Work Tree report differs from the grid when 'Include all contributing work' is enabled

Summary

This article aims to explain a discrepancy between the Work Tree report capability counts and capability grid counts when the 'Include all contributing work' toggle is enabled.

Diagnosis

A discrepancy is observed between the work tree capability counts and capability grid counts while using the 'Tree View:Top-Down View from Epic' and the Extra Configs is set to 'Include all contributing work toggle' is ON and the T1 is filtered by Program + PI.

Work Tree: T1 filtered by Program + PI and “Include all contributing work toggle” is OFF

Capability Grid: T1 filtered by Program + PI

Work Tree: T1 filtered by Program + PI and “Include all contributing work toggle” is ON

Cause

This is working as designed.

Solution

When the Include all contributing work toggle is On, work item counts are calculated as follows:

• Initiatives: Since this is the Top-down view, Initiative count is not affected by the toggle. This is what all the lower-level work items are built from.

• Capabilities: This count includes all the Capabilities that meet the Tier1 filter OR that is a child item of any of the Initiatives in the Initiative set above regardless of if it meets the Tier1 filter criteria. This means a Capability that is part of a different product/release/etc will be included if its parent Initiative is in the Initiative set.

• Epics: This count includes all the Epics that meet the Tier1 filter OR that is a child item of any of the Capabilities in the Capability set above regardless of it meets the Tier1 filter criteria. This means an Epic that is part of a different product/release/etc will be included if its parent Capability is in the Capabilities set. Keep in mind that the Capabilities set also includes those Capabilities that do not meet the Tier1 filter criteria.

• Stories: This count includes all the Stories that meet the Tier1 filter OR that is a child item of any of the Epics in the Epic set above regardless of it meets the Tier1 filter criteria. This means a Story that is part of a different product/release/etc will be included if its parent Epic is in the Epics set. Keep in mind that the Epics set also includes those Epics that do not meet the Tier1 filter criteria, which may be the child of a Capability that also doesn't meet the tier1 filter criteria.

• Tasks: This count includes all the Tasks that meet the Tier1 filter OR that's a child item of any of the Stories in the Story set above.

Additional information:

• Changing the Include all contributing work toggle does not actually change the data shown on the Work Tree. It only affects the progress dials.

• A good sanity check of the Work Tree with the toggle ON is that the counts in the dials should match 1:1 with the work items visible in the fully expanded tree structure. (e.g. 20 capabilities in the dial should mean 20 are visible within the tree).

References:

• Work tree (top down view from epic)