Release of Portfolio Cross-Project Release

Question

Hello,

I've started using Portfolio for a few months and now that we've reached release time I wonder how to actually use the cross-project release feature (CPR) to close the CPR and the individual releases (or versions in Jira).

It's fairly straitforward to create a CPR and to link it to individual releases for the projects in the plan. Even the "align date" is pretty nice when some deadlines shift. But how am I supposed to handle the fact that a release has been done and that the CPR has to be released?

In Jira, one can release a version and automatically re-assign open issues to another selected release but it doesn't seem to be possible to do the same with a CPR. Am I suppose to release the individual releases one by one? How can I keep the release in the plan for further reference and indicate it as done?

I also found that even though some release dates are overdue (e.g. 31-03-2017), Portfolio keeps on adding issues to those releases and complains that they are late. Is this a bug ? It seems obvious to me that doing so will result in an overbooked release.

Thanks in advance for sharing your experience,

Stephane

Gunnar Schmücker · Answer

Hi Walter,

I have the same Problem (I think) but your solution did not work for me. I have

* created a cross-project-release X in two projects with a planned release date that is in the past,
* then released the individual releases in JIRA,
* then hit "calculate" in Portfolio and still have an issue that get's auto-assigned to the closed cross-project-release X instead of the still open Release Y.

The issue in question has a remaining estimate of 1 day. If I set this to 2 days the issue get's assigned to the correct release Y. If after doing this I double the team capacity the issue get's assigned to the closed release X again. If after doing this I set the issue's remaining estimate to 3 it get's assigned to the correct release Y again.

It would be great if you could help with this.

Thanks in advance
Gunnar

Walter Buggenhout · Answer

Hi Stephane,

Yes, you will have to release your releases individually from within JIRA. This release process is quite complex and includes checks and wizards to decide what needs to be done with unfinished issues assigned to a release at time of closure.

That issues can still be added to a release is related to the release status rather than the release date. In JIRA you would formally release a version, which updates its status to 'released'. As from that moment onwards, it is considered to be done and issues will no longer be added.