Planning workspace
What this page is — A sandbox for a project's sprints and phases. You plan placements, assignees, estimates, capacity and goals inside a named scenario; nothing reaches the live tasks until you press Commit. What it is for — Sprint planning meetings, capacity reviews, and "what if we hire one more person" conversations that should not disturb the team's board while they happen. The problem it solves — Planning directly on the live board means every experiment is immediately real: a task dragged into a sprint notifies its assignee, a trial estimate changes the reports. Scenarios let you try, compare and then write the result in one step.
Route: /org/tasks/planning · Permissions: View planning (open the page), Manage planning (change scenarios and commit), Planning AI (goal checks and scenario suggestions)
Module: Planning, under the Task Management category · Entry points: Sidebar → Planning · Cockpit → Planning Pulse · Quick create → New scenario / Planned hire · global search · a shared deep link · the in-app Docs button on the page
1. What the workspace is
Planning works on time boxes — the sprints and phases of the project Roadmap, which you can also create, change and delete inside a scenario — and on the project's open tasks. The model is Project → Phase → Sprints + Milestones: a phase holds sprints and milestones, a task sits in one sprint or phase, and it can contribute to a milestone. Milestones are dated checkpoints, not places where work sits. A scenario is a copy of that picture: the same tasks, the same people, but with its own placements, assignees, points and hours. You can have several drafts side by side ("Aggressive", "Conservative", "With the new hire") and commit exactly one.
| Live board (Tasks) | Planning scenario | |
|---|---|---|
| Moving a task | Changes the task immediately | Changes only the scenario |
| Assigning a person | Notifies them | Nothing is sent until commit |
| Capacity | Not shown | Per person per time box, from the working calendar |
| Planned hires | Not possible | Placeholder people who count in capacity |
| Sprints and phases | Created and edited on the Roadmap, live at once | Created, edited or deleted in the scenario; written to the Roadmap on commit |
| Undo | Task history, one change at a time | Archive the draft — nothing happened |
Every project has its own scenarios; the page reads the project chosen in the header picker.
2. Why you would use it
- Fill a sprint against real capacity, not by feel — holidays, approved leave and part-time allocations are already deducted.
- Compare two plans before choosing: the Compare drawer puts scenarios and the live plan side by side per time box and per person.
- Plan around a hire that does not exist yet, then replace the placeholder with the real person when they join.
- Commit once, with a preview, so the team's board changes in a single, recorded step instead of a dozen drags.
3. How it fits together
4. Using the workspace — step by step
Step 0 · Set the project up (once)
A project that has never been set up shows a banner on this page: This project is using the platform defaults. Set up this project opens the guided set-up — six questions that write how the work is measured and priced, what you call things, its task types and categories, and its phases. The same banner shows on the project's Tasks page. A brand-new project can start there instead: Project Management → New project with Ops set-up.
Step 1 · Open Planning and pick a project
Sidebar → Planning. With no project selected the page asks you to choose one from the header picker. If the project has no sprints or phases yet, the page says No sprints or phases yet and offers New scenario: start one with just the backlog, then create the first phase or sprint in its Plan tab — it reaches the Roadmap when you commit (see Phases, sprints and milestones). Open the Roadmap is there too if you prefer to set the Roadmap up first.
Before the first planning meeting, open Define and check the size scale, the skills and who is planned as what, hours per week and the planned hires — see Define.
Step 2 · Create a scenario
Press New scenario. Give it a name, tick the sprints or phases it should plan (ticking a phase brings its sprints along), decide whether to Include backlog and Include other open boxes, and add notes describing what the scenario tries out. A large backlog is seeded 500 tasks at most; narrow it with Backlog category and Backlog matching, and pull in more later with Add tasks. The scenario is seeded from the live tasks: every planned value starts equal to the real one.
Step 3 · Work in the six tabs
| Tab | What you do there | Page |
|---|---|---|
| Define | Set the size scale, the skills and who is planned as what, hours per week, planned hires and — when the project values its work — contractors and rates | Define |
| Capacity | See net hours (or days) per person per time box, override a cell, add or link a planned hire | Capacity |
| Plan | Plan by sprints, phases, resource, size or category — using the project's own words when Settings → Words renames them — with optional swimlanes (Group by): drag tasks between columns, set assignee, points, hours and what a task contributes to, create, edit or delete a sprint or phase in the scenario, filter and add tasks, check milestone readiness | Scenarios and commit |
| Goals | Write the goal, success criteria and focus factor of each time box | Goals and insights |
| Timeline | See the phase → sprint → milestone structure as an outline or a Gantt, check containment and reschedule a phase | Phases, sprints and milestones |
| Live | The committed plan, the burndown, the commit history and — when the project values its work — what each time box is worth and what has been invoiced | Scenarios and commit · Invoicing |
Step 4 · Switch, compare, commit
The scenario switcher in the header groups scenarios into Drafts and Committed. Beside it: the scenario menu (edit name and time boxes, Clone as a new draft, Archive), New scenario, the drift badge, Ask AI, Compare, Suggest with AI (drafts, with Planning AI) and Commit. Commit opens a preview; nothing is written until you confirm it.
