What is Pivotal Tracker?

Tracker is a story-based project planning tool from Pivotal Labs that allows teams to collaborate and react to real-world changes instantly. It's based on agile software methods, but can be used on a wide range of projects.

Tracker maintains a prioritized backlog of project deliverables, broken down into small, estimated pieces, called stories. It dynamically groups these stories into fixed segments of time, called iterations, and it predicts progress based on real historical performance (velocity).

How can I learn about new Tracker features?

For the very latest, follow @pivotaltracker on Twitter. We also have a blog, and all recently features are on the Recent Updates page.

How can I share my ideas for Tracker?

We'd love to hear your feedback and ideas for improvement. We use Satisfaction to collect feedback, there you'll find discussions of new feature ideas, bug reports and fixes, and opinions from other Tracker users and Pivotal Labs employees. If you have a question or problem that is not already addressed, please add a new topic.

You can also send suggestions and bug reports to tracker@pivotallabs.com.

How much does a Pivotal Tracker subscription cost?

There are a number of different subscription plans available. Most are listed on our Pricing page. There are larger plans listed on the Plans & Billing page for your account. To get to this page, click on the ACCOUNT link (in the upper-right corner of most pages after you have logged in to Pivotal Tracker). Then, if you are taken to a page listing your multiple accounts, click on the name of the account whose Plans & Billing page you want to visit.

How does the 60 day free trial work?

When you sign up for Pivotal Tracker, your first account will be automatically enrolled in the 60 day free trial, which allows you to use all features, create an unlimited number of projects, invite as many people to those projects as you'd like, and get email support. You can choose one of the paid plans at any time prior to the end of the 60 day period, otherwise your account will transition to the free plan automatically. No credit card is required for the 60 day free trial or if you wish to remain on the free plan.

Note: If you've joined Tracker by accepting a project invitation, your free trial won't begin until you create an account of your own, on the Account(s) page. Having your own account allows you to create projects, and invite collaborators to them. More on accounts here.

What happens after the end of the free trial?

If you do not upgrade your account to one of the paid plans, it will automatically transition to the free individual plan, which allows up to 5 private projects, 200MB of file storage, and no collaborators. If your usage exceeds the limits of the free plan, your projects will become read only until you either upgrade to a plan that supports your level of use, or lower the number of active private projects, collaborators, and file attachments.

Is Tracker really free for public projects, individual use, non-profits, and educators?

Yes! Paid plans are required only in order to create private projects with collaborators other than yourself, or if you require more than 5 private projects. Pivotal Tracker is free for individual use (with some limitations, see below), free to participate in other users' projects, free for public projects, and free for qualified non-profits and educators.

• Individual use: Tracker is free for your own personal use, with no collaborators other than yourself, with up to 5 of your own private projects, and 200MB of storage for story file attachments per account.
• Participating in projects in other users' accounts: Accepting a project invitation and participating in projects that belong to other users' accounts is free.
• Public projects: Projects that are publicly viewable, and the collaborators in these projects, do not count toward any plan limits.
• Non-profits and educators: We provide free accounts for qualified non-profit organizations, as well as educators at academic institutions, by request (see below).

How can I request a free plan for my non-profit or academic institution?

Free plans are available for qualified, tax-exempt non-profit organizations as well as academic institutions and educators. To request a non-profit or academic free plan, follow these steps:

1. If you haven't already, sign up for Tracker.
2. Sign in to Tracker, click 'ACCOUNTS', select the account for which you'd like to request a non-profit or academic plan, and go the Plans and Billing page. If you'd like to create a new account for this request, click the 'Create Additional Account' link on any of the account pages. (Read more about accounts here.)
3. At the bottom of the account's Plans and Billing page, under the plans list, click the link under the section titled 'Free plans for non-profits and academic institutions'. This will take you to a request form.
4. Fill out this form, and let us know what type of plan you're requesting (academic, non-profit, or other) the name of your organization, URL to your organization's web site, and a brief description of how you plan to use Tracker.
5. You'll receive an email when we process your request, typically within a few business days.

I am a student, do I qualify for a free plan?

We encourage the use of Tracker to help with your studies, and have a number of options available. If you do not require privacy for you projects, you can make your Tracker projects public - these are free, with unlimited collaborators. Private projects are also free, but with no collaborators other than yourself. If you prefer that your projects be private, and are working with other students, please ask your professor or school to request a special academic plan (see above).

What is the difference between community and priority email support?

Community support is facilitated through our Get Satisfaction powered support site, which allows anyone to post and answer questions, feature suggestions, as well as problem reports. Priority email support is available to members of projects in accounts on the Pro plans. Although we try and reply to emails from everyone, we respond to priority support requests first, typically within 1-2 business days.

Can I get a refund?

Paid accounts can be downgraded or cancelled at any time, and you will not be charged again. We do not offer refunds on any charges that have already been incurred for the current billing cycle.

I'm not sure which plan I need, can I decide later?

Yes, you can start with the plan that suits your needs today, and upgrade later. If you're on a paid plan and upgrade to a higher priced plan, you will be charged a prorated amount based on the remaining time in the current billing cycle.

I have a discount or credit coupon code. Where do I enter it?

You can redeem a discount or credit coupon after you sign up for Tracker, on the Plans and Billing page of your account, as part of upgrading from the automatic 60 day free trial to a paid plan.

There are two types of coupons - 'percent off' discounts, and dollar amount credits. Discount codes can be used for any plan upgrade, but dollar credit coupon codes can only be used when upgrading from the free plan to one of the paid plans. If you already have a paid account, and would like to use a credit coupon code, you can can create a new account (using the 'Create Additional Account' link on the account pages), upgrade it to a paid account (using the credit coupon code), and then move your existing project(s) to this new account. Read more about accounts here.

