Beta roadmaps are ready to test, but we’re just getting started
Hello Jira Align community!
I’m Andrew, a PM with Atlassian. I have the pleasure of leading the next phase of our roadmaps project, working to bring you a new, more usable experience.
With the 11.12.1 release scheduled to ship to production environments today, I wanted to take some time to review what we’ve provided in the beta so far, set the stage for future enhancements, and ask for your feedback. Let’s jump in.
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New abilities unlocked
Because we’re bringing you along on the journey to reimagine the roadmap together, the first few releases in the beta may have appeared to be light in functionality at first glance. This is because we’re laying the foundation for a more performant, usable, and intuitive experience.
It all begins with the architecture that beta roadmaps is built on. Our friends from Jira Premium helped us modify and port over Atlassian’s roadmapping UI elements. As Jira Align is better integrated with the Atlassian platform, we know it’s important to have consistent experiences as you traverse across our collections of apps. Not only do these elements bring you a familiar look, they also enable several new abilities:
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A view at the top of your strategy: Beta roadmaps support a wider range of views. You can enter the roadmaps page from the Enterprise team level, allowing you to view items from multiple portfolios.
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More time flexibility: A program increment selection is not required in the sidebar. This flexibility lets you view more plans across longer timeframes, while program increment labels show you where overlaps occur.
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Strategy and execution, together: View objectives and their aligned work items, together, in a single view. Instead of being limited to a flag on an aligned work item’s bar, objectives are fully supported in beta roadmaps as core objects.
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Visibility into hierarchies: You’re no longer limited to two levels of item relationships. You can expand the item hierarchy of a roadmap from themes down to features, and from a tier of objectives down through aligned work items.
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Multi-program support: Need to see work that belongs to multiple programs, or separate items by primary program? For the first time, you can curate the exact view you need using the Primary program and All program page filters.
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Multiple filter criteria: Filtering has been overhauled to provide you with more ways to control your view. Need to see items that are either accepted or in progress? Multiple owners? No problem!
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Advanced sharing: The new Share button in the upper-right gives you a way to share your curated roadmap view with others, including team context, time selections, display settings, and filters. You can also use the generated URLs to save specific roadmap views for later.
Top suggestions delivered
Through these new features, we’ve already been able to support some of your highly-voted requests:
- JIRAALIGN-5501: Save filter settings
- JIRAALIGN-5515: Filter on multiple values
- JIRAALIGN-5950: Filter and view multiple programs
- JIRAALIGN-5545: Adjustable column widths
- JIRAALIGN-6437: Control the display of program increment boundaries
- JIRAALIGN-5808: Filter roadmaps beyond program increment boundaries
Progress over parity
As we reimagine roadmaps, we're focused on delivering the most value possible and addressing needs that the old experience simply couldn't meet. Our approach is to rebuild from the ground up, avoiding many of the "papercuts" that existed in the past.
Copying over the current experience with full parity and then adding more functionality it isn't feasible, due to the evolution of planning practices and our codebase over time. We encourage you to explore the beta with an open mind, considering how it can enhance your planning and execution processes. You can help shape the development of new features through your feedback.
How to provide feedback
Starting today, please chime in on the comment section of this article to foster discussions with our Jira Align team and other Jira Align users about the jobs you want to complete with roadmaps, and the functionality most important to you.
You can also file a suggestion for a specific ability and track its status at jira.atlassian.com. When submitting, select Roadmap in the Component/s field to route the request to our teams.
In the future, we’ll be adding a dedicated feedback button to beta roadmaps, so you can quickly tell us about things you’re seeing or seeking in the moment.
What’s coming next
More exciting features are right around the corner. In the next few releases, we plan to add the following to beta roadmaps:
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Note: Descriptions and visuals presented below serve as examples only and may differ from final release versions. |
Inline editing
Beginning and ending date fields will be directly editable, without having to open an item’s full details panel. Adjusting these date fields will change the appearance of roadmap item bars, giving you a visual representation of the plan.
Milestone support
Remember when we enhanced milestones? That work continues with beta roadmaps, providing quick views of any associated milestones on roadmap item bars. We’ll add a setting to let you display milestones that have due dates. Hover over a milestone icon to see more details, and access the full panel when you need to make edits.
Suggested dates
If you’re the type that likes to quickly create work items, put them in program increments, then promise yourself “I’ll add details later”, we’ve got your back. A new Suggested dates mode is coming soon. When you ask for date suggestions, we’ll fill in blank date fields based on the earliest and latest assigned program increments. You can then quickly accept the suggestions you want to keep, clear the ones you don’t, and edit dates for unique deadlines.
Track Progress
Once you’ve set up your plan using a roadmap, you’ll be able to come back during a program increment to track progress, anticipate issues, and make adjustments. We’ll provide two new options to provide details on item status status: A Progress column option for filtering and a quick glance, and a detailed card on bars. The card will support multiple tracking methods, whether you’re using metrics like objective key result progress, accepted story counts, or accepted story points.
Further ahead
We want to assure you that both the existing and new roadmaps experiences will be available while we work to meet your requirements. We understand the importance of a smooth transition, and are committed to providing at least 90 days of notice before we’re ready to end support for the current version. You will continue to have control over the opt-in process through permission toggles as we work through this beta phase over the next few months.
Happy testing! We’re excited to hear what you think is good, what needs improvement, and what you need to be successful.
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Andrew Zhang
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