5 tips for getting started with Advanced Roadmaps

[#1]

With the launch of Advanced Roadmaps for Jira Software Cloud Premium you're now able to plan across teams smarter and provide visibility to stakeholders (more info here). The new powerful features enable more advanced capacity planning, dependency management, release tracking and more. With the introduction of this new interface we wanted to share 5 tips that will help set you up for success with Advanced roadmaps.

We also have quick video tips for getting started here.

1. Setting up additional levels of hierarchy

Advanced roadmaps comes with the ability to create new hierarchy levels above Jira Software epics. They're very useful for consolidating work across projects/teams that drive towards higher level organisation Initiatives.

To set this up there are 3 steps:

1. Create a new Issue type for this new hierarchy level

   

2. Create a project to store issues at this level, ensure it uses this new issue type.

   

3. Configure the Advanced roadmaps settings to add a new level of hierarchy, and associate it to your new issue type.

   

When you create a plan make sure you select the Initiative board/project as one of the issue sources.

2. Use team boards as your issue sources

Advanced roadmaps can be flexible in how you want to source issues into a plan. You can select a project, a board or a Jira JQL filter to source issues to your plan. However, what may not be immediately clear is that some options are more constrained than others and may limit functionality. For this reason we recommend using Boards as the issue source, particularly if your needs from the tool revolve around Capacity planning.

It's best to ensure a board captures all the work relating to a specific team. This is simple to achieve in the case your team relates directly to a single project. In other circumstances where you have a teams that works from a shared project, or a team that works across multiple projects - we encourage defining a filter for that specific team and then creating a board from that filter.

To achieve this, you may define a specific variable (label / custom field) to associate the issues to the team. Alternatively, you could use the 'Team' field that comes with Advanced roadmaps as that variable.

3. Defining Teams for Advanced roadmaps.

Teams is a feature that comes with Advanced roadmaps. A team stores the the team type (kanban/scrum), team velocity, iteration length (for scrum team sprints), associated issue source (connects sprint data when associating a board) and the team members. There are 2 types of teams: Private and Shared. 

Private teams are defined within a plan and cannot be used outside of the plan (though they can be visible on issues if you add the field to the screen).

Shared teams can be used across different plans, and can also be assigned to issues from Jira. Private teams can be converted into a Shared team from within a plan, or a shared team can be created from the "Manage shared teams" page so long as they have permission for it.

When you create a plan, a new private team will be automatically defined for each issue source you select. If you've already established shared teams for your issue sources then you can delete the auto-generated ones. Additionally, you should remove the team that may be created for the "Initiative" issue source, as those issues don't really belong to a team.

After you create your plan, in the Team tab you can add shared teams into the plan or create new private teams. Importantly, ensure the teams also associated to their issue respective source. This is how Advanced Roadmaps is able to associate which sprints are associated with which team - needed for the Capacity planning functionality.

4. Adding Advanced Roadmap fields to Jira views

Parent link and Team are new additional fields that Advanced Roadmaps adds to your instance. These fields provide visibility of who is working on it and what high-level initiative the issues are contributing to. This is important context that provides insight to all users, not just plan users.

We therefore recommend updating your Jira screens to include these fields as they are not visible on issues by default. Jira admins can do this by configuring the relevant screens and simply adding Team and Parent link to the form.

These fields can be displayed on issue cards, surfaced in issue search table or used in JQL queries. When looking at new levels of hierarchy (i.e Initiatives) you’ll also be able to see all child issues associated to it.

5. Where is my issue

Lastly is just some advice around the nuances of how data is handled by Advanced Roadmaps.

• When you create a plan, there's a step to include releases. It's important to select all releases you want to include in the plan. Excluding a release will also exclude all issues assigned to that release. (Issues without a release or new releases created in the future will automatically be included in the plan).

• In order to keep plans hygienic, we have a default setting so that issues completed 30 days ago will automatically be hidden. This keeps plan data relevant, reduces mess and prevents performance issues due to increasing issue count.

  

  • Note: The data this looks at is the 'Resolved' date (associated to issues via workflow transition to 'Done' categories). It's possible remove or not include this post-function when creating a new workflow which can result in 'done' issues not appearing. We recommend ensuring 'Resolved' is used in your instance.

• When you create issues in the Plan view, you may notice it doesn't immediately get an issue key. it also won't be created in Jira at that point. This is because Portfolio uses a 'Sandbox' data model. As issues are updated in Jira, those updates are visible in the plan. However any updates you make in the plan won't update Jira until you decide. So you can 'play' with your plan as you figure out the most effective path of delivery, without concerns of messing around with the team's issues. When you're ready to commit to the plan or particular changes, you can save them from the Review changes modal.

  

I hope these 5 tips will help you get up and running with Advanced roadmaps. We're very excited to be able to bring this new value to you. We'll working hard to continue to improve the product experience so please let us know how it goes for you via the Give feedback button in the tool. Happy planning!