What does the term 'collaborator' mean?

This is the total number of unique Tracker users that can be member(s) of the private projects in your account with read/write project access. This includes yourself, if you are a member of any project in the account. A given user only counts once, regardless of the number of private projects in your account that he or she is a member of. Read only members (viewers), and members of public projects do not count toward collaborator limits.

Which forms of payment do you accept?

The only accepted form of payment is major credit card, including Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and Discover. We cannot process POs or issue invoices, and VAT is not included in any pricing/payment.

Can my company pay by Purchase Order or receive Invoices?

Not at the present time. Currently Tracker's billing is entirely paperless and requires a credit card, either personal or corporate.

Where can I get a receipt for charges from Tracker?

You will receive a confirmation email when you sign up for your subscription to Tracker. If your account is still in the free-trial period when you subscribe, you will not lose the remaining time in your trial. The first credit card charge will be made when the trial would have ended.

You will receive email each time the credit card is charged for your Tracker subscription. In addition there is a view receipt link in the PAYMENT HISTORY section at the bottom of the Plans & Billing page (see above) for each transaction that Tracker has performed for your account. You can click this link to open a printable receipt page for that specific transaction.

If you have specific information you wish to see on the receipt, you can enter information yourself. It is possible to add notes to your account that will be included when you print a receipt. To use this, go to the Plans & Billing page, and scroll down to the middle section, BILLING INFORMATION. Click on the EDIT button at the right end of the section header. Put the text that you want to be included on your receipts into the box next to 'Notes on Receipt' and then click SAVE. After this, when you click on any of the view receipt links in the PAYMENT HISTORY section, the 'Notes on Receipt' text will be included in the receipt page for you to print.

What are public projects?

By default, all projects in Pivotal Tracker are private, and accessible only to users you explicitly invite. Public projects are visible to anyone, shown in the public projects directory, and are intended for use with open source software development, or any initiative that does not require data privacy. Public projects do not count toward project or collaborator limits, on any plan.

How can I make my project public?

As a project owner, you can make your project public (visible to everyone on the internet) by enabling the 'public access' option, on the project settings page. This is the only way that a project can become public, all projects are private by default.

Are the API and external integrations included in all plans?

Yes, all plans, including the free individual plan, include full access to the API as well as external integrations.

Do I need multiple Tracker logins to support different activities?

No, you can create and manage multiple accounts, for example to separate your personal projects from your work projects. More on accounts here.

How secure is my data?

The security and privacy of your personal, payment, and project information is very important to us. Tracker runs in an an enterprise grade hosting environment, we employ industry standard means to protect your data, and all plans include SSL encryption. Credit card information is stored by Braintree, a highly trusted, Level 1 PCI DSS compliant payment gateway and payment processing provider.

Which browsers can I use?

Currently, Pivotal Tracker supports Internet Explorer 7 or 8, Firefox 3 and higher, Safari 4, and Chrome 4.

Is an on-premises version of Tracker available?

An on-premises version of Tracker, in the form of a VMware virtual image, may be an option for your organization. Due to license minimums, the on-premises option is most cost effective for companies with a large group of developers (in the hundreds and above). Please email us at tracker@pivotallabs.com for details and pricing information.

Who can see my email address?

Anyone on a project can see the email address of anyone else on that project. This balances privacy and usability. For instance, when you're adding someone to a project by email address, the auto-complete field will suggest someone who's on another one of your projects, but it won't let you browse the entire universe of email addresses known to Tracker.

Can anyone see my project or know that it exists?

Your project is accessible only to those people that you explicitly invite, unless you've made the project public, in which case anyone who knows the project's URL can see it. Please see our Privacy Policy for more details on content and privacy.

Who has the rights to my stories?

We don't have any rights to your content, except for the purpose of operating Tracker as a web based service. Your data belongs to you. We don't aggregate or analyze the content in any way, just the statistics (# of stories done, # of points, total members per project, etc.)

Is my data backed up?

We do back up your data. It lives on RAID volumes at our hosting provider and the database is regularly backed up (encrypted) to a redundant data center. Backups are kept for 21 days.

What is a project?

A project can be anything that you or your team works on that delivers some value, and that is large enough to benefit from being broken down into small, concrete pieces. Tracker is designed primarily for software development, but it's commonly used for other purposes, for example to help organize a marketing campaign, general productivity, etc.

How can I create a new project?

Click the Create Project button on the Dashboard, enter a name for the project, and hit enter. You'll be taken to the new project, where you can immediately start adding stories.

How do I change project settings, such as iteration length?

Only project owners can change project settings. On the Dashboard, hover over the project in the project list to reveal a settings link. You can also access the settings page from within a project by choosing the Change Settings option in the Project drop-down menu.

How do I leave a project?

From the Dashboard, click Show All My Projects, then click the leave link beside the project you no longer need to work with. You can also leave a project from the Project Overview page. You can't leave a project if you're the only owner, you must make someone else an owner of the project first (on the Members page).

Can projects be deleted?

Yes, you can delete projects. Only project owners or admins can delete projects. Unlike archiving projects, deleted projects are removed and cannot be recovered

How do I archive a project, and what does it mean?

If you are an Owner of a project, you can archive your project from the My Projects page (Dashboard => Show All My Projects), or the Project Overview page.

Archiving a project removes it from the Dashboard and other pages, and makes it invisible to all but owners of the project, who will see it only in their list of archived projects. None of the project data is lost, and the project can be reactivated at any time.

