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Scheduling issues

Scheduling work

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Scheduling issues is as easy as adding the duration for issues directly in your timeline. Alternatively, you can add target dates for the issues, and these dates will display in the timeline section accordingly.

Note that you need the Portfolio for Jira user permission to save scheduling changes in Jira.

1

Set the duration of work for an issue

  1. In the timeline section, find the row of the issue you're setting the duration for.
  2. Hover on the row until the + icon and duration for the issue appears.
  3. Click the row to add in the duration for the issue.
    (info) Note that the default duration for issues would depend on the timeframe in which you're viewing the plan:
    • 3M: 1 week
    • 1Y: 1 month
    • Fit: The default duration depends on the date range of the issues in the timeline, which in effect, affects the width of the issues in the timeline. If the width fit is small, then the default duration could perhaps be a week or a month.
    • Custom: The default duration depends on the duration that you set between the start and end dates. If you set a short period of time, then the default duration would be shorter as well.
  4. Save the changes by doing the following:
    1. Click Review changes. The 'Review changes' dialog will display, with all changes selected by default.
    2. Make sure the checkboxes for the necessary changes are selected, then click Save selected changes in Jira.

    You need the Portfolio for Jira user permission to save changes in Jira.

2Set the target dates of an issue
  1. In the scope section, find the issue that you're setting target dates for.
  2. Set the target start date and target end date for the issue. This will create a schedule bar for the issue in the timeline section.
  3. Save the changes by doing the following:
    1. Click Review changes. The 'Review changes' dialog will display, with all changes selected by default.
    2. Make sure the checkboxes for the necessary changes are selected, then click Save selected changes in Jira.

    You need the Portfolio for Jira user permission to save changes in Jira.

To quickly remove a date for an issue, click the x icon next to the date.

3Monitor the status of releases

While scheduling work for your team, we recommend you keep track of the status of the releases in your plan.

Click one of the release icons in the timeline section, to view more details about the release.

Sample release icons and details

  • You can click on the left and right arrows at the top of the release details, to jump from one release to another.
  • The icons stay green while the release is on track. At any time a release becomes off track, the icon turns red.
  • You can highlight any release that's off track on the timeline. This makes it easier for people to spot these releases on the roadmap.
  • When a plan is auto-scheduled, a release that's off track will also display by how much time it's off track. Make sure to check the details of off track releases so you can fix this accordingly.
  • When you're filtering the issues in your plan using releases, the release icons in your plan will also be filtered. See Filtering issues for more details.

You can also use the releases view to monitor all the releases in your plan.

  • In the improved interface, Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is always used when handling the dates of issues. This is different from Portfolio for Jira live plans, which use system-enabled dates.
  • Depending on how dates are configured in Jira, the dates may sometimes vary across Portfolio for Jira and Jira. This means that an issue's dates in Portfolio for Jira may be different from its dates in Jira.
  • When scheduling child issues, the start dates and end dates of these issues roll up to the dates of their parent issues. Effectively, this means:
    • the start date of a parent issue would be the earliest start date of all its child issues,
    • and the end date would be the latest end date of all its child issues.

  • It's important to note that the change in ranking behavior can produce different scheduling results between live plans (any version from 2.0 to 2.27) and plans with the improved interface (version 3.0 and later). For example, even if issues are placed in the same order across both types of plans, the resulting scheduling results between these types of plans will be different.

    See Prioritizing issues to know more.

Rescheduling issues

To reschedule issues, do one of the following actions:

  • Drag and drop the schedule bar of an issue to its new schedule.
  • Edit the duration of an issue by dragging one of the sides of the schedule bar accordingly.
  • Change the target dates of an issue in the fields section.

Scheduling issues according to sprints

Before you begin, note that this only applies to issues sourced from Scrum boards and when issues are assigned to Scrum teams.

When a team and a sprint are set for an issue, the target start and end dates of that issue are automatically derived from the assigned sprint.

Sample plan, with target dates of issue aligning with sprint dates

  • You can still change the target dates of an issue if needed, even if the target dates are automatically derived from the assigned sprint.
  • If you reschedule an issue and its target dates no longer match the dates of the assigned sprint, this will not change the sprint assignment.

Caveats when scheduling issues according to sprints

There may be times when sprint data can't be loaded, either accurately or completely, into a plan, and this can be due to several factors:

1The issue sources being used by the plan are not boards

If a plan has multiple issue source types, sprint data will only be displayed for the issues that are sourced from boards. Issues sourced from projects or filters will not display any sprint data in the roadmap.

There's no workaround for this. The only way to display sprint data is to use the corresponding boards as issue sources for the plan.

2The issue may be assigned to a sprint that's not in the plan
  • If this is the case, then the sprint value for the issue in the plan will be assigned to sprint not in plan.
  • This issue may be included the plan because the project that it belongs to is one of the issue sources configured for the plan.
  • Ideally, the issue source should be the Scrum board in which that external sprint was created. This way, sprint data can be reflected accurately in the plan.
3The same sprint may be appearing in more than one Scrum board

Depending on the number of sprints on each board, the common sprint could have different dates on the timeline. This only happens for future sprints, since sprints are not given any dates until they become active.

For example, we have 2 boards, Board 1 and Board A, and we have Common sprint appearing on both boards. Both boards have Scrum teams associated with them, and these teams work on 2-week iterations. Both teams also have an active sprint.

Both boards have the following future sprints:

  • Board 1: Sprint 2, Sprint 3, Common sprint, and Sprint 4
  • Board A: Sprint B, Common sprint, Sprint C, and Sprint D

With the above conditions, when you group issues by team and show capacity on the timeline, Common sprint will be occurring at different times in each team swimlane:

  • For Board 1, 4 weeks after the active sprint is completed, since there are 2 sprints before it
  • For Board 2, 2 weeks after the active sprint is completed, since there's only 1 sprint before it

This inconsistency will just happen while Common sprint is a future sprint. Once it becomes an active sprint, the dates will resolve themselves across the team groupings on the timeline.

Read on for more details...
  • In Jira, you cannot configure dates for future sprints. A future sprint gets its dates only when it is started, which essentially means sprints don't get any dates until these become active sprints.
  • You can only control the order of future sprints, i.e. in which order feature sprints should be lined up in your Jira board.
  • Portfolio for Jira will try to infer when future sprints will start in the timeline, based on the configured iteration lengths of each team, and the list of sprints for that team's board. Because of this, Common sprint will appear with different dates on the timeline, for both boards.
4Two (2) teams share the same sprints, but the teams have different iteration lengths configured

This is related to caveat #2 — the only difference is that it's the iteration length configured for the teams that is inconsistent.

For example, you have 2 teams, Team 1 and Team 2, and they're both working on Common sprint in their respective Jira boards, and both boards also have an active sprint.

The teams work in the following conditions:

  • Team 1 works in 2-week sprints in this sequence: Sprint 2, Common sprint, Sprint 3
  • Team 2 works in 4-week sprints in this sequence: Sprint A, Common sprint, Sprint B

Even if Common sprint is the 2nd sprint in the sequence for both team boards...

  • For team 1, Common sprint will be given a 2-week length
  • For team 2, Common sprint will be given a 4-week length
Last modified on Dec 30, 2019

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