Update Jira Product Discovery date range to be more specific as date gets closer

[jkoch]

I have a tricky problem I'm trying to solve with Jira Product Discovery dates. 

We have a JPD roadmap displayed on our public website. Right now, it includes basic information about upcoming product launches and when they will be available. We have been asked to add more detail to the roadmap for when preview access and cand other pre-launch milestones or information will be available. I would like to have these dates display as a range first and get more specific as the date approaches so we don't share our planned date with customers too early, only for it to change. 

i.e.,

• If the date is more than 6 months away, display the quarter
• If the date is more than 3 months away, display the month
• If the date is 3 months away or less, the exact date can be shown

I'm not sure if this is possible or if it would be less work to just update the dates manually. 

---

Here's my setup: 

• Products are tracked as ideas in JPD with linked delivery tickets (Epic with children) in Jira Software
• The dates for the Preview access (and other key dates) are tracked in the delivery tickets. 

Because these are key dates that everyone needs to know, I have an automation in Jira Software that makes the Preview date (and other key dates) available in the parent Epic (and then it copies the date to all the children as well). It works as follows:

• When Due Date changes on a ticket called "Preview," copy the date to the Preview field on the parent Epic. 

I don't want to maintain my dates in multiple places, so I would like the date listed on the Epic to be the source of truth for the JPD field. 

First, I tried to autofill the Preview JPD field from the Preview field on the delivery tickets. (Configure autofill dates). 

I'm not sure why, but I couldn't get this to work with the custom date field I chose. I could only get dates to populate via autofill when I selected system date fields, Start Date and Due Date. 

My next solution was to trigger the date field to update in JPD when the date changes on the delivery tickets. This was a success! Here's how that works: 

• The automation looks for updates to the Preview field on the Epic
• A variable is created for that date
• The custom field in JPD is updated as follows:

{

"fields": {

"customfield_12856":"{\"start\":\"{{productPreviewDate}}\",\"end\":\"{{productPreviewDate}}\"}"

}

}

Here's a screenshot of the automation: 

(Credit to this video by Robert DaSilva for tips on formatting: Dates, Automation, and Jira Product Discovery)

Now that I have the dates in Jira Product Discovery, I'm stuck. As I mentioned in my intro, I would really like to have some "masking" on the dates so we're getting more specific as the date approaches. Is it possible to do this via automation? What would that look like? 

Side note: I have the Smartsheet + Jira connector, so I've considered using that to do the date calculations and then push the correct ranges back into JPD, but I can't think of how to make it work without having a set of super long formulas. Because of the date format from JPD, I'm also having trouble isolating the date in a way that Smartsheet will recognize as a date. (That's more of a Smartsheet problem, but I wanted to share everything I've tried!)

Here's a screenshot showing the isolated date value and the MONTH function throwing an error:

Any ideas on how I can make this work? Am I wasting my time? Thank you for any advice or ideas you might have!

[Bill Sheboy]

Hi @jkoch 

When you cannot get the roadmap / dashboarding to display the view information you want, altering the JPD date field's values could do it.

There is some implied behavior based upon the values in the JSON as text stored for a value:

• a single date selection / display -- the same date is in both start and end values

"customfield_10107": "{\"start\":\"2026-07-22\",\"end\":\"2026-07-22\"}"

• a month selection / display -- the first day of the month is in start and the last day is in end 

"customfield_10107": "{\"start\":\"2025-07-01\",\"end\":\"2025-07-31\"}"

• a range of months selection / display -- the first day of the first month is in start and the last day of the last month is in end 

"customfield_10107": "{\"start\":\"2025-07-01\",\"end\":\"2025-09-30\"}"

Thus, if you can determine when to make the change with your rule trigger / work item relative to {{now}} the values could be adjusted as needed.

To reduce the risk of errors, perhaps consider preserving the original field value and using a separate one for display purposes, editing it as needed over time.

Kind regards,
Bill