How can I see my archived projects?

From the Dashboard, go to Show All My Projects, and click the Show Archived Projects link at the bottom of the projects list.

Can projects be made publicly visible?

Yes. As a project owner, you can allow anyone to see your project in read-only mode, even if they're not signed in to Tracker. Public access can be enabled on the Project Settings page. Projects that are public can be accessed by anyone if they know the URL, and public projects appear in the public projects directory.

How do I set the project's start date?

In most cases you do not need to explicitly set the project's start date, the system will dynamically calculate the project's start date based on the first accepted story. However, there are some cases, especially on projects with multi-week iterations, that the system's calculated start date doesn't match the actually start date of the project. In this case, you can explicitly set the project's start date on the Project Settings page. The start date needs to be before the project's first accepted story and the start date's day of week needs to match "Start Iterations On" day of week.

Is there a way to jump between my projects easily?

Go to your Profile, enable the 'show project tabs' option, and your recently accessed projects will appear as tabs across the top of the page.

What are the differences between Project Owners, Members, and Viewers?

Only project owners can add and remove members and change project settings. Project members and owners can create, edit, move, and delete stories and can add comments. Viewers can't make changes. They can only view stories.

How can I add new members to a project that I own?

1. Go to the Members page (either from the Project Overview page or by choosing 'Add/Remove Members' from the Project menu in the Project page).
2. In the Add Member field, start typing. You can use the full name, the email address, or this format:
   James T. Kirk (JTK) <kirk@starfleet.edu>
3. Click the Add button. Tracker will make a guess at what you intend for the name, initials, and email.
4. Click Add New Member. Your friend will receive an email invitation to your project.

Can I invite others to join Tracker?

If you're a project owner, you can invite anyone with an email address to your project.

How can I update my personal information?

The Profile link allows you to change your username, full name, initials, email address, password, and email notification settings. Please see our Privacy Policy for more information on how we protect your private data.

What is the difference between an account and a user?

A user is a person with an email address, password, and an optional username. Projects belong to accounts rather than to users, and users own one or more accounts. So, accounts provide a way to group your projects. For example, you might create an account for your company projects, and a separate one for your personal work. Accounts are separate for billing purposes, and also allow you to share administration responsibilities by designating other users as administrators. This allows other users to create and archive projects on the account, or upgrade/downgrade the account plan. When you become a Tracker user, the system creates your first account for you automatically. You may create additional accounts on the Account or Accounts pages.

What happens when I delete an account?

Deleting an account causes all projects in that account to be removed, so be careful.

What are account members?

Account members are Tracker users associated with a particular account, for the purpose of working together on projects and sharing administrative capabilities. You do not need to add users to the account members list explicitly, it will populate automatically as you invite people to projects in the account. The account members page gives you more control and visibility into your account, however, which can be useful for larger companies, with many projects and people. Account members sharing administrative capabilities can have the following roles:

Owner: By default, this is the person who created the account. The account owner can view and change any project in the account, add/remove project members, change project settings, etc. An account can have only one owner.

Admin: These are additional people who can administer projects in the account, add/remove members, or change project settings. Admins have the right to change people's roles, meaning they can add additional admins, and they can also transfer the ownership of the account to any other admin. Admins should be trusted people within your organization.

Project Creator: Anyone designated as a Project Creator can create projects in the account, in addition to the account owner and admins.

How do I transfer ownership of an account?

You can change the owner of the account on the Account Settings page, to any existing admin. If you haven't designated any admins for your account, you can do so on the Account Members page.

Can I move projects between accounts?

Yes, project owners can change the account that a given project is associated with. Go to project settings, and click on the 'Change' link next to the account name (it's the second field, under 'Project Title'). You can move the project to any account in which you are an admin or have permission to create projects. For more information, please see moving and consolidating projects under one account.

What if I need to limit who can be invited to projects in my account?

Normally, project owners can invite anyone to their projects. If you'd like to restrict project memberships to people explicitly listed on the account, for example employees of your company, you can choose the 'Restrict Project Members' option on the Account Settings page. If enabled, only explicit account members can be added to projects. Explicit account members can be managed on the Account Members page.

What is a story?

A story is small, concrete deliverable for your project. Typically, on a software project, it's a concise description of some functionality, and is usually written from the perspective of the user. A good story is understood by everyone on your team - developers, product owners, and users - and describe something that can be verified and accepted by the project's customer. A simple example: 'A user should be able to add a product to their shopping cart'.

How much detail should I capture in a story?

We like to think of stories as placeholders for ongoing conversations, and tend to keep stories short, typically to one sentence. It's possible to capture a longer description in the description field, though, and converse about the story using story comments.

Can I break down a story into smaller tasks?

We recommend breaking your project into small stories, so that each story describes a single, concrete feature that adds incremental value. With small stories, there is rarely a need to break things down further, but sometimes developers like to keep a to-do list while working on a story. This is the purpose of the "Tasks" section in story details, under the description field. Hover over a task to edit it, delete it, or move it up and down. You can also check off a task when it's complete, but task status does not affect overall story status. If you do not wish to use tasks on your project, you can go to your project settings, and uncheck the 'enable tasks' option under General.

Why are my stories moving from the backlog to the current panel?

Tracker automatically moves stories from the top of the backlog to the current iteration based on project velocity. For example, if your velocity is 6, Tracker will move 6 points worth of stories to the current iteration, because that is what is projected to be completed. Think of the current panel as a view of the top of the backlog (In fact, there's even an option on the Profile page to 'Include Current in Backlog', for teams that prefer the single, unified view of all prioritized stories).

