Release Management - booking timeslots for teams to deploy

[Caitlin Wintaur]

Hi there,

Wondering if anyone has any suggestions for apps or tools that could support this workflow? 

We have dedicated release windows each week. Each window is several hours long. 

The work being released spans multiple product teams (across multiple Jira projects), as well as platform/infrastructure, and sometimes they have dependencies on one another. 

I'd like to be able to 'book' timeslots for engineers to join the call at a specific time and release their work, so that we can ensure resources are available at the right time, and that any dependencies are completed first. 

Ideally we'd be able to specify the date and time of the 'timeslot', as well as the expected duration, so that we can line up other releases around it. 

Thank you! 

[Prasanna Ravichandran]

Hi,

Jira doesn’t have a built-in way to book deployment timeslots, but you can handle this in a few practical ways.

**Simple options:**

* Create a custom issue type (e.g., “Release Slot”) with date/time and duration fields
* Use workflow to manage booking (Requested → Approved → Scheduled)
* Link related releases to track dependencies

**If you need a proper scheduling tool:**

* Use a booking/resource app (e.g., Apwide Booking)
* Use a Gantt/timeline app for visibility across teams

Many teams successfully manage release windows using a dedicated “slot” issue approach.

Hope this helps 👍

[Caitlin Wintaur]

Thanks @Prasanna Ravichandran ! 

We do use Planned Start Date and Time fields at the moment, and also the workflow, but it's the visualisaation of it all that I'm trying to improve upon. 

e.g. I can see all of the planned tickets in a filter for a particular Window, but I'd like to see a calendar-type view of the tickets (based on time) so I can work out where there are any overlaps of resources or environments, or dependencies that need to be managed.

I'll have a look at Apwide Booking, the only other one I've found so far is Plutora (now acquired by Planview), but any other suggestions are welcome too! 

[Vladimir Horev _RaleyApps_]

Hi Caitlin,

If you're looking for a good visualisation of timeslots when booking, then you may find our app Raley Bookman useful.

Here's an example of visualisation that we offer (booking of meeting rooms):

In your case, you could specify your release windows as permitted booking schedule (the white area in the Timeline), and the works (tickets, issues, epics ...) that are to be released would be in the Resources column. Resources are, in fact,  Jira tickets.

Then the person responsible for booking time slots would book times for each and every resource via this view in the right sequential order to make sure the dependencies are properly addressed.

Let me know if you have any questions. We'd be glad to assist.

[Rustem Shiriiazdanov _Actonic_]

Hi @Caitlin Wintaur 

there is actually a few ways to achieve your requriements depending on on how "Jira-native" you want to go: Jira Plans (i think it should be available for you in Jira Premiuim?) - gives you cross-project timeline views with dependency mapping. You could model each release slot as a task with start/end times and link dependencies. It won't give the literal "booking" expirience but gets you visual scheduling with dependency ordering. The 3rd part solutions would be:

Tempo Capacity Planner i think is the closest to what you're describing. It's built for resource scheduling and capacity planning inside Jira. You can allocate specific engineers to time blocks, see availability across teams, and plan around it. Pairs well with cross-project work.

BigPicture could also work  - you can define time-boxed tasks across projects and see the entire sequence, pretty cool thing, but I am not sure on the booking capacbilities, did not work with a tool for a while.

And ofc, the DIY approach, as suggested by @Prasanna Ravichandran. I can add that some teams create a dedicated "Release Coordination" project where each issue represents a release slot with custom fields for timeslot, duration, and assigned Teams / People (just make sure you will allow multiple assignees, or intorduce a custom field for that). Combined with a calendar view in Jira or some cheap app (I am dare to recommend the app developed by my team for that purposes - Report Builder), this can work well and will keep everything in Jira.

Regards,

Rustem,

Actonic Products

[Caitlin Wintaur]

Thanks @Rustem Shiriiazdanov _Actonic_ ! 

We do have Jira Plans, and I've tried to use this, but it doesn't show the start/end times as detailed as I need. I'll have another look though, just to be sure.

We were trying to avoid third party apps (due to security review requirements) but I may need to re-consider, so I'll take a look at the two you've suggested. 

I mentioned above to Prasanna that I also came across Plutora (now acquired by Planview) which showed some potential/promise.

To your point about DIY - we do have a central CHANGE project, which is where all ready to release work is managed in tickets, and then we have start date and time fields on these tickets. So we are capturing the data, but we just don't have a useful way to see it. 

[Rustem Shiriiazdanov _Actonic_]

@Caitlin Wintaur you are welcome!

Considering the secuirty limitations you have, I'd say it may worth to have a look for some 3rd party apps which are "runs on atlassian" and "zero egress" - this will make sure your data never leaves your Cloud instance.

The other possibility would be to develop your own custom app just for your own Jira instance. Something simple:

• Query your CHANGE project tickets and their date/time fields via the Jira REST API
• Render them on an hourly/half-hourly timeline or calendar view using a Custom UI panel (React-based)
• Show dependencies visually if you're using issue links
• Filter by release window date so you get a clear "schedule" for each session
• Optionally highlight resource conflicts (same engineer booked in overlapping slots)
• Some simple management options - book slot/free slot etc.

If you have a developer who can spend a few days on it, this could be a solid internal tool (combining both view and management part). Happy to brainstorm the technical approach further if it's helpful.