How do I get automatic start & end dates in Timeline view when a story goes into In Progress or Done

[Rauser]

Hi there! The timeline view for one of my projects looks like the image below. Not ideal..

I have a couple questions:

1. Is there a way to get the timeline to update the start time of the bar when a ticket goes into "In Progress", and then end the bar on the timeline when it goes into "Done?"
2. What is the best way to manage this without having to manually adjust all the bars?
3. Where are the start and end dates of the bar for each story stored? I can't see them in the Jira issue.

Thanks for your help!

[Trudy Claspill · Accepted solution]

Hello @Rauser 

Welcome to the Atlassian community.

Are you working with a Roadmap for a Scrum board or a Kanban board?

Are you working with a Team Managed project or a Company Managed project? That information will show at the bottom of the navigation panel on the left.

Generally the bars are based on the Start date and End date fields that are available in the issues. However with Scrum boards the bars may instead be tied to the start and end of Sprints to which the issues are assigned.

If the Start date and End date fields are being used, you could adjust those automatically using Automation Rules you can construct that trigger based on the transitions to the specified statuses. You would need to carefully consider, though, what to do for scenarios where the issue moves backward in the workflow. What if a Done issue was reopened? What if an In Progress issue reverted to To Do?

[Trudy Claspill]

I misspoke about the fields being used; they are Start date and Due date, not End date.

There is a Configure option that displays below the More Fields panel. Are you able to click on that to see if the Start and Due date fields are part of the issue layout?

If not, you will need to add the fields to the screen(s) used by the issue types in that project. Refer to 

https://support.atlassian.com/jira-cloud-administration/docs/add-a-custom-field-to-a-screen/

As for best practices, that in part depends on what you expect to get out of using the Timeline. Are you trying to use it to plan work or reflect what actually happened with the issues that have been worked on?

This page gives you some highlights about the available functionality. Note there is a difference between the Basic and Advanced features. With the Free plan you will have access only to the Basic features.

https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/features/roadmaps?tab=basic

You can learn more here:

https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/guides/basic-roadmaps/overview

[Rauser]

Thanks for the fast response Trudy! I am using a Scrum board in a Company Managed Project. When I open an individual issue in a separate page, I do not see start and end dates. Could these be hidden? I don't see these fields in the in the Details or More Fields sections. I can move the bars, but can't see how this affects the issue anywhere but in the Timeline view. Any thoughts?

Also are there any sort of best practices for managing timelines like this?