When do accepted stories move from Current to Done?

Accepted stories stay in the current iteration until the iteration is over, and a new one begins (usually the following week, depending on how long your iterations are). At that point, the current iteration moves to the Done panel, along with all stories accepted in the iteration.

Why can't I move done stories from Current to Done?

Accepted stories in the Current Iteration/Panel will move the Done panel once the current iteration ends. For example if you are using the Project setting defaults (weekly iterations starting on Mondays), your Current iteration will roll over next Monday morning.

Can I move multiple stories?

You can drag and drop multiple stories, in the same way as single stories, after selecting them. To select stories, use the small checkboxes to the right of the story titles. If you'd like to select a range of stories, click the first checkbox that you want, then shift click another checkbox farther down the list to select that story and all the stories in-between. This will allow you to drag them together, or use some of the other actions in the Stories drop-down menu, such as export to CSV or move to another project. Note: range select with shift-click only works in a single panel at a time, but you can select multiple ranges of stories across the whole project.

Why did my story un-start when I moved it?

It’s possible to drag single or multiple stories that are started, down among un-started stories in current, also to the backlog or icebox. Since work in progress should always be at the top of current, when you move them to those locations, Tracker just does the right thing and un-starts them.

How can I quickly drag stories to the top or bottom of a panel, especially if the panel contains many stories?

While you are dragging a story, a panel will auto-scroll when you get near the top or the bottom of a panel. However, when you are dragging within a panel containing many stories, it can be slow to wait for the entire panel to scroll by. You can use the 'Clone Panel' () icon to make this easier:

1. Clone the panel with the stories to be moved
2. Select the stories in the first panel
3. Scroll the second panel to the top or bottom using the scrollbar (which is much quicker than scrolling while dragging)
4. Drag the selected stories from the first panel to the second panel, either above the top story or on the hash-marked drop zone at the bottom

What if more than one person edits a story concurrently?

Your Tracker browser session is never more than a few seconds out of date with the server. If two people make changes to the same story in that small window, Tracker picks a winner and rolls back the changes made by the loser. The person losing this arbitration receives a notification that their changes have been overwritten.

How do I find a particular story?

Use the search field at the top of the Project page to find stories. The simplest way is to search by some text in the story name or description, but more advanced searches are also possible (see below). Searches are performed across all story text (e.g., title, description, notes, tasks, requestor, owner, attachment filename and attachment description). You can click the Reveal button to highlight the story in context.

How can I find all stories that I own but haven't yet started?

Developers often wish to see all the stories they own but haven't yet started. The My Work panel will show any stories assigned to you that have not yet been started. It will also display all stories in Delivered status (i.e., ready for Accept or Reject) for which you are the requester.

How can I find all stories I've requested that are delivered and ready for me to verify?

Project managers often want to know what stories have been delivered and are ready for them to accept or reject. The My Work panel will show all stories in Delivered status (i.e., ready for Accept or Reject) for which you are the requester. It will also display any stories assigned to you that have not yet been started.

How do I find the history for a particular story?

With the story expanded, click the View History button. The Project History panel will open with the complete history for that story.

Can I open multiple panels of the same type?

Yes, you can duplicate any panel by clicking on the clone () icon in the panel header. This comes in handy when reorganizing a backlog or icebox with a large number of stories.

How will I know if stories I care about are being delivered, or have been rejected?

Tracker emails the requester (usually the PM) when the story is delivered. Tracker also emails the owner (typically a developer) when a story is rejected. These notification options are set on the Profile page.

Can I comment on a story via email?

Simply reply to a notification email from Tracker, and all of the text that you add in your reply (above the copy of the notification your emailer automatically includes) will be added to that story as a comment. For this to work, you must send the reply from the email address associated with your Tracker login.

Can a story belong to more than one project?

No, stories are unique to a particular project, and cannot be associated with stories in other projects. Similarly, labels and releases are all project-specific.

Can I move a story from one project to another?

Yes. To move a story, or a group of stories, select them first, using the selection check boxes to the right of story titles. Then, select the 'Move to Project...' option in the Stories drop-down menu, and choose the project to which you'd like the story or stories moved. You should see a message that the stories were moved, and there should a history entry for the move as well, both in the source and destination project. Moved stories retain comments, tasks, attachments, as well as their own history of actions. It's also possible to move stories to a project via the API. Simply do a story update, with the target project's ID in the story's element. More on that on the API help page.

How can a search be refined?

How do I keep multiple search panels open?

Click on the pin icon at the top of the search results panel and that panel will remain open until you close it. A new search panel will be opened the next time you search.

Can I save a search?

Yes, click the save search button at the top of the search results panel, and enter a name for the saved search. Your saved searches appear in the Labels & Searches panel.

What is velocity?

Velocity is the average number of points accepted per iteration, based on recently completed iterations. It measures progress, and allows Tracker to predict when milestones will be completed based on past performance.

What are points?

A point is a relative, team-specific measure of effort to complete a feature story. It can be based on something concrete, like ideal engineering days, but over time it becomes an intuitive, relative metric.

What are point scales?

When estimating a story, you choose a value from the project's point scale. Currently, Tracker supports three default point scales: Linear: 0/1/2/3, Powers of 2: 0/1/2/4/8, and Fibonacci: 0/1/2/3/5/8, or you can create your own custom point scale. To use your own set of point values for your project, go to your project settings, choose 'Custom' in the point scale dropdown and enter up to 12 numbers in ascending order, separated by commas. Points must be whole numbers in the range of 0 to 999. When using a custom point scale, the estimate values will appear as numbers, instead of the bars that you see when using one of the default point scales. Unestimated stories will show the first 5 point values, which you can click to select. If your point scale has more values, you can choose one of them to estimate a story by clicking the '+' button on the right.

