Manage team backlog in EAP
Summarize
Summary of Manage team backlog in EAP
The Backlog page in Enterprise Agile Planning (EAP) enables ServiceNow customers to create, update, prioritize, and schedule work items such as stories, features, epics, and capabilities across various agile team levels. It supports managing work within iterations like Planning Intervals (PI) or Sprints and provides consistent layout and grouping tailored to the team's agile structure and configuration.
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Layout and Grouping
- The Backlog layout is consistent across Agile Team, Agile Release Train (ART), Solution Train, and Portfolio levels, but work items are grouped differently based on the level:
- Agile Team: grouped by Sprints
- ART: grouped by Planning Intervals
- Solution Train: grouped by child ARTs
- Portfolio: grouped by child Solution Trains
- For Kanban teams, work items are grouped by child teams at the Portfolio level and displayed as a list at the Team level.
- The default display shows up to 6 iterations, configurable by admins via system properties.
Work Item Types and Visibility
- Work items shown correspond to the type mapped for each team (e.g., stories at Agile Team level, features or capabilities at ART or Solution Train levels).
- Users can change the displayed work item type to see different levels of work assigned to the team.
- Full details of any work item can be accessed from the side panel.
- Only enabled work item types appear by default; admins can configure visibility of additional types if needed.
Handling Completed and Cancelled Items
- The Backlog section hides completed and cancelled work items by default to focus on active work.
- Sprint and PI sections display all items, including completed ones, for full iteration visibility.
- Admins can adjust visibility settings for inactive items through system properties.
Filtering and Personalization
- Column-level filtering enables quick searching of work items by choice, string, or reference fields.
- Users can personalize displayed columns and apply filters to tailor the Backlog view to their needs.
Key Actions in Backlog
- Create and edit iterations such as PIs and Sprints, including setting team capacity and committed points.
- Add new work items or create copies of existing ones to streamline backlog enrichment.
- Break down parent work items into child items directly within EAP workspace.
- Schedule work items into iterations for planning and prioritization.
- Start and complete iterations to manage work progress and closure efficiently.
- Reorder work items within sections to prioritize, except when grouped by certain criteria that disable reordering.
- Add frequently used teams to Favorites for quick navigation.
- Open work items in new tabs for detailed work management.
Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers
Using the EAP Backlog, ServiceNow customers can efficiently manage their agile work with clear visibility into work across multiple agile levels. The consistent layout and flexible grouping support various agile configurations and team structures. The ability to filter, personalize, and perform inline edits accelerates backlog grooming and iteration planning. Admin-configurable settings ensure that the Backlog fits organizational workflows and visibility needs, enabling teams to focus on active, prioritized work and maintain agile cadence effectively.
Using the Backlog page of Enterprise Agile Planning, create, update, and prioritize work items. Additionally, schedule work items into iterations such as Planning Intervals (PI) or Sprints.
The following sections provide a brief overview of EAP Backlog and the actions that you can perform in it.
Layout and default grouping
The layout of Backlog across different team levels such as Agile Team, Agile Release Train (ART), Solution Train, or Portfolio, remains the same. The change is in the way that the work items are grouped. As you go bottom to top in an Agile structure, the work assigned to the teams is grouped as follows:
- Agile Team: Grouped by Sprints.
- ART: Grouped by Planning Intervals.
- Solution Train: Grouped by child ARTs.
- Portfolio: Grouped by child Solution Trains.
By default, the number of iterations that the Backlog page displays is set to 6. You can work with your admin to modify this number using a system property. For more information, see Configure the display limit of iterations in EAP Backlog.
Layout and default grouping for Kanban teams
- Portfolio: Assigned work items are grouped by child teams. Any work item that is not assigned to the child teams is displayed in the Backlog section.
- Team: Assigned work is displayed in a list.
Default work items
The work items shown in Backlog are of the Type that is mapped for this team in the configuration. As you move up in your Agile structure, the level of the work assigned also increases. At an Agile Team level, you see information of stories. As you move up through ARTs and Portfolios, you see information of Features, Capabilities, and Epics. However, at any level, you can change the type of the work items displayed.
For example, in the screenshot, Capability is the default item type mapped to Compliance and onboarding tech Solution Train based on its configuration. You can change this selection to see work of other types assigned to this team. When this selection is changed to Feature, you can see all the features assigned to this ART. Similarly, you can choose to create and assign a different type of work item for this Solution Train, even though its default item type is Capability.
View the details of any work item in the side panel by selecting its primary column. To access all the fields and related lists of the work item, select Full details from the side panel.
Completed and cancelled items in Backlog
The Backlog section hides completed and cancelled work items by default, so the list shows only items that are active and ready to plan or schedule. Sprint and Planning Interval (PI) sections continue to show all work items, giving you visibility into both ongoing and finished work for each iteration.
You can work with your admin to change either default per section using two system properties: sn_apw_advanced.show_inactive_items_in_backlog_list for the Backlog section and
sn_apw_advanced.show_inactive_items_in_iteration for iteration sections. For more information about both properties, see Properties installed with Enterprise Agile Planning.
Column-level filtering of data
Quickly find the work items that you need by using column-level filters for the data on your EAP Backlog. Using the Column filtering option (
), you can filter data on any column displayed on the Backlog tab, which is of the type choice, string, or reference.
Actions within the Backlog
- Create iterations such as PIs or Sprints for your teams.
- Add work to the team's Backlog.
- Schedule work from Backlog into different iterations.
- Make in-line edits to update information of work such as Status, Assigned to, or Story points.
- Reorder planning items (in a section) to prioritize them.
However, reordering is not possible when the planning items are grouped. For example you grouped the items in the Backlog section by State, you won't be able to reorder the items unless the grouping is removed.
- Start and complete those iterations.
- Move incomplete work to the Backlog.
- Filter the data that's displayed.
- Choose the columns to be displayed.
- Open a work item in a new tab.
Use the following tasks to start creating and scheduling work for teams in EAP.