Collection Timeline: Plan and Track Backlog Work Across PIs and Time

When does each Epic or Feature start and finish, how far along is it, what is it waiting on, and how does that line up with our PIs?

The Collection Timeline answers those questions in one Gantt-style planning view. Choose one hierarchy level, such as Epics or Features, and see that work across weeks, months, quarters and years. Expand any parent to inspect its children, overlay PI Boards as planning bands, turn on dependency lines, and keep milestones and phases on the same chart.

The view stays connected to the work underneath it. It reads the dates and fields Kendis holds from Jira or Azure DevOps, shows ART planning alongside those dates, and can write date changes back when you move work on the timeline.

With the Collection Timeline you can:

Open a collection and select Timeline in the left navigation. This opens the collection's timeline workspace, where you can create separate views for different audiences or hierarchy levels.

The Timeline View page lists the timelines of that collection. Select a timeline's name to open it.

While a timeline is open:

The Timeline entry appears when the Timeline module is enabled for the collection. If you cannot see it, ask the collection's administrator to check the collection's module configuration.

Anyone with a role on the collection can open its timelines. Creating and editing needs the Manage Timeline permission. See Permissions.

You need the Manage Timeline permission on the collection.

Kendis opens the new timeline straight away.

Each timeline is intentionally focused on one hierarchy level. If leadership needs an Epic view and the ART needs a Feature view, create a timeline for each rather than forcing both conversations onto one chart.

If this is the collection's first timeline, the page shows Create Your First Timeline with the same Create Timeline button.

Tip: start broad. Create the timeline with All Items at the collection's top level, then narrow the working view with filters and grouping. Children are always one expand away.

The Timeline View page lists each timeline with its Key, Name, Created By and Created On. Select a column heading to sort by it.

Rename, archive and unarchive need the Manage Timeline permission. Other users see the list without those controls.

The timeline combines two views of the same work: a planning grid on the left and a time-based chart on the right. Each row and bar represent the same item, so you can read fields and hierarchy while also seeing timing, duration and overlap. Drag the divider to give either side more space.

From top to bottom:

When you group the timeline, group rows replace the level divider. See Group the timeline.

The header has three rows at every zoom level, for example year, quarter and month. When your company uses a fiscal calendar, the labels follow it, such as FY26 and Q3 FY26. See Fiscal calendars on the time axis.

A pink line marks today, with the date shown in the header, for example 17 Oct.

When a multi-year timeline is squeezed into the view, the lowest header row hides its labels rather than overlap them.

Hovering a bar shows a card with the item key and title, Start Date and End Date, the item's Completion as a percentage with the done and total counts, its Status, and Teams and Sprints it is planned into.

To see which PI boards the item is planned on, hover its planning baseline instead. That card also lists the Boards. See Dates versus planning.

Hovering a row's title shows KEY: Title in full.

A bar represents where an item sits in time. By default, it runs from the item's Start Date to its End Date, using the dates Kendis syncs from Jira or Azure DevOps or the dates stored on a Kendis-only item.

An item that starts and ends on the same day is drawn as a one-day bar so it stays visible.

The timeline can show two different planning signals for the same item:

The Select the Bar Type setting decides how the two are shown:

A new timeline uses Show By Date.

Hovering a baseline shows the same card as the bar with the footer Based on current ART planning.

For Azure DevOps collections, two further settings control whether iteration paths supply dates:

The iteration dates come from the iteration path on the work item and on its children.

Unscheduled work should not disappear simply because it has no dates yet. The timeline keeps it visible and makes that missing planning decision obvious.

An item with no usable dates is drawn as a grey, dashed pill pinned to the start line at the left edge of the chart. The pill stays at the left edge as you scroll and zoom, and keeps the same minimum width so it reads the same at every level. Its hover card shows blank dates.

Undated children follow their parent:

Undated items never distort the chart. They are left out of Fit, sort to the bottom of their level, and do not stretch a parent's roll-up span.

To hide undated items' bars altogether, set Items without Dates to Don't Show in Settings. The rows remain in the grid.

To give an undated item dates, drag its pill to where it belongs. The Edit Item popup opens with the dropped dates filled in, and Cancel returns the pill to the start line. See Change dates from the timeline.

Bars are coloured by the item's status category:

An item with its own colour set in Kendis keeps that colour instead.

Parent items become roll-up bars, so the timeline shows not only when the work is planned but also how far through it you are. The bar uses a pale status tint with a solid completion fill and a percentage such as 64%. Leaf items remain solid bars without a roll-up percentage.

The % control in the toolbar chooses how completion is calculated:

Items in a miscellaneous or unmapped status category are excluded from the count. The hover card shows the same figure as Completion with the done and total behind it.

Your choice of mode is remembered for this timeline in your browser.

By default each bar carries its key and title in white. When the bar is too short for the text, the label sits to the right of the bar instead. Long titles are shortened.

Turn labels off with Show Item Label on Bars in Settings.

The grid can show these columns. Title is always present.

The Zoom group at the top right has - and + buttons and a segmented control: Week, Month, Quarter, Year and Fit.

Zoom changes the level of detail, not the scope of the data. The axis continues to span the work on the timeline, so long-range items remain reachable.

Your zoom level is remembered for this timeline in your browser.

Scroll the chart horizontally to move through time. The grid and chart scroll together vertically.

There is no separate Today button. Choosing any of Week, Month, Quarter or Year brings today to the centre, and the pink today line marks it.

