Grouping stories together

I love this idea too!

BUT if you want those groups to be persistent, analogous to a graphics application's layers palette, you probably wouldn't be able to start a story until it was un-groupped. Or... all the stories would need to be in the same state. ...because what would you do with a group that had one done story and the rest un-started, etc. ?

Would you still want groups even with this condition?

I abuse Release markers for grouping. All stories above the release marker is considered a part of a group. Unfortunately, there isn't a way to mass-move them except for Move to Top/Bottom of Backlog.

We would also like groups of stories, particularly as an aid to our business users who like to look at our progress at a higher level. For them, the individual stories have little meaning but the higher-level story is understandable.

From that, we have needs to show:
* how much of the group story has been done? that is, how many sub-stories have been delivered
* when is the last story of the group going to be done?
* Is everything scheduled somewhere or are parts of this group still in the icebox?

Now that I think of it, maybe the best solution is to use labels for this - particularly since different sub-stories are done in different iterations. But I don't think we can pull a report on a label and show its progress, when everything in the label is expected to be complete, etc.

I think its a great idea.

as Mark said above, there is some rudimentary grouping already in Tracker using labels. You can use that and the search panel to do most of what you are looking for:

See all stories in a group:
- use search term 'label:groupName' (or click on the label from a story)
- stories in this pane are ordered relative to each other

Stories can be re-ordered within the group.
- you can reorder stories in the search pane and they will be moved directly below their fellow story in the group*
-* currently the search pane does not show the updated order but the stories actual location has been re-ordered and if you re-run the search (just hit enter in the search field), it will show in the newly updated order

Move all stories to a new location:
- in the search pane header click 'select all' then from the actions drop down you can move it*
-* currently only to top and bottom of backlog or icebox, but this will likely improve over time

See total point value in group:
- currently I don't think the search pane shows this but it sounds useful and I could see asking the Tracker team to implement it.

How much of the group story has been done? that is, how many sub-stories have been delivered:
- The search pane is perfect for showing this information. You can tell by their order and their color how far you have gotten through a group of stories. (remember to click the 'show done stories' link to get the full list)

When is the last story of the group going to be done?:
- you can find this out by clicking the "reveal" button on the last story in the group and seeing what iteration it is in.

Is everything scheduled somewhere or are parts of this group still in the icebox?
- Again the search pane is perfect for this as the ones colored blue are still unscheduled (in Icebox)

In summary This may not be the ideal implementation of story grouping but it is pretty darn good, and as a heavy user of tracker I have use all the tricks mentioned above and find most of them to be quite intuitive once you start using them.

-Jonathan