How to Use and Manage Milestones in Businessmap

In this article:

1. Introduction to Milestones
2. How to Create and Manage Milestones
    2.1. From the Account Administration
    2.2. From the Board
        2.2.1. Milestones in the Board Sidebar
        2.2.2. Milestones in the Planning View
        2.2.3. Milestones in the Board Filter
3. Milestones in Initiatives
4. Milestones in Cards
5. Milestones in Business Rules
6. Milestones in the Advanced Search

Milestones are an integral part of project management as they help you mark specific progress points along your project's timeline. Here is how to use and manage them in Businessmap!

1. Introduction to Milestones

Milestones are pivotal checkpoints in a project's lifecycle that help outline palpable goals and align team focus. In Businessmap, you can use milestones to mark significant events in your initiatives, split projects into phases, and oversee progress. Depending on your use case, you can associate milestones with initiatives and cards, and use them to unite different teams working across different cards/boards over a common goal.

In terms of behavior and management, milestones are similar to card tokens and tags. Account Owners and users with the necessary permissions (Administration → Security & Audit → Card Controls → Users that can manage milestones) can manage them both on a global and board level.

2. How to Create and Manage Milestones

2.1. From the Account Administration

To create a milestone, go to the Account Administration → Card Management → Milestones and click on the New Milestone button in the upper right corner of the panel.

This will open a configuration window where you can set up your milestone:

• pick a color (1) for the milestone icon
• select a suitable icon (2)
• name (3) your milestone
• set the date (4) of the milestone
• add a description (5) — this setting is optional
• select the boards (6) where you want your milestone to be present
• configure the availability level (7) — choose between Auto, Global, or On-demand

Once created, you can manage each milestone from its options menu (three dots). Similar to card tokens and tags, you have the following settings:

• edit
• clone
• replace
• disable/enable (disabled milestones will be highlighted in red)
• delete

2.2. From the Board

There are two ways to create and manage milestones on a board level:

2.2.1. Milestones in the Board Sidebar

Navigate to the board sidebar, click on the three-dot menu, and select Milestones. You will see a New Milestone button in the upper right corner which will open the same configuration window as the Administration panel.

Clicking on the pencil icon next to each milestone will let you modify it.

2.2.2. Milestones in the Planning View

You can also create milestones from the planning view mode in portfolio initiative workflows. Open the planning view of the respective workflow and click the plus icon in the upper right corner of the table columns. Select Create new milestone and set up your milestone.

The milestone you created will be visualized on the timeline in the date cell it is scheduled for (if your zoom level is set to Days).

For all other zoom levels, milestones will be visualized within the time unit (e.g. month, quarter, tertile) and on the date they are scheduled for. For example, if you have a milestone set for June 1st, it will be displayed in the beginning of June. If there is more than one milestone set for the same date, the system will display an icon with the number of milestones, with more details available on hover.

You will now be able to associate the milestone with initiatives on the planning view timeline by doing a drag-and-drop of the milestone icon to the respective initiative. If there are two or more milestones set for that date, the system will let you choose which one you want to apply. A pop-up will appear if the milestone was successfully added.

You have several additional milestone settings available in the planning view. A left or right-click on a milestone will let you:

• edit the milestone
• remove the milestone from the board

2.2.3. Milestones in the Board Filter

You can easily filter cards and initiatives based on the milestones they are associated with. From the board filter (located in the sidebar), select Milestones and the respective option: 

• contains — filter by milestones with the OR operator. Results are not mutually exclusive, which means you will get all cards/initiatives that contain at least one of the selected milestones.
• contains all — filter by milestones with the AND operator. Results are mutually inclusive, which means you will get all cards/initiatives that contain all of the selected milestones.
• does not contain — filter cards and initiatives that are not associated with certain milestones. The operator here is also AND.

3. Milestones in Initiatives

You can associate or disassociate milestones directly from an initiative*. To do that, open the initiative and navigate to the dedicated Milestones field. It is located under the Timeline Fields. From the dropdown, you can select or deselect milestones that have been added to the board. You can also check which milestones have been associated with the current initiative.

* applies both to portfolio and timeline initiatives.

Any milestone changes you make to the initiative will also be recorded in the History tab.

4. Milestones in Cards

Aside from milestones in initiatives, you can also associate milestones with cards. To do that, you first need to select Milestones from the Card fields dropdown. The milestones field will be visualized under Tags. If you have the selected Custom card ID field, milestones will appear under it.

You can then select as many milestones and associate them with the card. If two or more milestones are selected, they will be visualized similarly to tags.

5. Milestones in Business Rules

In Businessmap, milestones are also integrated into the filters and triggers of business rules. You can add, copy, replace, and filter by milestones in the configuration of the rules.

For example, with the “Card is updated” rule, you can set up a rule that will send you a notification each time a milestone is updated (added, changed, or removed) in a particular location (e.g. board, workflow, column).

Note: You can also copy milestones between linked cards with the “copy the values of these fields” action inside business rules. This will help you continuously synchronize milestones between two or more linked cards.

With the “Parent card is updated” rule, for example, you can automatically sync the milestones of the parent with its child cards.

6. Milestones in the Advanced Search

Milestones are also available as filter criteria in the advanced search. You can refine your search to get a summary report about:

• cards/initiatives that contain a certain milestone or a set of milestones
• cards/initiatives that do not contain a certain milestone

In addition to that, you can also include milestones in the results table from the Configure results menu.

This will display the milestones associated with the work item, as well as the day it is set for.

From the results table, you can associate milestones with two or more cards (similar to how you would apply tags in bulk). To do that, select the cards you want and click on the Milestones column to open the dedicated modal.

Here you also have the option to replace any existing milestones with the new ones you want to associate.