Displaying Data From Milestones

This section defines how you can integrate information about your project milestones into your charts. When you define milestones in your project (i.e. a series of goals for specific metrics at certain dates in the life of your project), you will be able to:

  • Display the goals defined for each milestone in your project

  • Display the changes made to the goals defined for each milestone

  • Display the date changes for your milestones

  • Show markers for milestone dates and goals

For more information about adding milestone management to your project, consult Milestones.

Displaying goals

If your project uses milestones, you can use the goal element to display all the expected values for a metric for each milestone in the project. In this case, you simply use the name of the metric whose goals you want to display:

CFG goalMilestones
Figure 1. Temporal Evolution displaying the goals for the metric LC for all milestones of the project
<chart type="TemporalEvolution" id="DISPLAYING_GOALS_EXAMPLE" timeInterval="WEEK">
<dataset renderer="STACKED_BAR">
	<measure color="BLUE" alpha="200" label="Source Line of Code">SLOC</measure>
	<measure color="GREEN" alpha="200" label="Line of Code">LC</measure>
</dataset>
<dataset renderer="BAR">
	<goal color="PINK">LC</goal>
</dataset>
</chart>

In the example above, compare the blue bars with the red bars to compare actual analyses (V1, V2) against the goals for each milestone in the project (M1, M2, M3, M4, M4b and M5) for the metric LC.

You can also request the goals as they were at a certain date with the versionDate attribute and assign a weight to the goal, allowing you to draw other lines based on a goal:

CFG goalAdvanced
Figure 2. Temporal Evolution displaying goals with various versionDate and weight
<chart type="TE" id="DISPLAYING_GOALS_ADVANCED_EXAMPLE" byTime="true">
<dataset renderer="LINE">
	<measure color="RED" label="Line of Code">LC</measure>
	<goal color="ORANGE" versionDate="DATE(2014,03,01)" label="Old">LC</goal>
	<goal color="BLUE" versionDate="DATE(2014,05,01)" label="Current">LC</goal>
	<goal color="GREEN" shape="NONE" stroke="DOTTED" alpha="50" weight="1.5" label="Current 150%">LC</goal>
	<goal color="GRAY" shape="NONE" stroke="DOTTED" alpha="50" weight="1.1" label="Current 110%">LC</goal>
	<goal color="BLUE" shape="NONE" stroke="DOTTED" alpha="50" weight=".9" label="Current 90%">LC</goal>
	<goal color="RED" shape="NONE" stroke="DOTTED" alpha="50" weight=".75" label="Current 75%">LC</goal>
</dataset>
</chart>

In the chart above, you notice how the last 3 milestones have slipped and understand that the goals have been revised with higher expectations by observing the yellow and blue solid lines. The dotted lines can be used as guides to give you an idea of where 75%, 90%, 110% or 150% of your goal lies on the chart.

Displaying goal history

You can use the goalHistory element in a chart if you want to track the changes made to your goals. This is useful in a postmortem when you review deviations from your original goals.

CFG goalHistory
Figure 3. Temporal Evolution displaying the evolution of goals for each milestone of the project
<chart type="TE" id="GOAL_HISTORY_EXAMPLE" byTime="true">
<goalHistory>LC</goalHistory>
<measure color="PINK">LC</measure>
</chart>

The chart in the example above follows the LC metric and also displays the goals for the metric for each milestone in the project. By the second analysis, you can see that the goals for M4 and M5 have been revised, and that a new milestone called M4b has been introduced.

An optional milestone attribute allows displaying information about one milestone instead of all milestones, as shown below:

CFG goalHistorySingle
Figure 4. Temporal Evolution displaying the evolution of the goal the M4 milestone
<chart type="TE" id="GOAL_HISTORY_SINGLE_EXAMPLE" byTime="true">
<goalHistory milestone="M4">LC</goalHistory>
<measure color="PINK">LC</measure>
</chart>

You can use keywords instead of using a milestone ID. You can retrieve information about the next, previous, first or last milestones in the project by using:

  • NEXT

  • NEXT+STEP where STEP is a number indicating how many milestones to jump ahead

  • PREVIOUS

  • PREVIOUS-STEP where STEP is a number indicating how many milestones to jump backward

  • FIRST

  • LAST

Displaying milestone date changes

You can use the milestoneHistory element in a chart if you want to track the date changes made to your milestones.

CFG milestoneHistory
Figure 5. Temporal Evolution displaying changes in milestone dates for the project
<chart type="TE" id="MILESTONES_HISTORY_EXAMPLE" byTime="true">
<dataset renderer="LINE" rangeAxisId="HIDDEN">
	<milestoneHistory />
</dataset>
<rangeAxis id="HIDDEN" visible="false" />
</chart>

The chart in the example above shows the addition of a new M4b milestone and date changes for milestones M4 and M5 in the project, by the time of the second analysis.

An optional milestone attribute allows displaying information about one milestone instead of all milestones, as shown below:

CFG milestoneHistorySingle
Figure 6. Temporal Evolution displaying the date slip for the M4 milestone
<chart type="TE" id="MILESTONES_HISTORY_SINGLE_EXAMPLE" byTime="true">
<milestoneHistory milestone="M4" />
<measure color="MAGENTA">LC</measure>
</chart>

You can use keywords instead of using a milestone ID. You can retrieve information about the next, previous, first or last milestones in the project by using:

  • NEXT

  • NEXT+STEP where STEP is a number indicating how many milestones to jump ahead

  • PREVIOUS

  • PREVIOUS-STEP where STEP is a number indicating how many milestones to jump backward

  • FIRST

  • LAST

Milestone-based markers

You can use markers based on your milestones in your charts. The type of information you can display is:

  • Horizontal markers based on the value of the current goal for a specific metric with fromMilestonesGoal

    CFG fromMilestonesGoal
    Figure 7. Temporal Evolution displaying markers for the goals for the metric LC for each milestone
    <chart type="TE" id="MILESTONES_MARKERS_EXAMPLE" byTime="true">
<goal color="RED" stroke="DOTTED">LC</goal>
<measure color="GREEN">LC</measure>
<markers>
	<marker fromMilestonesGoal="LC" alpha="150" isVertical="false" />
</markers>
</chart>

  • Vertical markers based on the dates of milestones in the project with fromMilestones

    CFG fromMilestones
    Figure 8. Temporal Evolution displaying markers for the dates of all milestones in the project
    <chart type="TE" id="MILESTONES_MARKERS_VERTICAL_EXAMPLE" byTime="true">
<goal color="RED" stroke="DOTTED">LC</goal>
<measure color="GREEN">LC</measure>
<markers>
	<marker fromMilestones="true" alpha="150" isVertical="true" />
</markers>
</chart>

For more information about markers, consult Adding Markers. Note that in both cases, the marker labels are automatically set to the milestone names.