How to model single task at the end of all development in Portfolio

[Alex Paransky]

In our workflow, after the we are code complete and QA tested, we need to launch to a STG environment for 2 weeks and give our customers time to play with the code.  

So I am trying to model a single 2-week task called Staging after all the development tasks are done.

In my first attempt, I used dependencies so, the single 2 week task was "blocked" by all the other tasks.  But this is quite tedious to manage as we constantly need to remember to add new dependencies or remove them whenever we add another task to the release.

I tried using Epics, so I would group all the issues into a single epic and then make the Staging task depend on the completion of that Epic.  This worked, but if tickets are already part of an Epic I cannot use this method as each issue can only have a single Epic.

Is there a better way to model the 2-week Staging period after all development tasks in the release are done in Portfolio? 

[Vanessa_Roberts]

I use the constraint (do not start before) field in Portfolio to manage this.   You still need to remember to change/update it as your timeline changes, but it is just one field.

[Alex Paransky]

You are right, that is just one field.  However, if our Portfolio project includes entire year worth of planning there are other Stage tasks that would need to be adjusted as well.  

For example if we have 8 launches planned in a year, we would need to re-adjust 8 fields.

This is a better idea, but I am hoping to find something more automated.