What is the official Jira guidance on Target End Date, End Date and Due Date?

[Peter Gillard-Moss]

We're trying to agree amongst teams what the intended purpose of the various dates are and the behaviour which Jira supports by using them.

I've seen various posts with various answers but they are mainly inconsistent.

However I have learned much by doing research on trying to find out the correct answer.

• Start date and Due date are system fields and are used by Jira features.
• Target start and Target end are custom fields and came with the original Portfolio plug in.
• The Portfolio plugin was replaced by Advanced Planning. As part of this change they moved to Start date and Due Date but, to keep plans made using the old plugin working, made it configurable.
• From reading various posts a fresh install of Jira won’t generate Target fields anymore and are considered legacy. 
• However the docs confusingly state Start Date and End Date is the supported fields (even though Due date is what Advanced Planning view defaults to)
• Project Plan View and Calendar View use Start Date and Due Date and are not configurable.
  
  

I also believe that Jira Plans give a warning if End Dates are in front of Due Date? (although I can't find any docs which explain this behaviour).

Also some underlying stuff about data types (Due date is date picker and has permissions).

Given a brand new fresh install of Jira what fields actually exist and are the correct ones for teams be using for Planning and Roadmaps? 

[Jehan Bhathena]

Hi @Peter Gillard-Moss ,

I believe "what fields actually exist and are the correct ones for teams be using for Planning and Roadmaps?" is the main question you're trying to get to?

While Advanced Roadmap aka Plans allows you to use both fields as you'd like, Start Date and Due date are the ones available out of the box when you first open a Plan.

But since you're starting out it shouldn't make much of a difference, Plans allows a good amount of customization and with a little bit of filtering efforts it would be possible to use Target Start and End date as well, but what I would suggest is created 2 Sample Plans and try out both paths for a week.

For more details:

* https://support.atlassian.com/jira-software-cloud/docs/set-up-advanced-roadmaps-and-change-plan-settings/

* https://university.atlassian.com/student/path/1766648-visualize-work-across-teams-with-plans-in-jira?sid=66bb56c8-d7a6-4d62-82ce-5649cf626150&sid_i=0

* https://university.atlassian.com/student/path/1109240-planning-with-advanced-roadmaps-in-jira-premium (Old but still useful)