Auto-schedule: Can enforce start date?
Asked by Cecilia Chan:

Hello all,

I am trying to define the roadmap for the 2021 initiative by creating different Epic in a plan. When I click "Auto-schedule", time range of the 1st Sprint is set as tomorrow. Is there any way to "Auto-schedule" with the start date starting from 2021? If not, can we bulk edit the proposed Start date with the proposed date + N weeks?

Besides, the projected Sprint in the "Auto-schedule" result is not same as our current setting, say our next Sprint is 30/12/2020 - 12/1/2021 but it appear as 23/12/2020 - 5/1/2021. Is there any way to amend it?

Thanks.


Answers:
author: Walter Buggenhout
body: Hi [@Cecilia Chan](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4183701),

I'm not sure if you have defined releases yet for next year. But if you haven't, I'd recommend you do so and assign the 2021 work for your initiative to at least one (or more) quarterly / milestone based / MVP releases.

By specifying the start date of the first release as a fixed date (e.g. 04/01/2021), the schedule should take that into account.

comments: author: Cecilia Chan
body: Great, thanks Walter.

For the 2nd question, actually our Sprint start on 13/1/2021, but the projected Sprint is 6/1/2021 to 19/1/2021, is there any way which we can amend the time range of the Sprint to align with that in Jira?

![Screenshot 2020-12-22 170731.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/123173i8E45429F6B0B53F0/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "Screenshot 2020-12-22 170731.png")


author: Walter Buggenhout
body: Are you importing your board as a data source, or a filter or project?

On this screenshot I only see projected sprints. That means Advanced Roadmaps is using your sprint length (2 weeks apparently) and *a* *starting point in time* to just map out a sprint cadence with fixed lengths, just one after the other.

If you have already defined your sprints in a board and you use that board as your data source, roadmaps should display your actual sprints from the board in your plan.

Of course, you'll probably only have 1 active sprint for now and the ones that haven't started will just follow in the same 2-week cadence after the current sprint. If you're closed for the holidays and you have a gap in your sprint cadence that will lead to some inconsistencies, but that should resolve itself once you actually start your first sprint of 2021 (and add the sprint dates in your board).


author: Cecilia Chan
body: I am originally using project as the data source and am now switch to use board as a data source.

We have another board which include all projects in one view and have the sprint setting , say start from 30/12/2020. How can I copy this sprint setting to another board which is the data source I am using currently?

Thanks for the clarification.


author: Walter Buggenhout
body: Hi [@Cecilia Chan](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4183701),

That is a hard question to answer without a bit of insight in your data. We are at risk of running into the traditional *lost in translation* difficulties related to projects and boards in Jira. I'll try to shed some light, but you might try to use the board with all projects into your plan. After all, it is the source that has your sprints and is probably the team board, where you manage multiple projects. And that's essentially also the purpose of Advanced Roadmaps: to build a roadmap for one or even multiple teams, across multiple projects.

A Jira project is in fact nothing more that the container that holds a set of issues with the same prefix in their issue number and offers configuration settings such as:

* the issue types you can use
* the workflows associated with those issue types
* the custom fields you can fill out for them
* permission settings to control access
* notification settings for dedicated communication about updates
* specific components and versioning information

A board is a view on the data in one or more of those projects. The issues on the board are pulled in from a JQL filter you can find and modify from the *general* tab of the board settings. In addition, it adds some functional features like:

* support for either scrum or kanban processes
* visualising the workflows through board columns
* several reports

A sprint is created on a scrum board, but it is also linked to the issues in a board through a custom field. If you assign an issue to a sprint, the sprint field of that issue is updated as well. And that will ensure that the sprint from one board will automatically appear on another board as well if that board has the same issues on it.


author: Cecilia Chan
body: Thanks Walter for your detailed and clear explanation. It helps a lot.


Tags: advanced-roadmaps