Modify scheduled start and end dates in portfolio to use different date fields for capacity planning

[Narbeh Yousefian]

In portfolio there is 2 fields called scheduled start and scheduled end. How is this configured? I tried to look in my admin settings but these fields are not in the available fields. Is this something specific to portfolio? 

I have custom start and end dates for my project Epics which I would like to use in Portfolio, why is this not an option? And lastly, what is the point of adding in custom fields into Portfolio if you can't use them for portfolio management? The whole point of this view is to manage dates, why is the schedule date field not editable? And why cannot you use your own custom dates instead?   

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edit:

So it looks like Portfolio is only useful if you run SCRUM and build "stuff" based on Release. Meaning if you run Kanban with start and end dates but no Release, Portfolio is useless.. So frustrating.. 

[Martin Sturm · Accepted solution]

Hello Narbeh,

you are right, scheduled start and scheduled end are specific to Portfolio and are not editable purposefully. The reason for this is that they hold the start and end dates calculated by Portfolio's scheduling algorithm which is based on the issue estimates, available persons, dependencies and so on.

The reason this field is not available in Jira is that it is very plan specific. An issue could be available in multiple plans where people for example plan some scenarios or the like. Also the value would change whenever someone in some plan triggers a calculation.

It is generally possible to add Jira custom fields to Portfolio if you click on the plan settings dropdown (next to the title) / Configure / Custom fields. Then you can add them to the plan and in the Scope table as a column.

If you want to see your dates also in the visual schedule you could think about using Portfolio's target start and target end fields. These are available in the Scope table as well and if you switch from "Schedule" to "Target schedule" after a triggering a calculation you will be able to see the target dates in contrast to the best scheduled dates found by Portfolio given your plan data. Note however that these fields are also plan specific and therefore specific to Portfolio.

Cheers, Martin

[Narbeh Yousefian]

Thank you Martin. Appreciate the response here. Managed to figure it out in the end with your help. Cheers

[Mehrshad Setayesh]

Hi Martin,

According to image below, if you move the story to an earlier release, the release's end date should overwrite the computed scheduled end date. However, its not happening in my case. Do you know why? 

Thanks

M.