How is velocity calculated?

At the end of an iteration, accepted stories in the current iteration move to the Done panel. The sum of the points for the accepted stories is noted for each done iteration. The team velocity is a running average of the velocity of the past N iterations, where N is 1, 2, 3, or 4 as configured by the project owner. Remaining stories are grouped into future iterations based on velocity. If Tracker cannot make iterations of exactly the same value as the velocity it will ensure that the average number of points in consecutive iterations is equal to the velocity. For instance, if the velocity is 10 and there are 8 points in the upcoming iteration but the next story in priority order is 3 effort points, Tracker will leave 8 points in the upcoming iteration and plan 12 points for the following iteration. The calculation assumes that you will start the 3-point story in the upcoming iteration but you won't finish it until the following one.

The change in the velocity over time can be tracked in the Charts panel using the velocity chart. It shows the actual velocity for each iteration, the running average velocity, the mean velocity for the life of the project, and the velocity's standard deviation.

What is initial velocity?

When a project is first created, Tracker has no historical data from which to calculate your project velocity. Initial velocity is used as the velocity until the completion of your first few iterations. At that point, Tracker has enough data to calculate your actual velocity and the initial velocity is no longer relevant.

If your project goes without points for long enough that your velocity would be zero, then the initial velocity is used until you re-establish a meaningful velocity.

How can I change the velocity of my project?

You can experiment with overriding project velocity, but that's only visible to you, until you revert the override or close your browser. You cannot change the actual velocity, which Tracker calculates from previous iterations. Velocity is a reflection of how much your team can get done in a single iteration. Artificially inflating this number can lead to missed deadlines and stressed programmers. Your job is to estimate and prioritize your stories; let Tracker calculate what can be completed based on impartial measurements of effort and time.

Can I commit to more (or fewer) stories for the current iteration?

We recommend letting Tracker plan your iterations automatically. There may be times, however (for example early in the project, before velocity stabilizes), when it may be preferable to commit to more (or fewer) stories than what Tracker estimates will be completed. To plan the current iteration manually, start by enabling Commit Mode on the project settings page. You will then see a diamond ring icon at the top of the current iteration. If you click that, and turn on Commit Mode, you'll be able to drag as many stories into (or out of) the iteration as you'd like. This is only possible for the current iteration - the rest of the iterations in the backlog will still be planned automatically.

Why can't I estimate my bugs and chores?

We believe it's best to only count features toward velocity, for the following reasons:

1. Bugs and chores are a cost of doing business. Tracker's automatic velocity calculation frees you from having to account for this cost, allowing you to focus your planning on business value, risk, and prioritization.
2. The goal of measuring velocity is to estimate how much business-valued work can be completed in an iteration, allowing you to predict when project milestones may be achieved. Therefore, only work which provides business value is given points. Bugs are not given points because fixing bugs actually distracts from providing business value.
3. When there are bugs in features which have already been accepted, points have already been measured in the project velocity for that feature. Counting them again would be double counting.
4. Chores should be thought of as engineering overhead, not directly providing business value, but merely enabling the ability to provide business value.

C'mon, I really want to, can't I please estimate my bugs and chores?

OK, fine. Don't say we didn't warn you. In your project's settings, you can enable estimation of bugs and chores. Once you have turned this option on, it can only be turned off again if ALL bugs and chores are un-estimated (even ones which are in the done state).

What do I do if my whole team goes on vacation and gets zero points done?

Use the Team Strength feature.

How do I change the number of iterations included in the velocity calculation?

In Project Settings, you can change the Velocity Strategy to include the past 1, 2, 3, or 4 iterations.

How do I change the iteration length?

In Project Settings, you can change the iteration length to be 1, 2, or 3 weeks.

How do I change the start day for an iteration?

In Project Settings, you can change the iteration to start on any day of the week.

What is that little icon in the iteration header?

That's the Team Strength icon. Use it to record when your team is either more or less strong than usual.

What is Team Strength?

Team Strength is an attribute that allows you to say the team was either more or less strong during a particular iteration. It is usually used for holidays or other periods when the bulk of the team is not working. Team Strength is represented as a percentage; that percentage is applied to velocity either in the future (for predictions) or the past (for calculating current velocity).

Team Strength is a dangerous feature since it allows you to fiddle around with the heart of the Agile planning process, namely the realistic measurement of progress. We recommend that you use this feature sparingly if at all. For example, if one or two people are sick for one or two days in a given iteration, then leave Team Strength at 100%. Yesterday's Weather says that, on average, you'll have about as much down time the following week. Rather, you should use it when the entire team is gone (say, on vacation, or at a company-wide offsite where they got no project work done).

It is also possible to set Team Strength to be greater than 100%, which works the way you think it might.

How do I set Team Strength?

Click on the little icon in the iteration header. You'll see a little dialog box come up with a field for entering a percentage. After you apply that percentage, it will appear in the header instead of the icon.

Is it possible to change the length of a single iteration?

Yes, you can override how many weeks long a specific iteration will be, to deal with cancelled sprints, holidays, etc. Click on the start date in the iteration header, and enter the desired # of weeks in the popup window that appears. Iterations that have been adjusted will display with the start and end date in a different color (yellow). To revert the change, click on the iteration's date again and click the revert button.