You need the Manage Timeline permission, and the bar type must not be Show By Planning.

When the plan changes, you can adjust dates directly from the timeline in three ways:

Each opens the Edit Item popup for that item. Under Set Date you see Start Date and End Date, pre-filled with the dragged position when you dragged. Adjust either date and select Save, or Cancel to put the bar back where it was.

Both dates are required, and the start must be before the end. Otherwise Kendis says Start date/End date is missing or Start date must be smaller than End date.

Milestones and phases have their own date popup. See Milestones and phases.

Select an item's title in the grid to open it in a side pane on the right. The pane shows the full item card: fields, children, links, comments and history, with the same permissions as anywhere else in Kendis.

Select the item's key instead to open it in Jira or Azure DevOps in a new tab.

A timeline created with All Items shows every item of its level in the collection. A timeline created with a filter shows the items that filter returns.

In both cases you can also add individual items by hand, and the timeline shows the union: filter results plus hand-added items.

Tick Show manually added items only in the Title column header to see only the items you added by hand.

You need the Manage Timeline permission.

Select Add at the right of the toolbar. The Add Items popup offers:

The item is added to the timeline and its row appears with its roll-ups.

Right-click a bar and choose Remove this item from timeline. Confirm Are you sure you want to remove this item from Timeline?

This only removes the item from the timeline's hand-added list. The item itself is untouched.

The option is offered only for items you added by hand. An item shown because of the timeline's level or filter cannot be removed this way. Change the filter instead.

Type in Search... and press Enter. The grid keeps only items whose key or title match.

Filters uses the same filtering model as the Backlog, so a timeline can become a focused planning view without creating another copy of the work. A count badge shows how many conditions are active.

When nothing matches, Kendis says No records found matching your search or filter settings.

Select the heading of Title, Status, Start Date, End Date or a mapped field to sort by it. Select again to reverse. An arrow marks the active sort.

Drag a row up or down within its parent to reorder it. The new order is the collection's own backlog order, so it is shared with every view of the collection.

Right-click a top-level bar and choose Send Item to Top to move it to the top for the current session.

Grouping changes the conversation without changing the underlying work. Choose a dimension under Select Group By:

Each group becomes a collapsible row with a colour square, name and count. Groups are ordered by the earliest start date of their items. Items that do not belong to any group collect in a final grey row such as No Parent or No Team.

Expand a group to load its items. Group bars span the items inside them.

Your grouping is remembered for this timeline in your browser.

Multi Group opens Select Groups, where you can:

A saved configuration is part of the page address, so a shared link opens with the same grouping.

PI bands let you see increment boundaries against the dates of the work. Select Select Boards in the toolbar; when boards are already chosen it reads N Selected.

In the panel:

Each selected board appears as a lightly shaded band from its first sprint's start to its last sprint's end, with a dark header pill naming the board and its prefix. Boards whose sprints have no dates draw no band.

The selection is saved on the timeline and shared with everyone who opens it.

Turn on Dependencies when the timing of one item depends on another. The toolbar button shows or hides the dependency lines and stays green while they are visible.

Dependencies cannot be created by dragging between bars. Create them from the item's dependency list.

Your choice to show or hide lines is remembered for this timeline in your browser.

The Milestones (n) section at the top holds the milestones and phases linked to this timeline. Milestones are diamonds on a date. Phases are bars over a range. Each carries a label chip with its key and title, and hovering shows its dates and status.

Select + Add on the Milestones row:

Kendis confirms with Milestone(s)/Phase(s) added successfully. An archived milestone cannot be linked, and Kendis says so.

Select a milestone or phase, or drag it, to open Edit Milestone or Edit Phase. Set the Milestone Date, or the Start Date and End Date for a phase, and Save. This needs the Edit Milestones/Phases permission.

Right-click an item's bar and open Link to Milestone / Phase. The submenu lists each milestone with its key, title and date. Choose one and confirm Are you sure? with Yes. Tick Don't ask me again to skip the confirmation next time.

Milestones the item is already linked to are not offered again.

Choose Milestones under Select Group By to see items grouped under the milestones they are linked to.

Select Settings at the top right. The modal has two tabs. Everything in it is saved on the timeline and applies to everyone who opens it. After Save, Kendis reloads the page so the new settings take effect.

See What a bar represents, Items without dates and Progress, colours and labels for what each option does.

Select Columns lists the columns currently shown. Title cannot be removed.

These are remembered in your own browser, not on the timeline:

The sort order lives in the page address instead, so it travels with a shared link.

If your company has set up a fiscal calendar, the timeline's header follows it.

Week-based 4-4-5 calendars are shown with calendar quarters and years.

The calendar loads as the timeline opens. If it arrives after the chart has drawn, the header is redrawn and Fit is applied again.

The timeline is another view of the same collection data used by the Backlog. Kendis keeps that data current through the Jira or Azure DevOps sync, so the timeline can open quickly without querying the external tool every time.

Permissions come from the user's role on the collection. Company administrators have every permission. Guest users cannot open the timeline and see You do not have access.

Opening an item in the side pane uses the item's own permissions. A user who can view the timeline but not edit the item sees it read-only in the pane.

Kendis has several time-based views. The right one depends on the planning question you are trying to answer.

A useful timeline should support a planning conversation, not become another reporting artefact. For most programmes, this is a good starting rhythm:

The backlog remains the source of the work. The Collection Timeline turns that same work into a shared view of timing, planning and dependency risk.