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Status Future consideration
Workspace Targetprocess
Categories ADO/JIRA Integration
Created by Guest
Created on Nov 11, 2025

RELATED IDEAS

Enable Directional Control (Outbound/Inbound) for “Related” Relations in Integrations

Currently, in Apptio Targetprocess integrations (e.g., ADO ↔ ATP), when using “Related” as the relation type between entities (such as Feature, User Story, and Team PI Objective), the relationship is automatically displayed as both Inbound and Outbound in the Targetprocess Relations tab.

This behavior is due to “Related” being a symmetric link type, but in real-world enterprise configurations, customers often need to treat “Related” links as contextually directional, especially when modeling dependencies or relationships that should appear only as Outbound from a specific entity.

Business Impact

This limitation reduces flexibility and clarity for portfolio and ART-level reporting.
For example:

  • When a Team PI Objective is linked to a User Story via “Related,” it appears on both sides (Inbound/Outbound), even if the business rule or reporting requirement only expects it to show as Outbound under the User Story.
  • This leads to confusing or duplicated data in reports and dashboards that use the Relations source type.
  • The only current workaround is to use Successor/Predecessor links, which may not align with how clients model “Related” work items in Azure DevOps.

Proposed Enhancement

Introduce a configuration option to control the directionality of “Related” relations within Integration settings.

Suggested features:

  1. Add a “Directional Mode” toggle for the “Related” relation in Integration Mapping:

Options:

  • Both (default)
  • Outbound only
  • Inbound only 

2. Apply the directional mode to determine how the “Related” link appears in the Relations tab of Targetprocess.

 3. Optionally, allow per-entity overrides (e.g., Feature → Related → Team PI Objective: Outbound only).

 

Expected Outcome

  • Clearer and more accurate visualization of “Related” links in Targetprocess.
  • Reduced confusion when integrating with tools like Azure DevOps that use “Related” as a common link type.
  • Better control for administrators to align relations with reporting and governance standards.
Idea priority High
  • Guest
    Nov 12, 2025

    This would be an improvement to the current set up as it does cause confusion with the current configuration

    We have PI Objectives in ADO where User Stories & Features are linked as 'related' work - when this relation syncs to Targetprocess, it shows as both an inbound and outbound relation which is confusing.

    Reply

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