How do I maintain project velocity when restarting a project that has been on hold, paused, or stalled for a number of iterations?

If several iterations pass where little or no work is done on a project, and then you resume work, you will want to use your velocity from the last iterations in which you actually performed work. You can do this by combining the features of iteration length override and team strength override:

1. Locate the iteration where the project was first "paused", and zero- or low-velocity iterations began.
2. Change the length of this iteration to include all of your paused, zero- or low-velocity iterations.
3. Set the team strength for this custom-length iteration to zero or the correct reduced strength for the period of time.

Now, the custom-length iteration with overridden team strength will only be counted as a single iteration in your running velocity calculation, and the last iterations in which you actually performed work will be included in the calculation.

How can I export stories from my project?

You can export the entire project, or selected stories. Use the 'Export CSV' option in the Project menu to export the entire project (or the entire backlog/icebox), or select some stories and use the Stories drop-down menu. This will download stories to a comma delimited text file. The first row in the exported CSV file contains column headers.

Can stories be imported from CSV?

Project owners can use the CSV file format to import stories (via Project menu on the project page). Import can be used to update existing stories, or create new ones. If a row in the import file contains a value in the ID column, Tracker will attempt to update fields of the story with that ID (in the target project), otherwise it will create a new story. Importing this example will result in one new story, and an update to an existing one:

Id,Story,Labels,Story Type,Estimate,Current State,Created at,Accepted at,Deadline,Requested By,Owned By,Description,Note,Note
100, existing started story,"label one,label two",feature,1,started,"Nov 22, 2007",,,user1,user2,this will update story 100,,
,new story,label one,feature,-1,unscheduled,,,,user1,,this will create a new story in the icebox,note1,note2

The first row of the import file must contain column headers. The only column that is required is 'Story', all other columns are optional. Importing this example will create two stories:

Story,Description
first new story, this will be the description for one new story
second new story, and this will describe a second new story

Note: Certains columns (in an exported CSV file) are ignored during import, including iteration number and start/end dates, as well as the story URL. Also, possible values for Current State are 'unscheduled' (meaning the story is in the icebox), 'unstarted' (in the backlog), 'started', 'finished', 'delivered', 'accepted', and 'rejected'. Possible values for Story Type include 'feature', 'release', 'bug', and 'chore'.

Note: When updating stories using the CSV import, to change story estimate value to 'Unestimated', set the 'Estimate' column value to '-1' in the CSV

Can I edit or add new tasks to existing stories using CSV import?

Tracker currently only allows you to add tasks through CSV import when you're creating a new story.

Can I import stories from one project into another?

Yes.

What are labels for?

Labels are tags, associated with stories. Use them to organize your icebox, and keep track of related stories (for a example a large feature or a theme).

How do I add a label to a story?

In the expanded story view or when creating a new story, click the Label Actions pull-down and select the label to apply, or "New Label..." if you want to create and apply a new label. You can also apply labels to multiple stories at once, by selecting multiple stories, and using the Stories drop-down menu at the top of the project page.

How do I use labels to find stories?

You can see all labels in the project in the Labels & Searches panel. Clicking on a label will show all stories with that label. You can also click on labels next to story titles.

Can I remove a label from a story?

You can remove a label from a story by clicking the Label Actions pull-down menu and selecting the label underneath Remove. You can also select multiple stories, and remove labels using the Stories menu at the top of the project page.

How can I rename or delete a label from a project?

Open the Labels & Searches panel. Hovering over a label reveals two icons which allow you to rename or delete that label.

Can I have a label belong to more than one project?

No. Labels are unique to a particular project. Similarly, stories, releases, and user-roles are all project specific. If you have labels with the same name in two different projects, searching by that label will only return stories from the current project.

How does a release work?

A release is a special type of story that represents a milestone in the backlog. Releases may be tied to production code pushes or they may simply represent a group of related features.

What does the releases panel do?

The releases panel shows all releases color-coded by their state. Dark blue indicates that the release is in progress or is completed. Red indicates that a release is currently falling after its deadline.

Stories can be added to a release by dragging them to the release panel. A story added to a release will be reprioritized so that it appears just below the last story in the release.

Releases cannot be reordered in the release panel. They appear in the backlog just below the final story in the release.

How can I set a fixed date for a release?

When you create a release marker, you have the option of tying it to a specific date. A line will appear in the iteration where that date falls. The release marker itself will continue to appear just below the last story included in the release. If a release marker is below the fixed date mark it will turn red, indicating the release is in danger of being completed after the fixed deadline. As long as the release marker is above the fixed date it will continue to appear in green.

What charts are available in Tracker?

The Release Burn-down chart shows progress through the Release chosen in the drop-down box. The graph shows the actual burn-down of points up to the current iteration along with the projected burn-down line assuming the current velocity is maintained. In addition, the necessary fixed burn-down rate is shown as a straight line starting with the beginning of the release and hitting zero points at the end of the release. If a release is behind schedule the target line will turn red. If a release is ahead of schedule the target line will be green.

The Current Iteration Burn-up chart shows progress through the current iteration. As stories are accepted their points are added to the line. The target line starts at zero at the beginning of the iteration and increases at a fixed rate to reach velocity at the end of the iteration. Falling below the line means the current iteration's velocity is currently lower than the running average velocity. Being above the line means the current iteration's velocity is currently higher than the running average velocity.

The velocity chart shows the team's actual velocity in past iterations along with the running average velocity and the mean velocity for the life of the project.

The Story Type Breakdown chart shows the distribution of story types and points by iteration. The values can be overlapping or stacked.

How do I update a chart to include changes I've made?

