and they're learning on their own now. They actually understand their limitations. When I started, they had been doing the whole methodology for a couple of years, but they didn't realize where they had opportunity to grow, which is one of the reasons why I was brought in. Before, they just needed to be directed.
• For people outside my team, we created a scrum master guild, and we use that all the time. One of our best practices is that we created agreements across all of our teams regarding how those specific teams work. Those agreements are not the same on every team, which I think is exactly the right way to go. It is definitely a positive change for the organization now that each team can provide information transparently to executive management. Everybody seems to think that’s a good thing.
• We also do a retrospective across our teams, which I think is very open. That's pretty refreshing to see.

• I would like them to give me back the fields I used to have. We lost the release field because they mentored our scaled agile framework trainer to actually use the release field as what I would call a program increment.
• We're releasing every two weeks, so it's pretty hard. They also should put a product field in there. We have work areas. Our work area is our team, it's not our product. So my team actually supports four different products. I'm doing name mangling that I then have to write code around to understand how to get metrics out. That is challenging.
• The other thing is that I think I can pull out data from the release, but we're not using all of the CA Agile Central projects. For example, we're not using the testing part of it. We do use the defects. I don't know how I'm going to integrate the testing tool that was selected by the test organization. I don't know how I'm going to integrate all of that. They might have plug-ins for that. I don't know.
• The only thing I can think about is finishing the lifecycle. There are tools in there, and I don't know how I can close the loop.

I have been using Agile Central for 10 years. At my last company, I had access to just go in and look at everything, but I don't have admin access at my current company.

Our product is doing very well. We had one production issue in the last three months, which is pretty good considering how large our customers base is.

We launched our product in April or May. We had two or three issues in the first month that I think had to do with the whole DevOps theme; and how it was configured and set up. We are working really hard on the DevOps side, but we have some work ahead of us. We’re not there yet. But we haven’t had any real software problems.

We're able to scale as much as we need right now.

The initial setup was complex. We have a lot of different internal and external integrations.

I wasn’t there when they selected it. However, I will say that having had the scaled agile framework, I'm a little disappointed at what it looks like in comparison to something like AgileCraft.

I think that they have some work to do on the scaled agile framework side. I don't know if they're doing it because I'm not in those discussions. 

I haven't really looked at any other vendors. Someone just sent me a link to AgileCraft. That's the only reason I mentioned them, and I don't know if it works. I just saw the “marchitecture” stuff.

I fully support CA Agile Central as a product. I would guess that I also support their scaled agile framework Implementation of it, if you go in with your eyes open and have honest discussions with the CA Agile Central implementers.

We do technical support and even more than that. We do what I call operational monitoring. We have an operations team on one of our products; on the other product, we don't. We're the operations team.

We actually just instituted a new process that we're implementing. We go out and check each of our environments every day. We are always deploying to QA, and always have something in our user acceptance testing area and in our production area. We look at all three of those environments. Any problems we see, we immediately investigate.

I think that's how we've been able to prevent some of the problems we were having. At least the development team is doing that. The operations team has their own methodology.

Rally Software is typically used for dealing with all the scrum and agile principles and work orders. It keeps track of whatever workers do in the application development lifecycle before release.

The most valuable features of Rally Software are the executive dashboards, ease of use, and many other features. They have encapsulated everything that a GI can do, such as monitoring, maintaining, and then releasing. It's continuous integration and development. 

I have been using Rally Software for approximately six years.

Rally Software is stable.

The scalability of Rally Software is easy to do.

Our team typically handles all of the support for Rally Software. Only when there are some difficulties is when I come in to give assistance.

We have used Jira and Microsoft Excel previously.

I found Jira and Rally Software similar in functionality.

The initial setup of Rally Software is straightforward. In the beginning, there was more hands-on attention needed but after that, we were in operation.

We are always looking for a discount, if the solution was less expensive it would be a benefit.

