Aha! Roadmaps | Get started with your new account

Aha! Roadmaps helps teams build what matters. It all starts with strategy — set yours, connect it to the work you need to do, and visualize it in reports and roadmaps. Along the way, Aha! Roadmaps helps you prioritize work, collaborate with cross-functional teams, and integrate with multiple software tools so that you can sync with other teams and other types of data.

If you have just moved from an Aha! trial to a new Aha! account, welcome! This article will help you get set up, so you can structure your new account for success.

If you are new to Aha! Roadmaps, we recommend that you watch this video to get a sense of how Aha! Roadmaps works.

Click any of the following links to skip ahead:

Move in
Set a bold strategy
Build out your plans
Prioritize work
Showcase your progress
Next steps

Move in

Your Aha! Roadmaps account comes with everything you need to achieve your strategic vision — except your team's culture, workflows, and data.

Start by customizing your account, importing records, and configuring integrations. You might have done some of this in your Aha! Roadmaps trial or you might be starting fresh. Either way, think about how you can structure your Aha! account for success.

Where to go

What to do

Best practices

Account settings

Settings ⚙️ Account

These settings apply to your entire Aha! account — though you can choose which settings you want to apply to individual workspaces.

Build out your workspace hierarchy. This defines your Aha! account structure and gives you a chance to configure settings once that every workspace can inherit.
Customize a record workflow.
Configure a custom layout.
Add a custom field.

Think intentionally about how you want to define workspaces in your Aha! account.

It may not be as simple as one workspace per product component — in fact, it is often better to create workspaces based on value you deliver to your customers.

If you are at all unsure, reach out to Customer Success for a hierarchy review.

Workspace line settings

Settings ⚙️ Workspace

These settings apply to workspaces and workspace lines. If you configure these settings at the line level, then any child workspaces can inherit your customization, and everyone can be oriented to their work in the same way.

Customize your terminology.

Data migration

Settings ⚙️ Workspace

Bring in your data. You can import records through a simple CSV import, or directly from a development tool such as Jira, Azure, or Rally.
Import from your development tool.
Import from CSV.

You do not have to bring in everything in one import right away. Try a few small imports to make sure you are pulling in everything you need — then bring in the rest.

Integrations

Settings ⚙️ Account or Settings ⚙️ Workspace

Aha! Roadmaps has access to more than 30 integrations.

Integrate your Aha! account with the external tools you rely on.
If you want to start fresh, trial other Aha! products like Aha! Develop.

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Set a bold strategy

Strategy first. Your strategy creates a framework to prioritize work — and orients everyone around your ambitious goals. Start by articulating your high-level vision, then define your competitive landscape and link your strategy to the work that will implement it.

You can set strategy at multiple levels of your workspace hierarchy — from the highest company level to a single product workspace.

Where to go	What to do	Best practices
Strategic foundation Strategy Vision Strategy Models Strategy Positioning	Complete a high-level strategic vision template. Complete as many strategic models as you find useful. Complete a positioning statement for your company or products.	This section is important if you need help defining your strategy. If you would rather define work first, skip ahead and create goals and initiatives.
Market strategy Strategy Personas Strategy Competitors	If you have completed some market research, create a couple personas to further define your target customers. Define your competitive landscape with competitor profiles — then chart your competition based on their product breadth and ability to execute.
Strategic imperatives Strategy Goals Strategy Initiatives	Create a few goals. Remember, goals should be time-bound and measurable — think "increase revenue by 30% YoY" instead of "increase revenue." Create initiatives to define the large, strategic themes of work that will help you reach your goals.	You will link your work to initiatives — and as a general rule, initiatives should be linked to the goals they support.

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Build out your plans

You have a vision. Now plan to get there. If you have integrated with a development tool, or are migrating away from another roadmapping tool, you can import records that define work your team needs to complete. Otherwise, create records from scratch, and then define your high-level plan in a Gantt chart.

Where to go

What to do

Features board

Features Board

Create parking lots to define your backlog — important work you have not yet committed to.
Create a release — a container for work organized around a specific date.
Create or import features, then add them to either a parking lot or a release.

Gantt chart

Releases Gantt

Add release phases to your release. Think about the Complete Product Experience — everything that will contribute to a lovable customer experience on release day.
Add records to release phases.
Create dependencies between records or phases.

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Prioritize work

Work on what matters most. Use the product value scorecard to score records objectively — based on their strategic impact and estimated effort. Sort your release by the highest scoring records, or move to the prioritization page to spend more time thinking about the records that will best contribute to your strategic imperatives.

Where to go	What to do	Best practices
Account settings Settings ⚙️ Account Scorecards	Open the Product value score, then examine the metrics and equation. Use the Scorecard preview to try out the scorecard. Does the final score align with the metric values you selected?	Customize the product value scorecard to fit your team's needs.
Features board Features Board	Score the features in a release. Sort the release by score.
Prioritization Features Prioritization	Adjust your features' scores or drag features into a custom stack ranking. Assign features to users in your account.

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Showcase your progress

Visualize your strategy and your real-time progress toward your goals. Use roadmaps to visualize your plan and reports to uncover insights, mitigate conflicts, and highlight strengths. Then share everything with stakeholders. Reports and roadmaps update as you change details and as your team completes work — so you always have an accurate picture of where you are headed.

This video shows how to create roadmaps for your team using Aha! product roadmap software.

Where to go	What to do
Gantt chart Releases Gantt	Review the Gantt chart you created. Is everything on track? Can you anticipate any conflicts? Save your Gantt chart.
Roadmap Roadmaps Starter Roadmaps Strategy	Create a few records with the starter roadmap. Save your starter roadmap. Visualize your initiatives with the strategy roadmap. Save your strategy roadmap.
Analytics Roadmaps Overview	Click into the Example reports and select Pivot table: Feature status. Customize it to fit your needs with filters and fields. Click into any record to adjust its details. Save your pivot table.
Presentations Roadmaps Presentation	Create a new presentation. Add your saved Aha! views as presentation slides. Add annotations and adjust each view's update frequency. Present your plans to your stakeholders.
Dashboards Roadmaps Dashboards	Create a new dashboard. Add some of the reports and roadmaps you just created or use Example panels to create a dashboard from example reports.

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Next steps

Congratulations! You are well on your way to a successful Aha! Roadmaps implementation.

If you get stuck, please reach out to our Customer Success team. Our team is made up entirely of product experts and responds fast.