Force Jira Portfolio Plan to Use Target Start and End Dates

[Vyom Upadhya]

Description

I have set up a plan in Jira Portfolio that has many initiatives (Kanban based)

One of the initiatives represents a year long initiative in my plan where I need Portfolio to "spread" the hours I have estimated for the initiative from the Target Start Date to the Target End Date. 

I have allocated hours to this initiative, and a team is assigned to the Project that has this initiative. However, this initiative has a clear start and end date - it should NOT end prior to the Target End date.

Portfolio is currently ending the initiative "too soon" because it thinks it can get done earlier given the effort allocated and the capacity available. 

How can I get Portfolio to actually "stretch" the initiative from Target Start to Target End.

[Dan C test account]

So my suggestion is a little kludgy and I have not tried it out, but it should work.  Any solution that you implement will not be standard, as you're trying to force Portfolio to do something it does not want to do.

1.  Take your initiative and divide it into a number of smaller initiatives (not sure how many, maybe 8 or 9 - you'll have to experiment).

2.  For each of these initiatives, click on the issue in the scope area, and within the panel that appears on the right, set an earliest start date.  This will force Portfolio to not schedule that initiative before that date.  This will allow you to spread out the 8 or 9 smaller initiatives you created.

Again, this is off the top of my head, someone might have a better solution.