Timelines vs Plans in Jira Software Cloud: Which is Better for Project Management?

[Sanam Malleswari]

Timelines vs Plans in Jira Software Cloud: Which is Better for Project Management?

I am looking to gather insights and experiences from the community regarding the use of timelines and plans in Jira software clouds. Both features offers a unique benefits, but i ma curious to know which one you find more effective for project management.
Similarities: Both provide visual representations, planning, tracking and managing work
Differences:  
   Timelines: Used within single projects and focusing on tasks and durations overtime
   Plans: Found in advanced roadmaps, used for  cross-projects planning with advanced           features like capacity management and scenario planning
Questions:
when do you prefer using timelines over plans, and vise versa?
Which feature is more useful for managing projects?
Any tips or best practices for using timelines or plans effectively?

[Kate]

I prefer Plans by quite a margin.

The ability for advanced filtering, the ways you can display/splice and the ability for the plan (with the right information) to suggest delivery plans make it far superior. Having different views pre-prepared and filtered/set-up for different conversations has been really useful as well. 

There's definitely a reason why Plan was originally named "Advanced Roadmaps" - it's the next step up and I feel like the Project timeline provides a nice simple quick impression, but if you're needing a tool to manage the work, Plans is the way to go.

[LEELA VENKATASATISH KOLLA]

In our implementation, we're using 'Timeline' for the respective team-level view and discussions; however, we're using 'Plans' for cross-team/cross-project discussions.

For a given release, multiple teams need to come together to plan, execute, and implement the release scope. During this process, dependencies will be identified and raised across the teams.

Using Plans helps us visualize the cross-team dependencies and initiate and follow-up conversations to resolve these dependencies on a timely basis. 

In addition to capacity management, sprint wise allocations, this is where we found using Plans helpful.