My advice to others is when you use Rally Software every day, they must be more hands-on. The employees have to have a level of maturity for gaining knowledge of the software. They need to know what it can do, what it can't do, knowing the ins and outs of the software are important.

I rate Rally Software an eight out of ten.

We primarily use this solution for agile project management. We use it to work on some of the challenges we have, including test management. 

The product has excellent customizable reports. There are some custom lists that are deployed in the recent version as well, which have proven to be useful to our organization.

The solution is very stable. We haven't had any performance issues in that regard.

We have all the features we need. It's a good product in that sense.

The pricing, for the most part, is reasonable.

The scalability may need to be improved. We'll see within the next three to six months, as we test it.

The product needs to have more integration capabilities.

I've been using the solution for six or seven years or so. It's been a while.

The stability of the solution has been very good so far. We haven't dealt with bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's very reliable.

I can't really comment on scalability. It seems to be suitable for our needs, however, we haven't tried to scale the product and therefore wouldn't really be able to comment on its capabilities.

We do plan to potentially scale in the next three to six months. At that point, we'll have a better sense of how it will handle an expansion.

I'm not sure how many users are actually on the solution at this time.

I, unfortunately, did not handle the initial setup of the product. Therefore, it would be hard for me to comment on if it was complex or straightforward. I don't have any direct knowledge.

The pricing of the solution is okay. It's reasonable. However, the licensing does increase according to the number of modules. Therefore, it can get expensive.

We are currently using the latest version of the solution right now.

I would rate the solution at a ten out of ten. We've been largely very pleased with its capabilities.

It's designed around Agile, so it has all of the pieces that match up with the process. For us, at the portfolio management level, we can see everything at one glance, all of the projects, where they're at; and, at the iteration level, we’re able to populate the iteration, and view progress reports on it. We've recently moved all of our defect tracking onto it also - it's nice to be able to pull defects right into sprint plans.

• We're using it to manage the training content development we're doing, so it's kind of a one-off case. It's not your typical agile project, but so far it's working well, and we're able to incorporate most of the agile methodology into our processes. We get all of the transparency that comes with the tool; so we have a clear view of what's happening with all of our projects, what state they're in, and where all the pieces are. Blockers stand out, so they're getting more attention. It's become our single location for project information. Although there's been a bit of a learning curve for the team (more around the processes we're using than with complexity in the product), I've had several team members tell me that it's a good product that they enjoy working with.

I'd like to be able to color code timeboxes, so I have an easy visual way to track the success of sprints. Workflow is not a strength, we've cobbled together our own workflows around changes in State and Ownership.

About a year now. What we're doing in CA Agile Central is pretty stable now, although we still tweak our own internal processes from time to time. Still exploring and learning the wonderful world of Agile.

We weren't involved in it.

It's been extremely stable for as long as we've been using it.

I see no problems with scalability. In addition to what we're doing, I know our Services team and Product Development team are using the product, so I expect scaling is not an issue.

Haven't really used it.

Haven't really used it. Which I like.

Spreadsheets and MS Project. CA Agile Central is designed around Agile methodology, so it was a perfect fit for the processes we wanted to put in place. We couldn't do the things we're doing now with the previous products.

I wasn't involved in setting up the product itself. I jumped in after it was already in use.

Wasn't involved.

The decision to use it came from our development team. The whole development team is using it. Our Services team has been using it for years.

If you're focusing on agile, this is the right product to use. It's built around it. I've tried to do things with MS Project and that sort of thing, and you just can't manage it the same way. It's just not built for the same kind of cycle.

It is a well thought-out solution. It's a great centerpiece for Agile methodology. It works.

I am from the QA team and am using this especially for test automation. We have so many test scripts and this would take some time. Earlier, we used to have a different tracking system, but the difference is that, if there are any new changes, then it was very hard for us to get them into the system. However, with the CA Agile tool, we were able to have two-week scrums and two-week sprints. After each sprint, we were able to pull any new tricks that came up and we could easily prioritize, prior to the two-week period, instead of having to wait for a long time. We were able to easily create and track the user stories. We were able to understand the graph as to how the trend is going, so all this was really helpful.