[Olivier Moteau]

@Rhys Christian I have just seen too late the webinar you were doing yesterday and this morning on The full overview: Roadmaps in Jira Software (https://www.atlassian.com/webinars/software/roadmaps-in-jira-software?_ga=2.225439391.444464360.1590056019-1042097385.1553254479). Was it recorded and will it a a link to watch it? Do you have future dates for it?

thanks,

Olivier

[Josh Berman]

@Olivier Moteau by registering for our webinar you should receive on-demand access!

[Abby Zimmerman]

I registered and was there for it yesterday. When I clicked the link in the email today, I can view it again. It would be great to be able to get the slides. 

[Claudio Marrero]

Hi, I have the standar plan and I want to enable Advance Roadmaps for classic projects, because we don't use the Next Generation projects.. Its possible to do that?

[Troy Cope]

Love the product, but having the 'auto schedule' feature at a 'plan' level is a recipe for disaster for those companies that are running large tribes with 5+ delivery teams in delivery plans.

Are there plans in the roadmap to be able to toggle this feature on / off? Or alternatively, only apply at a team level, or based on filtered data displayed on the screen (releases or teams etc?).

As it's currently set up, anyone of my 6 delivery leads can hit that auto schedule feature, and change the other teams plan by mistake. Super risky for us, so we are avoiding that feature entirely with our training / rollout. 

[Melissa Lyons]

If id like to try a free trial, how hard is it to back out if we determine this isnt for us?

[Julie F. Moore]

@Rhys Christian Is it possible to enabled Advanced Roadmaps on a Classic Software Project? Thanks!

[Josh Frank]

@Julie F. Moore Yes it's only available via classic projects right now. 

@Melissa Lyons it's extremely easy to cancel a free trial! 

[Christopher Chalmers]

I posted a question, then solved it myself, so removed the original question.

[Bayu Wicaksono]

is there any plans to extend this to next-gen projects?

[Jonathan Bäckström]

How can it not be supported in next-gen is my question? Classic sounds legacy while next-gen sounds like future and the naming encourage everyone to switch to next-gen just to realise that it doesn't support as many things as classic do...

[Pål Mørk Hansen]

You really have to support next-gen projects soon!

[Mark Davies]

Hi @Pål Mørk Hansen

I work on the Advanced Roadmaps team and I'm be interested in hearing more about your needs for next-gen project support. 

If you're keen for a quick 30min chat, you can book a time slot using this link https://calendly.com/markatlassian/next-gen-advanced-roadmaps

Cheers

Mark

[Walter Buggenhout]

Hi @Rhys Christian

Could you look into the possibility to set default values for the team field in Jira Cloud? As a crucial part of building the roadmap, work must be associated with a team. There is no better moment to do this as when an issue gets created.

I know that - when using shared teams - the Team custom field can be made available on the create issue screen. But it would be really helpful if a default value could be set, in most cases based on the project the issue is being created in.

I have tried several paths to get this done, but I still haven't found a decent way. As the custom field is locked, it is not possible to create different field contexts with different default values based on the associated projects. And that is most likely also not the place to go, as it would mean altering the context with each new project being created.

I have also looked into automation as an option. But setting the Team field there seems unsupported as of now.

Can you suggest alternatives that may work? Or pull some strings to get the automation fixed in the short run ;-)?

[Laura Spencer]

@Walter Buggenhout  did you get an answer to your above question?  I need the same thing

[Rhys Christian]

Thanks for the feedback @Walter Buggenhout  & @Laura Spencer ,

I'm not very familiar with the automation functionality but I've looked into a possible workaround for you to be able to use it to populate teams upon creation. Note they will need to be setup as "shared" teams.

This solution should work. However it's a bit tricky to put together due to the way that team data is stored. Additionally, while Automation doesn't natively support our Team field, you can reference it using the 'More options' expand while creating the automation step. e.g:

The team value is stored as an ID rather than a string which is why I have it set to Team = 16. Figuring out the team ID is a bit tricky but you can use the JQL interface to find it. As you type in "Team =", select the suggested "Team" field then find your team in the suggestions for specific teams. Once you select the team it will provide the ID - which you can use in the 'More options' as I have above. e.g:

I had to select both the suggested field & team name to get this to work.
With this you can creation an automation rule for either the project for a JQL condition (e.g for board specific issues) for the "When". For the "Then" use Edit issue, select "More options" and use the team field and ID. If setup correctly you should be able to create issues in the project/board and it will automatically get the team assigned:

 
I hope this helps. Again I'm not an automation expert so I don't know if there's a better way to do this. It's a lot more hacked together than what would be ideal but it should help for now until we consider making this easier to configure more natively. Let us know how it works out for you - we'll be keen to hear how it goes.

You may also find it useful to use bulk actions (either from Advanced Roadmaps or the JQL interface) to quickly assign the team to existing work.

Cheers,

[Laura Spencer]

Thank you!

[Mary Dahle]

I am having a heck of a time adding the "Reporter" field (default) to the Advanced Roadmap I created.  I can easily add my custom fields, just not this default on.  Help.