Charts react in real time to changes in the project.

How do I access reports?

The Reports link in the top right corner will take you to the various reports available. You can also access project-specific reports from the Project Overview page.

What is the Progress Report?

The progress report shows selected information about the stories in your projects. Select the proper date range and the project of interest. By default, All Projects is selected. The list will show the title of every story that changed state in the date range, along with the history and/or current state of the story, as selected.

The first column of checkboxes allows you to filter stories by Current State. The second column filters stories by Story Type. The third column lets you select whether to show the History of each story (every state change and edit in its life), the Current State of the story (in parentheses after the story name), both, or neither. If neither checkbox is selected, only the story titles will be displayed.

What are the Points Breakdown Reports?

These charts help you visualize the progress of your project as stories move through the different stages of completion. Stories start out as "Unstarted", then move on to "Started", "Finished", "Delivered", and then "Accepted" (unless they get rejected). The different colored bars show the point totals of the stories that are in each state at the end of each day. As days pass, you would expect the number of unstarted to go down, and the number of accepted to go up. If any of the other groups are especially big, the chart may help you identify bottlenecks in your workflow.

This breakdown is available for both the current iteration and the previous one. You can also use it to visualize the development of your entire project for the last 15, 30, or 60 days. Stories in the icebox, and stories that were already done at the beginning of the period, are excluded from the totals.

Is there a way to keep track of how much time I spend on projects?

Tracker does have basic time keeping functionality, which allows you to record how many hours you've spent on a given project, per day, for record keeping or invoicing your clients. You'll need to enable this functionality for your Account, on the Account Settings page, accessible via the Accounts link at the top right.

I've enabled time for my account(s), now what?

You should see a 'time' link in the top right corner, where you can enter time shifts for your projects as well as run and export time shift reports.

Can other people on my account enter time as well?

You can add additional 'time enterers' on the Account Members Page (Accounts -> Manage -> Members). Time enterers are those who can enter time on the account. Time Keepers are those who can administer time on the account and view all time data associated to projects on the given account. Time enterers on the account will be able to enter time against any project associated to this account.

Will Tracker keep track of how much time I spend on stories or projects for me?

No, time keeping is manual, Tracker only keeps track of your velocity at the level of a project. At Pivotal Labs, we normally take a few minutes at the end of each day to record how many hours we spent on each client project, for invoicing purposes.

Can I add file attachments to stories?

Attachments can be added to stories in projects that are configured to allow attachments. Open a story, use the Browse button to select the file you'd like to attach, and click Upload. Files are stored securely using the Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3). You can upload any number of files, but the size of each file must be 10 megabytes or less.

Where are the files actually stored?

The attachments are stored on the Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) service. The Pivotal Privacy Policy still applies.

Does Tracker have an API?

Yes, Tracker provides a RESTful HTTP API that can be used to create, update, and delete project and story resources programmatically.

How do I use it?

For more API information and usage examples go to the API help page.

How can I integrate Tracker with other applications?

Tracker allows you to prioritize and collaborate on stories that were imported from, and linked to resources in other applications, for example bug tracking tools, customer support ticket systems, etc. See the Integrations help page for details.

How do I add Tracker to my Google Apps domain?

Please follow the steps detailed here. Note - you need certain privileges in your Google Apps domain in order to install apps from the Google Apps Marketplace.

How do I add users from my Google Apps domain to Tracker?

As a Tracker account owner or admin, go to your account members page for the account that is linked to your Google Apps domain. Click 'Add Member' and at the bottom of the popup form you will see a link 'Add members from list' to bulk add users from the Google domain.

How do I attach Google Docs to my stories?

On a project that is in an account linked to the Google Apps domain, open the story details for the story you wish to attach to and click 'Add Google Doc'. You will then see a popup list of documents that you can select for attachment. Any Google Doc you add to a Tracker story will be automatically shared with project members, when they first open that Google Doc from within Tracker.

How do I remove Tracker from my domain?

Go to the Google Apps Dashboard for your domain - if you can’t find it via Google’s navigation menus, the URL is usually this format:

https://www.google.com/a/cpanel/yourdomain.com/Dashboard

All installed apps are in the Google Apps Marketplace section, near the bottom of the page. Find the Pivotal Tracker entry, and click the “Delete Pivotal Tracker“ link on the details page. This does not delete data in Tracker, it only removes it from Google’s navigation and revokes data access permissions.

You will also need to “unlink” the integration from the Tracker side. Go to the Settings page of the account that was linked to Google Apps (by clicking on the ACCOUNT or ACCOUNTS link at the top of the page in Tracker, then the SETTINGS tab), and look for “Unlink from Google Apps domain”. Again, unlinking the account does not delete any data, and you can link the account to Google Apps again at any time by following the steps here.

We've added Tracker to our domain but don't see any of the integration features.

This could be either because your projects are not in the Tracker account that you’ve linked to Google Apps, or the account linking part of the provisioning process did not complete. Remove Tracker from your Google Apps domain (see above), and follow these steps carefully.

I provisioned Tracker and see all the Google Apps features when I log in, but why do my coworkers not see them?

It’s possible that they are working in a project that’s in a different account than what you’ve linked to Google Apps - go to project settings in those projects to see what account they are in. The other reason they don’t see the features might be that they have not yet (correctly) associated their own Google Apps domain identity with their Pivotal Tracker login. Each person has to do this for themselves, as they’re the only ones who have the login credentials for both systems. If they are using a Google Account identity (instead of Google Apps), they will need to un-associate that from their Tracker login, and associate their Google Apps identities - see this entry for how to do that.

