Skip to content

Integration milestones

Roadmaps often rely on outcomes planned elsewhere. Work in one roadmap may not be able to finish until a milestone in another has been reached.

Copying the expected date into each roadmap creates several versions of the same milestone, which can drift apart. Combining all the related work into one roadmap makes that roadmap too broad. Integration milestones provide a third option: keep the plans separate and link the milestones they share.

How integration milestones work

Any roadmap can make selected milestones available as integration milestones. Other roadmaps can link those milestones into their own plans and make local work depend on them.

For example, a platform roadmap contains API available. A product roadmap links that milestone and makes Release mobile app depend on it. If the API date changes on the platform roadmap, the linked milestone moves on the product roadmap as well.

The two milestones have different roles:

  • The integration milestone is the source. Its roadmap sets the date and whether the date is tentative.
  • The linked milestone represents the source in another roadmap. That roadmap chooses the context, title, and description, and connects it to local work.

A roadmap can offer several integration milestones and link milestones from several other roadmaps. There is no master roadmap: each roadmap maintains the milestones it offers and uses the milestones it needs.

The source and linked milestone form an integration seam: one named handoff between two plans. Nothing else from either roadmap is copied across that seam.

When to use one

Use an integration milestone when:

  • an outcome in one roadmap is a prerequisite for work in another;
  • one roadmap clearly owns the outcome's timing;
  • both roadmaps need to show the same expected date;
  • a change to that date matters to the other roadmap.

Payments API available and Regulatory approval received are good examples: each describes an outcome that another plan can depend on.

A simple test is to ask: if this date moved, would another roadmap need to reconsider its plan? If so, the milestone may be a useful integration seam. If the milestone is merely interesting background information, a link in the description is usually enough.

Do not make every internal checkpoint an integration milestone. Other roadmaps need the handoff, not the work breakdown behind it.

Make an integration milestone

  1. Open the roadmap containing the milestone.
  2. Select the milestone and open its edit panel.
  3. Under Metadata, select Integration milestone.
  4. Confirm the change.

The milestone can now be found and linked from other roadmaps. It may still be tentative; that tells consumers that the date is an estimate.

  1. Open the roadmap that needs the milestone.
  2. Open the menu for the context where it belongs.
  3. Select Link ext. milestone.
  4. Search for the milestone and select it.

Roadie adds a linked milestone to the chosen context. Rename or describe it to fit the local plan, then use Dependencies to make local items depend on it. Its date and tentative state continue to come from the integration milestone.

A roadmap can link a particular integration milestone only once. Several local items can depend on that one linked milestone.

See where a milestone is used

A linked milestone shows its Source milestone under Dependencies. The source provides the current date and tentative state.

An integration milestone shows Used by under Dependencies. This lists the roadmaps that have linked it and the linked milestone in each one. A roadmap appears as soon as it links the milestone, even if no local item depends on it yet.

Change an integration milestone

The roadmap containing the integration milestone can change its date or tentative state as the plan develops. Linked milestones receive those changes. Their local titles and descriptions are not replaced.

Before changing the date, check Used by to see which other roadmaps contain the milestone.

Remove an integration milestone

Removing integration status, deleting the milestone, or deleting its roadmap makes the source unavailable. Roadie warns before removing or deleting an integration milestone that other roadmaps use.

Linked milestones are not deleted. They keep their last known date and their local dependencies, and show Source unavailable. This warning means that the shared date is no longer being maintained; it does not mean that the milestone was reached.

When possible, review Used by before removing the integration milestone. Roadmaps using it can remove their linked milestones or replace them with another source.

Visibility

A roadmap must be public to offer or link an integration milestone. Making the roadmap containing the source private makes that source unavailable, but does not delete linked milestones from other roadmaps. Only public roadmaps appear under Used by.

Public means visible and editable, not read-only. See Sharing and collaboration for the roadmap visibility model.