Understanding the Craft.io Data Model

Craft.io’s system of record allows you to clearly organize and manage both your product strategy and product planning stages. Here's a short video to help you get started by understanding our data model:

Workspace Data Model

The Craft.io data model within a Workspace is comprised of the following components:

Workspace > Product > Epic > Feature > Story

Alongside these components are the time-bound containers of Sprints and Quarters, which define specific timelines for development and deployment.

Your Workspace is the hub for all your product management work in Craft.io. Typically one Workspace will suffice for up to 20 product managers – it’s where you will plan, collaborate, and finally sync with your product development software. Utilize additional Workspaces only when you need to define different team structures or unique terminology and where there is no need for joint Feature prioritization or dependency planning between multiple Workspaces.

Products are high-level entities that serve as buckets or folders to help you organize your work (e.g. Analytics). Later, you can divide your Product into smaller, more manageable work items (Epics, Features, and Stories).

Epics are the main components that appear below your Product layer and allow you to cluster and organize groups of Features. An example of an Epic could be Filter Enhancements. These larger and over-arching Epics eventually get mapped into your preferred development tool as epics.

Features are the building blocks that sit below Epics. They represent a user need or specific set of requirements that you need to build, e.g. Create a new filter button or Enable multi-select of menu items. A well-written Feature provides all stakeholders with the necessary requirements and material to refer to during development. Once a solution is defined for a Feature in terms of development efforts, you can push the Feature into your preferred integrated dev tool as a user story.

Stories are an optional additional layer that can be used by those who want to further break down their Features into smaller tasks and to-dos.

Quarters (previously: Releases) are the time periods you assign to your work items, and are presented on the Roadmap. These can be named as numbered quarters or specific names (e.g. “Q1 2024”, "Q1'24", "2024 Q1" or any other naming convention you see fit). In case you are managing multiple workspaces that are connected to a Portfolio, we recommend using the same naming convention for your Quarters, in order to be able to create a unified Roadmap view a the portfolio level.

Sprints are lower-level, short, time-boxed containers where the focus is on the delivery of smaller Features or Stories. They typically span 2 weeks.

Craft.io also accommodates product leaders with the Portfolio Management tool which offers a bird’s-eye view across your entire organization's Workspaces, by aggregating and consolidating all selected workspaces into a high-level view to improve streamlined product management and execution at all levels, across all products.

Using Craft.io’s Product Portfolio Management, you’ll be able to easily and efficiently manage multiple product lines, prioritize objectives and initiatives, and make sure all of your plans align with your business strategy.

Portfolio Data Model

The Craft.io data model within a Portfolio is comprised of the following components:

Initiative > Workspace > Product > Epic

Initiatives are high-level, strategic efforts or large-scale working items that can be connected to multiple Epics across multiple teams and workspaces.
In addition to the Initiative level, only the Product (Folder item) and Epic (3 dot item) are visible and shown in the Portfolio management views.

Craft.io product structure definitions

To sum up:

Term	Definition	Development tool mapping
Portfolio	A bird's eye view that aggregates and visualizes all selected workspaces into a high-level view to improve streamlined product management and execution at all levels, across all products.	Not applicable.
Workspace	A collaborative space for planning and management of Products. A single workspace typically houses multiple Product teams. One workspace will suffice in the vast majority of Product Management use cases.	Not applicable.
Initiative	High-level, strategic efforts or large-scale working items that connect to multiple epics across multiple teams and workspaces. These efforts are typically long-term and can take multiple releases or quarters to accomplish.	Map to Initiatives / Deliverables.
Product	High-level entities that help you to organize your work. The Product serves as a bucket or a folder to group your work items. In most cases, it represents a certain component, a Product team, or a large aspect of your customer-facing proposition.	When integrating with Jira, Products are mapped as labels in Jira by default. When integrating with Azure Devops, Products can also be mapped to Epics (although not recommended).
Epic	Work items that allow you to cluster and organize groups of Features, and have a set of properties that are assigned to them (such as Status, Start date / End date, etc.).	Typically map to Epics in Jira or equivalent.
Feature	Work items that represent a specific user need or a product capability you plan to build. Also have a set of properties that are assigned to them (such as Status, Start date / End date, etc.).	Typically map to User Stories in Jira or Features in ADO.
Story	Work items that can be used to further break down Features into smaller tasks and to-dos.	Typically map to Sub-tasks in Jira or Stories in ADO.
Quarter	Time period attached to Epics/Features. Can be defined as per your organization’s terminology.	Mapping is optional.
Sprint	Shorter work cycles where the focus is on the delivery of smaller Features or Stories.	Automatically maps to Sprint in Jira / ADO.

How to customize your Terminology

In order to update your workspace's Terminology (Product Structure), click on the cogwheel button at the top right corner of your screen and select “Workspace Settings”.

Then, go to Workspace Settings > Terminology and edit your required naming convention manually, by clicking the pencil icon and typing your desired text, or by using our Guru Terminology, by simply clicking it and choosing the required terminology (Jira/ADO/SAFe and other pre-defined Terminologies).
This is only applicable and relevant provided your user permission level is Admin or Workspace Owner.