How do I associate my Google Account with my Tracker login?

From the Sign In page, you can sign in to Tracker with your Google Account or as a Google Apps for Domains user (click the appropriate link at the bottom of the form). This will take you to Google where you can sign in with your normal Google (or Google Apps) credentials.

The first time you use this Google identity to access Tracker, you will be prompted to choose whether you'd like to associate the Google identity with an existing or new Tracker user.

Note: If you're seeing a duplicate OpenID email warning, it may be because you previously signed in to Tracker with a different OpenID provider (Google Accounts vs Google Apps or vice versa). Google Accounts and Google Apps are different OpenID identities, and currently a Tracker user can be associated with a single identity only.

It may also be because you have different email addresses for your Tracker login and Google OpenID login.

If you have signed in to Tracker with a different email address than your OpenID email, please use that email address and Tracker password under 'Existing Tracker User', to link to your OpenID email address correctly.

Otherwise, to switch the Google identity for your existing Tracker user, follow these steps:

1. Sign out of Google and Tracker
2. Go to the Tracker Sign In page, and sign in with the Google option you used previously (Google Accounts or Google Apps)
3. If you don't have a Tracker password, go to the Tracker Profile page, enter a new password, and click Change Password
4. On the Tracker Profile page, click the 'remove' link to the right of the Google OpenID URL
5. Sign out of Tracker
6. Go back to the Tracker Sign In page, and click the desired Google signing option - either Google Accounts or Google Apps, depending on whether you'd like to associate your Tracker user with an individual Google Account, or a user that's part of a Google Apps domain.
7. After signing in via Google, enter your Tracker username or email and the password chosen above, in the 'Existing Tracker User' section on the left side of the displayed form. Your Tracker login will now be associated with your Google identity, and from now on you can just click the Google icon to sign in to Tracker. Remember to use the right one (Google Account vs Google Apps).

Google/OpenID identity management is complicated and can be confusing. If you're having trouble, please send an email to tracker@pivotallabs.com and we'll help you get everything set up correctly.

Why am I getting 'duplicate email' or 'email taken errors' when trying to sign in via Google?

If you see an error message about duplicate OpenID emails, it means that you’ve been to Tracker before, but signed in with a different Google “identity” (Google Accounts vs Google Apps or vice versa). If this happens, please follow the steps here.

If you see a message about your email being in use, it means that Tracker already has a login for you. If you don’t remember your Tracker password, you can use the “forgot password“ link on the normal Tracker signin page. If you’ve really never used Tracker before, then you have probably been “invited” to a Tracker account or project already by a co-worker. If so, you should have received an invitation email that contains an activation link. You must activate your login by following the link in the invitation email. You can then associate your login with your Google Apps domain identity during the activation process.

How do I refresh my view?

You don't need to explicitly refresh anything. Tracker automatically updates itself with changes made by other users. The browser client polls every few seconds for changes and updates the view immediately.

Are there keyboard shortcuts?

Yes, for some of the more common actions, including showing/hiding panels, adding stories, and searching. On the project page, type '?' to see help on keyboard shortcuts.

Can I receive email notifications from Tracker?

Tracker will send email notifications for a number of events. The requester of a story is notified by email when that story is delivered, meaning it is ready to be accepted or rejected. The owner of a story is emailed when it is rejected, meaning there is work yet to be done. The owner, requester and all members who have posted comments are emailed when a new comment is posted to a story. Finally, there is a notification when a story is created. Dashboard --> Profile allows you to specify which notifications you'd like to receive.

How do I help ensure that Tracker email notifications are delivered to my inbox?

Tracker sends emails from 'notifications@pivotaltracker.com' and 'tracker-noreply@pivotaltracker.com'. Add these addresses as allowed contacts, or indicate that these senders are not spam.

Can I subscribe to Tracker activity using my RSS/blog reader?

Yes, you can subscribe to the activity in a particular project, or your combined activity feed using any blog reader that supports Atom (for example Google Reader). To subscribe to a project, click your broswer's 'subscribe to this page' button. It's usually in the address bar. To subscribe to the combined activity feed, click the subscribe link on the dashboard, above the activity feed. The combined feed only includes projects that have the RSS/Atom option enabled.

Can I follow my projects on Twitter?

Set up a Twitter account for your project, and configure Tracker to send tweets to that Twitter account in project settings. Remember, tweets are public (and searchable), so if your project is confidential, enable the 'Protect My Updates' option in your project's Twitter account settings.

We use Campfire for team chat. Can we see what's going on in our Tracker project there as well?

Yes, you can enable Campfire integration with your project, and see project activity in your Campfire room. See the Integrations help page for details.

How does Tracker work with time zones?

Tracker defaults your time zone based on your browser or operating system setting, but this can be changed on the Profile page. All dates and times that you see in Tracker will be adjusted based on your time zone. Projects have time zones as well - this defaults to the time zone of the user who created it, but can be changed as well, in project settings. The project's time zone controls when iteration boundaries occur. If a project's iterations start on Mondays, and its time zone is PST, new iterations will start on Mondays at midnight PST. Everyone in the world will see the new iteration at that same time, even though they may be in different time zones. Someone in New York, for example, won't see the new (current) iteration until 3am their time.

What is your data deletion policy?

We retain all project and story data indefinitely, regardless of account or subscription payment status, until a given account is explicitly deleted by the account owner, using the 'Delete This Account' link on the account settings or plans and billing pages. When an account is deleted, all contained project data is deleted and stops being accessible. Read more about accounts here. Other policies, including our privacy policy, can be found here.