Traditional Template sample project: Folders

Folders help organize and track all items the team is responsible for throughout the product development cycle. The team set up folders to manage their entire development process, from concept through design and testing. The following information explains how the team uses folders to better manage their development efforts.

Folder types

Folder types let you configure folders differently based on their purpose. The team created a few different folder types based on how the team works. For each folder type, you can configure custom icons to represent each type in the folders tree, associate a default task board with the folder type, and enable or disable folder features for each type.

Folder type	Use to:
Folder	Default folder type for general purpose folders.
Product	Organize all items for a product. Product folders typically have several subfolders for various phases and areas for the product.
Release	Plan and track a product release. Release folders typically have several subfolders for the various phases or iterations for the release.
Backlog	Organize and prioritize backlog items at the product, release, and sprint levels.
Iteration	Plan and track a specific iteration.
Tests	Organize all tests at the product, release, or sprint levels.

Folders tree

The team’s folder structure splits each product into three areas: a folder that contains all test cases associated with the product, a folder with all backlog items for the product, and a folder hierarchy for managing product releases.

Test Library folders

The Test Library folders contain all test cases the team develops for a product. This gives the team a central location to track, review, and prioritize all tests used to verify that the product is working as expected.

To ensure test cases are not accidentally missed, the team configured an automation rule to automatically move corresponding new test cases to these folder. By default, these folders use the Test Planning task board.

Remember that test cases represent a specific set of steps and expected results for a testing scenario and are reused across multiple testing cycles. Individual executions of a test case are test runs, which the team adds to the appropriate release or sprint folder.

Backlog folders

The Backlog folders contain all the backlog items related to a product. In these folders, the team can triage, rank, and review backlog items when it is time to plan the next release or development cycle. By default, these folders use the Backlog Grooming task board.

Release folders

The v1.0 Release, v7.5 Release, and v8.0 Release folders are used to manage specific release cycles. All items associated with the release, including requirement documents, requirements, test runs and issues, are organized in the appropriate release folder. By default, these folders use the Project Tracking task board.

Task boards

Task boards are more visual, interactive views of folder contents that can help teams communicate and measure progress during a sprint, release, or other milestone. Task boards help with planning and collaboration during project status, post mortems, issue triage, and other team meetings. Whether you use Waterfall, Agile, or another product development methodology, task boards give you real-time project visibility.

In a task board, workflow states are mapped to columns, cards represent individual items in the folder, and swimlanes are created by grouping cards by user assignment, folder, relationship or document.

The team uses the following task boards to plan and develop their products.