Getting Started with Quantize

What is Quantize?

The Quantize Extension for Microsoft Azure DevOps (ADO) will aid your team in managing professional services projects within ADO, as well as resolve numerous other gaps within the ADO product line.

Finally! A way to manage your project’s hours AND currency within ADO, and also rollup hours from Tasks to User Stories, Features, Epics, etc.

What does the Quantize Extension do?

First, the Quantize team has incurred tens of thousands of hours of project delivery experience. Through this experience, we’ve had many successes …and many failures. These failures have shown us that specific gaps exist within ADO; specifically, that it does not address BUDGET management.

ADO does a good job of Story Point management as it relates to Velocity planning in Sprints; however, we’ve also seen that professional services projects that charge clients by the hour require improved budget management within ADO as well as (or instead of) velocity planning and burn down charts.

  • Determine how much User Stories, Features, and Epics will cost at the beginning, during, and end of work.

  • Determine the exact cost of User Stories, Features, and Epics.

  • Does your team struggle when using 2-5 different applications to manage project budgets? e.g. ADO and Microsoft Project, Excel, Professional Services Automation (OpenAir/Oracle), etc.

  • Does your team struggle with dual-entry of hours billed to ADO Tasks or Bugs? e.g. do you use ADO and another timesheet program? Now team members can add line item time entries to Tasks or Bugs, and export them to a timesheet management program.

  • Quantize Rollups calculate Original Estimate, Completed, and Remaining Work fields on Tasks and Bugs and roll them up to User Stories, then Features, then Epics.

  • Create Quantize Projects in ADO that pertain to ADO Area Paths.

  • Reporting – Determine how much the entire project has cost to date, and what it will cost once complete.

  • Enhanced Work Item issue resolution – running reports will display exceptions for Work Items that are missing key elements for budget management

  • Assign Resources to projects with custom Cost Categories and individual rates per hour. Predetermined Cost Categories can be created and used across any Quantize Projects.

The Quantize experience exposes numerous fields and relationships within your ADO interface which help you track and plan your budgets!

Quantize Work Item Hours Rollup

Quantize Rollups listen for modifications to ADO Tasks and Bugs. When ADO Tasks or Bugs have updates to their “Original Estimate”, “Completed Work”, and/or “Remaining” fields, the Quantize Rollups will update the Parent Work Item’s Original Estimate, Completed Work, and/or Remaining fields behind the scenes.

FAQ: How do I enable Rollups?

When Quantize is first installed, Quantize Rollups are not enabled by default. To enable Quantize Rollups, you must first create a Quantize Project. Once a Quantize Project has been created, Quantize will install the necessary Web Hooks (within ADO Project Settings-> Service Hooks). You don’t have to use the Quantize Project if you only want Quantize Rollups. In addition, when you create a Quantize Project, you are required to select an Area Path. The Quantize Rollups will work within the entire Backlog of the ADO Project, not just the Area Path selected in the Quantize Project.

PRO TIP: Quantize Rollups are not enabled Organization-wide, they are only enabled per ADO Project. This provides ADO Administrators the flexibility to control where rollups are utilized within their Organization.

PRO TIP: The ADO API can take roughly 8 seconds to update parent Work Items.

Setting up your Quantize Project

STEP
1

Create a Project

STEP
2

Configure the project

STEP