A milestone in Assembla is a working area containing the tasks of a sprint or an iteration. Milestones are used to organize tickets. For example, you can organize into one milestone all tickets for tasks that you want complete in a period of time, called a sprint or an iteration.
Using milestones also allows project managers and team members to track project progress using the different available milestones views and reports.
Understanding sprints
When using an Agile approach to software development, a sprint is a work cycle - usually a fixed period of time during which a team plans to complete a set of goals that contribute to incremental development of the software product.
In Assembla, you can represent a sprint as a milestone and that milestone has tickets assigned to it that are associated with the sprint.
Understanding the Milestones tool
Milestones are managed from the Milestones tool which is a sub-tab within the Tickets tool. The table in the center of the page lists open milestones in ascending order. You can change the sorting order from the Sort by drop down menu found at the top of the page. On the left side of the Milestones page there are links to the Closed Milestones list and to the Calendar view. The following sections of this article show you how to perform main milestones tasks.
Creating a new milestone
To create a new milestone
Go to Milestones, and click New Milestone.
Fill in the milestone properties and click Create Milestone.
Milestone properties include:
Title. The given name for the Milestone. For example "Sprint January-2015". This is a required field.
Description. A description of the milestone. This will be visible to team members in the Milestone details page as well as other views. This is an optional field.
Start date. The start date of the sprint or iteration. This field is needed by some metric reports. This is an optional field.
Due date. The end date of the sprint or iteration. This field is needed for the Milestones Calendar view and by some metric reports. This is an optional field.
Responsible. The team member responsible for the Milestone. This is an optional field.
Budget. The estimated budget of the milestone. This number will be visible to team members in the Milestone details page. This is an optional field.
Milestone type. A milestone can be one of 3 types:
Current. A current milestone is the sprint you are currently working on. This will be the milestone shown on the Planner view in the Current column. There can only be one current milestone displayed in the Planner view.
Backlog. This will be the milestone shown on the Planner view in the Backlog column. Ideally this is the milestone for the overall project backlog. There can only be one backlog milestone displayed in the Planner view.
None. These are milestones that will eventually become the "Current" milestones in the future when the current milestone is completed. None is the default Milestone type.
Project Plan Type. Select the type to group milestones.
Adding a ticket to a milestone
To add a ticket to a milestone, set the Milestone property of the ticket to that milestone. Use one of the following options to add a ticket to a milestone:
Change the Milestone property of the ticket using the ticket's property pane found on the top left side of the ticket's page.
Click the ticket's gear icon in any of the tickets views, and then select the milestone from the pop-up menu.
Use the Batch Update tool to update the milestone property of multiple tickets at once.
Setting a default milestone for all new tickets
You can set a default milestone in the Tickets Settings. This milestone is automatically populated on the new ticket form.
To set a default milestone
Go to the Tickets Settings > Tickets Fields. Note that this page is visible only to users with the Owner role.
In Default Ticket Values, click the Milestone drop down menu and select a milestone.
Click Update Default Values.
This default milestone is not applied to new tickets created from the Related tab as a subtask or bug of a ticket that is already in a milestone.
Viewing a milestone details page
The milestone details page provides an overview of the milestone. To view the milestone details page, go to the Milestones tab and click the milestone name.
The milestone details page is divided into the following sections:
The Milestone Properties section in the center shows the milestone properties.
The Tickets section on the right gives a summary of the status of the tickets in the milestone. It also has hyperlinks to filters and reports for these tickets. It also provides sums of hours and estimates for all the tickets in the milestone.
The Activities section shows recent Stream entries from tickets in the milestone.
Editing a milestone
After a milestone is created you can always edit its properties. In addition to the basic milestone properties entered when creating the milestone, the Edit milestone page gives you access to the following properties:
Obstacles. You can add text in the obstacles section for the obstacles facing a milestone. This text is visible in various reports and views.
Release Notes. By clicking Edit release note you can add and update release notes comment and upload release notes files.
To edit a milestone
Go to the Milestones tab and click the gear icon next to the milestone.
Click Edit in the pop-up menu.
You can also open the edit page from the milestone details page by clicking the Edit button found on the top right side.Make the required changes, and then click Save Changes.
Closing a milestone
At the end of a sprint or an iteration or simply when you close all the tickets in a milestone, you should mark the milestone as complete. You can close a milestone in a few different ways:
by editing the milestone and checking Mark as completed.
by clicking the gear icon next to the milestone and clicking Mark as completed from the pop-up menu.
by going to the Milestone Details page, clicking the Actions menu at the top, and clicking Mark as completed in the pop-up menu.
Closing a milestone does not change the status field of the tickets in the milestone to a close status. Once a milestone is closed, it no longer appears in the list of open milestones. It moves to the closed milestones list. This has no effect on the tickets in the milestone.
Making a milestone the Current milestone
When you finish the current sprint you need to assign a different milestone as the current milestone. This is particularly needed if you are using the Planner view to manage tickets. Setting a milestone as the Current sprint means setting the milestone type property to Current. This can be done in three ways:
Click the gear icon, and then select Set as Current from the menu.
Or you can go to the Milestone Details page, click the Actions button found at the top, then click Set as Current in the pop up menu .
Or you can edit the milestone and set the type milestone property to Current.
Making a milestone the Backlog milestone
Setting a milestone as the backlog means setting the milestone type property to Backlog.
You can set the property when creating the new milestone or you can edit an existing milestone, and then set the type milestone property to Backlog.
If you are using the Planner view to manage tickets, you need a backlog milestone. This milestone contains all of the tasks that should be completed in the project. You would usually start by creating a backlog milestone and drag and drop new tickets in this backlog in the Planner view. Then create a Current milestone and drag and drop tickets from the Backlog to the Current.
Deleting a milestone
To Delete a milestone, go to the Milestones tab and click the gear icon next to the milestone, then click Delete in the pop-up menu. Alternatively, you can delete a milestone from the Actions menu on the Milestone Details page.
Deleting a milestone does not delete tickets in the milestone. It only clears the Milestone field in these tickets.
Using the Milestones calendar view
The Milestones calendar shows milestones marked on a calendar on their due dates. The entries are color coded as follows:
Milestones past their due dates that still have open tickets are marked in red.
Milestones past their due dates and all tickets in the milestone are closed are marked in green.
Milestones whose due date is not yet reached are marked in blue.
Exporting the Milestones calendar
You can export entries in the Milestones calendar to your your preferred calendar application. This is handy in setting up alerts for milestone due dates in your calendar application. There are two methods for exporting milestones calendar:
Passive. You can export all milestones to a .ics file. You then can import this file into applications that support the .ics file format, such as iCal or Google Calendar. A link to download the .ics file is available in the Tickets Settings > Milestones > Export page.
Dynamic. You can subscribe to the feed for all milestones and changes to the Milestones calendar are automatically reflected in your linked calendar application. This option is supported in Google Calendar and Mac iCal. The feed URL and instructions on how to setup the feed in Mac iCal and Google Calendar are available in Tickets Settings > Milestones > Export page.
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