Releases (milestones) in Helix Plan are a point in time to which you can tag Gantt tasks, bugs, sprints as well as product backlog items. Releases have some distinct functionality which make them very dynamic and powerful for managing and visualizing your project work.
An item is tagged to a release using the "release tag" column.
Status
A release status is derived from the items that is tagged towards it. When all items are completed the status column for the release shows "Completed" and a green tick in the timeline indicates the same.
A warning flag will be shown if one of the tagged items risk delaying the release. Tagging an item which has a due date scheduled after the releases due date will result in this.
Burndowns
Just like sprints, releases will display a burndown once you tag items to it which has Work Remaining, Points or Estimated Ideal Days set.
Timeline visualization
If you want to see when a release is in the timeline when you scroll away from it, you can mark it by right-clicking and select "Leave release marked".
Flexible release tagging
Grasping the underlying concepts of release tagging in Helix Plan is key when attempting to plan larger projects or undertakings.
The first thing to point out is the inheritance aspect of Helix Plan release tagging.
When adding a release tag to a parent item, underlying child items will inherit the release tag value.
You can also explicitly set the release tag of items, allowing the tag to be retained throughout all different views of Helix Plan. To explicitly set a release tag use the "Release tag" column to define a tag that will be associated with the current item. A release tag set in this manner cannot be overridden by changing the tagging of the parent item or sprint.
In the below image releases 2 and 3 are explicitly set to their corresponding items, meaning the release tag has been specifically set for each of these items individually.
Inheritance and the product backlog
When committing an item from the backlog to a sprint it is worth noting that a release tag in the schedule view, inherited or not, will overwrite a tag inherited from the backlog.
Notice how "User story 1" in the backlog shows "Release 2" inherited from "Sprint 1" instead of from the parent item in the backlog.
Tag to multiple releases
Helix Plan supports tagging items to multiple releases. This can be useful when delivering components to different work packages or illustrating that a task contributes to a delivery for two different groups.
Two different dialog boxes can be used to tag an item to releases. The lightweight one is accessed by double clicking the "Release tag" column.
Select a single option in the list or use Shift or Ctrl select to tag to multiple releases. You can also explicitly set "No release" to ensure this item is never tagged to a release, inheritance or not.
The other dialog box is reached either through the right click menu or by clicking the "Release tag" field in the item details section at the bottom of the interface.
Right click context menu:
Item details:
This dialog has the same functionality as the light weight one but has been design to better handle batch editing in connection with release tagging.
See Advanced release tagging for a more in depth description and examples on how to use the dialog.
Finding items by release tag
It is easy to view which tasks are tagged to a specific release by opening the Find window and selecting a release from the drop-down list. You can then compile a release status report:
Alternatively you can right click a release and find items tagged to it, either in the planning view or the product backlog.
Renaming to fit your way of work
Projects typically have fixed due dates in some form but release or milestone might not match your organisations naming convention. Helix Plan allows you to rename release/milestone to match your nomenclature. See How To: Setting up the first project.