Why is the gantt view in Portfolio disregarding target dates?

[Elector Masarakufa]

We have just started using Portfolio and the most frustrating thing right now is when looking at the gantt view - the scheduling algorithm ignores our target dates as well as the earliest start constraint! So when we need to check capacity for the team - its giving the wrong info.

Is there any way we can work around this?

Another thing - none of the dates already added on a jira board are pulling through in Portfolio such that we have do add dates all over again which is rather frustrating!

[Larry at Isos]

In 2.7 the Target Dates can be pushed down to the Jira issues, so you can see that data there.

I actually don't like to think of the schedule view as a Gantt view as the "live" nature of the schedule algorithm means it's not a static view, I find most new users think of Gantt views as static plans that don't change once they are drawn. Portfolio doesn't work that way. You gather issues into your plan and as people work on them and time passes the schedule view changes dynamically.

The Target Dates field is there to hold the dates that where dynamically calculated by the scheduling algorithm, so they are not factored into the scheduling. If you want to see how the schedule has drifted since the last time you saved the dates into the Target Dates field, switch to the Target Schedule visualization. Larger teams update their Target Dates every couple of weeks to recalibrate or "baseline" the dates that show up in the Target Dates.

You can update many target dates very quickly by selecting the issues in the scope view who's target dates you would like to update and then selecting Set Targets...

If you look for the heading: To baseline your plan against target dates: on this page of the documentation it's much clearer. (Yes I know that's the documentation for 2.8 but this feature has been in place for quite a long time, it's just much more clearly documented in the 2.8 documentation.)

The Earliest Start Date constraint should work, not sure why your having a problem there. Is it moving it out past the earliest start date? That's possible, and why the word "earliest" is used.

I frequently hear from people I help with Portfolio that the phrase Target Start/End Date and Scheduled Start/End date are confusing. Bear in mind the dynamic calculated nature of a Portfolio for Jira Plan means that the Scheduled Start and Scheduled End are ALWAYS calculated (they will change multiple times per day in very busy plans). The Target Start and End are for your reference since the last time you populated them.

[Yusuf Han]

Hi Larry,

Clear explanation. Thank you.

I have one more question connected to the same topic. (Maybe a basic one which I do not know).

I created a portfolio plan and added "Target Start/End Date". Now I want to push them to Projects/Team Boards for each Issue (Story).

When I simply commit to the "Uncommitted changes" it does not help.

Is it about the fields of the issue types? Do I need to ask for these fields to be added?

Thanks in advance.

Yusuf

[Larry at Isos]

Hi Yusuf,

Yes, you just need to add the Target Start/End Date to the screens you want to see them on.

(Sorry for the slow reply!)

Thanks,

Larry