Bugs in JIRA Portfolio
Asked by Ram Muthiah:

I am evaluating JIRA portfolio and find a number of bugs. We use cloud version.

* When a plan is created by adding only epics AND excluding all JIRAs without epics, any new JIRA gets automatically added to the plan. Even when that new JIRA is not part of any included epics. This is super frustrating. We would need to manually exclude those JIRAs from the plan.
* Portfolio view limits the number of fields it shows. We can't make it to display "forecasted completion date" (custom field added for all epics in our installation) for example.
* Portfolio embedded view (to embed in the confluence) has its own limitations. It shows story points, progress, target due date. That's all. If I want to remove story points or add assignee to embedded view, there is no way to do that.
* If the entire plan is going to take another 9 months to complete, we can't see full view of schedule for next 9 months. The schedule view stops after 2 months.
* The way the tool shows progress is incorrect. I have an epic which has more than 60% completed. But, portfolio view shows only 20% completed.

Does anyone face the same problem? If yes, how did you resolve it? Any help is appreciated.


Answers:
author: Earl McCutcheon
body: Hi Ram,

I broke out each of your questions below to make sure I did not miss any:
> When a plan is created by adding only epics AND excluding all JIRAs without epics, any new JIRA gets automatically added to the plan. Even when that new JIRA is not part of any included epics. This is super frustrating. We would need to manually exclude those JIRAs from the plan.

This sounds like it comes down to the sources, When an issue is a plan it adheres to the issue sources, if linked to a Project or board any issue in that location will be added to the plan unless expressly excluded. You would need to restrict the sources to exclude the issue from the source, exe if an issue is added to a board linked to the plan set up the filter for the board to only include the issues you want on the plan, or set up the issue sources as a filter using a modified version of the filter to only include the desired issues

> Portfolio view limits the number of fields it shows. We can't make it to display "forecasted completion date" (custom field added for all epics in our installation) for example.

You can add in various custom Fields to the scope view as covered here:

* <https://confluence.atlassian.com/jiraportfoliocloud/configuring-custom-fields-941618971.html>

But fields provided by add-on apps are typically not supported. Portfolio currently only supports a specific set of field types to ensure we are able to display and edit those correctly, and those that can be added in are going to be read only and not editable from the portfolio view, please see the following Feature Request and add a vote if this is something you would like to see added:

* <https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JPOCLOUD-155>

> Portfolio embedded view (to embed in the confluence) has its own limitations. It shows story points, progress, target due date. That's all. If I want to remove story points or add assignee to embedded view, there is no way to do that.

The column settings jira portfolio side do not copy over and the column visibility resets to default, but you can set the columns in confluence once embedded as an iframe, using the settings cog the same way you would in the Plan directly for the scope view
> If the entire plan is going to take another 9 months to complete, we can't see full view of schedule for next 9 months. The schedule view stops after 2 months.

This sounds like the "Schedule range" is restricted to a shorter interval, select the more drop down then Schedule Range to display the filter, and make sure the value is set to "full" or a custom range of your choosing, and you should see a greater interval in the timeline.
> The way the tool shows progress is incorrect. I have an epic which has more than 60% completed. But, portfolio view shows only 20% completed.

This sounds like another Plan filter issue, but under the "Completion Date", also located under the more dropdown, it is more than likely set to either "completed in the last 30 days" or "Current Sprint", and if there are issues completed prior to that interval they will not be reflected in the progress. I would recommend setting this to a custom date range that is set at the start date of the Epic you are tracking the progress on.

Regards,  
Earl

comments: author: Ram Muthiah
body: Thanks Earl. Your answers are helpful. Couple of points to note:

For #1, I believe that UX should be much better in portfolio. Your answer makes sense after reading it. But, it's not intuitive or clearly explained in relevant screens. It looks like we should use filter instead of board, if we don't want any issues without epic showing up in the plan.

For #2, adding custom field solved the issue.

For #3, you mentioned "The column settings jira portfolio side do not copy over and the column visibility resets to default, but you can set the columns in confluence once embedded as an iframe, using the settings cog the same way you would in the Plan directly for the scope view" -- Changing setting using cog is good only for that session. If I refresh the page, then the widget goes back to default view. I played around in portfolio report settings and copied fresh set of iframes into confluence, that did the trick.

For #4, Your answer helped. When it comes to Portfolio, reporting default should be from the date oldest epic was created. If the progress is shown only for current sprint, it does not help much when you look from portfolio perspective. Anyways, I changed the time frame and I could see the expected results.

Thanks!


author: Ram Muthiah
body: Earl,

Regarding question #1 above, I used a filter (to restrict only issues from the filter showing up in the plan) . It works in terms of restricting the epics. However, the schedule chart disappears and shows as blank.

So, if I use board as data source, I get velocity correctly and schedule chart shows up. But, any new issues added to the board or project automatically included in the plan.

If I use filter as data source, plan is restricted to the issues listed in the filter. But, schedule chart disappears.

One of the community answers suggested to use the combo of board and filter. I tried it, but that also does not show the schedule chart.


author: Earl McCutcheon
body: Hi Ram,

For the first #1 follow up question, the UX design and intuitive nature we are working on the Portfolio New Experience that really beefs up portfolio and makes the application a lot more intuitive to use, some details on it can be seen in this Community Article Discussion post from the Portfolio team going over some of the functionality and links to documentation on the new feature:

* <https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Portfolio-for-Jira-articles/Introducing-a-new-planning-experience-in-Portfolio-for-Jira/ba-p/944996>

Noting it is currently in Beta and available on Jira Server only at this time; and as discussed on the post we do not have a clear timeline on a Cloud version release but detailed in the comment from Bree Davis posted Dec 20th about the cloud version:
> We have loads of super exciting plans for 2019 - more news to come soon!

For the second note on #1, glad you found a workaround to clear things up a bit, and if the schedule is cleared out and items are only present in the scope, then the issues are most likely missing either an estimate/story points or they do not belong to a release so there is no weighted item yet to add it to the schedule, to get around this you can add in a Target start date without the estimate and the items will show up as a light blue work item as covered here:

* <https://confluence.atlassian.com/jiraportfoliocloud/add-target-start-and-target-end-dates-868977060.html>

For #2 Awesome :)

On #3, I have already brought this one up with the Dev team earlier and we noticed the same thing on the page refresh and agree that this one is defiantly a BUG, so we wrote up the details in the following BUG report to get a fix in place:

* <https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JPOCLOUD-7563>

For #4 Portfolio is designed to be a forward looking planning tool so the defaults are set more restrictive and based off of currently existing data points that can be worked on rather than data points that are completed to build out the plan on still needs to be done, then allows to loosen those ranges to include items farther back. It's recommend to use portfolio in tandem with the Agile Reports of the boards for the holistic historical breakdown of completed items.

Regards,  
Earl


author: Ram Muthiah
body: Thanks again Earl. I appreciate the response.


author: NAYANA
body: Hello, I am hoping my query will be answered in this thread. I am looking for an ability to limit editable fields in Plans. The read-only fields in Jira are editable in Advanced Roadmaps today causing a lot of business process loopholes and data integrity issues. Is there a restrict editability of fields in Plans?

comments: author: Henri Seymour _Easy Agile_
body: Hi [@NAYANA](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/3610097)

Since this is a new query, you'd be better off posting a completely new Question via \[Start a topic +\] at the top of the page.


Tags: advanced-roadmaps