I find that tracking of all the user stories feature is extremely beneficial, because I can know in terms of the user stories, how much work is completed and how much is still pending in the backlog.

During the last four years, there were four projects in there, that I was handling. However, one of the issues that I am facing is how to remove the old projects, as one of the projects is over. Although, CA Agile is still showing me all of those four projects and I don't want that information now. So, there should be a way to remove that project.

I am not sure whether CA has their own bug tracking tools. However, if there are some tools like that, then it will be very much helpful, i.e., to have one integrated system, where the configuration management as well as this bug tracking tool are integrated. Bug tracking we have with NetApp's internal tools, but I don't think we are able to do the integration between CA Agile Central and what we have.

So, it would be good to have one single complete solution for complete development, such as for tracking agile work, the bug tracking tool, and Perforce management, the version control system. Thus, an integrated system would be very much useful, I think.

I am not sure if CA has the integration tool part, currently or not; however, I am unaware of that. Hence for me, the integration between other tools will be a very useful add-on feature. In the market, there are other tools that are available as a complete solution, providing tracking tools, bug tracking features and necessary support as a package. If CA Agile Central could also provide that kind of integration such as the bug tracking, a version control control system as a single solution, then it will be very much helpful.

Sometimes, we have noticed that our CA admin sends out an email, maybe that could be in regards to the maintenance work that is internal to the NetApp.

There weren't any scalability issues. For my work, it is perfectly suitable as of now, so I don't see any scalability related issues, for my work as of now.

If we experience any issues, then we have the NetApp internal support and will basically reach out to them. Thus, we don't directly contact CA Agile Center support, as we have enough people internally to get NetApp support. I would give them a 8/10 rating.

Initially, I was using Microsoft Project. Since it was not compatible with the agile environment and we then started using the agile methodology in our project, we started using this solution. Also, NetApp is providing support for this tool.

The setup was simple but I also remember that the one thing that is missing in CA Agile Central is the integration of data, as when you compare it with Atlassian JIRA or similar tools.

I did not evaluate other options because my company is providing the tool. I believe that before choosing it, my company may have done some kind of comparison with other tools, and then selected this one.

More than a team or a manager decision, this was a company-wide decision.

This is a very helpful solution, especially for those who are planning to switch over to the agile environment. Although I have not evaluated any other tools, I do have experience with other tools as well, but I have never compared both of them.

This is a great solution, especially in terms of the graphs and how the trend is going on. That is the one of the main features, which is helping me a lot. During a two-week sprint, if I look into it, I can exactly know where the trend is going or whether all the work is getting completed or not. Thus, it provides a good forecast as to how much of your work is getting done or is still pending. This is a good positive aspect to suggest to others.

We use it at the enterprise level, from the leadership to managers to teams, and everyone can use the same software easily.

It's very user friendly and intuitive as the information can be viewed and customized easily.

It's the first software that allows everyone to use the same software that is actually user friendly.

An improvement would be if at the leadership level, they want to view certain teams, it’s easy to break down. For example, if a portfolio is 60 teams, as a director, I can filter and easily see only my teams and the stats I want.

Also, the defect-management cycle needs work. It's already there, but the functionality isn't all the way through.

It could offer more functionality and spread those functionalities to individual users in a way they can understand. That would make it more intuitive, but I understand that doing so is a challenge.

We've been using it for over five years.

We haven’t had any stability issues.

It’s meant for scaling and that’s the top functionality.

They were great. Never any issues.

It was already in place when I joined.

I've performed installations in other organizations, and it was very intuitive.

We also looked at products that have good scalability because of the size of our enterprise.

My advice would be to use it. As with any tool it has advantages and disadvantages.