Step 5 · Ask the assistant about the plan
Ask AI in the header opens a short list under Ask about this project with three starter questions — press one and the Orbit Assistant opens and answers it straight away:
| Starter | What the assistant typically looks up |
|---|---|
| Which sprints are over capacity? | Active and upcoming sprints and phases with committed goal, net capacity, open load, state and days left |
| Is the next sprint on track? | The sprint ending soonest: goal and criteria, each person's capacity against load, the last goal-check verdict and the recent burndown |
| Which hires are we planning? | The organisation's planned hires with role, hours, availability, status and how many open tasks still wait on each |
Ask something else… opens the assistant empty. The footnote reads Answers come from committed plans, capacity and planned hires in projects you are a member of. The button is shown to anyone with View planning, and the answers are free — the assistant reads the plan; it never runs the AI goal check or changes a scenario. See Planning for integrators and assistants for every question it can answer.
Step 6 · Go full screen
The Full screen toggle (⤢) sits at the end of the tab row. It hides the app sidebar and top bar so the planning workspace fills the window; the scenario header and the tabs stay. Press it again (⤡, Exit full screen) to return. The state is kept in the address as fullscreen=1, so a link you share opens full screen too. Use it when a phase has a long row of sprints or when you plan on a shared screen in a planning meeting. The toggle is not shown on a phone.
5. Other ways in — cockpit, Quick create, search
The Planning Pulse tile on the cockpit
The cockpit shows a Planning Pulse tile to everyone with View planning. It covers the project selected in the header picker, or every project you are a member of when none is selected. Its subtitle reads N active time boxes · N commits this week. Pressing the tile's empty area opens Planning; each of its four inner tiles goes somewhere more specific:
| Inner tile | What it counts | Opens |
|---|---|---|
| Next sprint | The active sprint ending soonest (a phase when no sprint is active): project, name, starts date or N days left, a load bar with a mark at 100% of net capacity, load h / net h · ratio %, the goal, and a state chip — ok, over, under or no capacity. No upcoming sprint or phase when there is none | Live tab focused on that time box — or the Timeline tab when there is no next sprint |
| Overcommitted | Active sprints and phases with a committed plan whose open load is above net capacity × the project's overload ratio; shown of N active | Live tab |
| Drafts | Draft scenarios not yet committed, with an N drifted chip for drafts whose live tasks have changed since seeding | Plan tab |
| Planned hires | Active planned hires, with an N tasks unfilled chip for open tasks planned on a hire that nobody is assigned to yet | Capacity tab |
A time box is active when its status is Active or today falls inside its dates. Net capacity on this tile is the committed figure, so a sprint that was never committed reads 0 h and shows no capacity once work is planned in it. The tile is hidden, not empty, for anyone without View planning.
Quick create
The global + menu lists two Planning entries for anyone with Manage planning. When no project is selected yet, Planning first asks for one and opens the dialog as soon as you pick it:
| Entry | Opens |
|---|---|
| New scenario | Planning with the New scenario dialog open |
| Planned hire | Planning on the Capacity tab with the Add planned hire dialog open |
Global search
Typing into global search finds the Planning page itself and nine deep links into it:
| Search result | Goes to | Shown to |
|---|---|---|
| Planning › Capacity | Capacity tab | Anyone who sees the Planning sidebar entry |
| Planning › Plan by sprints | Plan tab, Sprints view | Same |
| Planning › Plan by phases | Plan tab, Phases view | Same |
| Planning › Goals | Goals tab | Same |
| Planning › Timeline | Timeline tab | Same |
| Planning › Live plan & burndown | Live tab | Same |
| New planning scenario | New scenario dialog | Manage planning |
| Add planned hire | Capacity tab with the hire dialog | Manage planning |
| Planning settings | Project → Settings → Planning for the selected project | View planning |
Search matches everyday words too — burndown, sprint goal, who is free, t-shirt sizing, to be hired, what if, add sprint, phase planning, hierarchy — so a user does not need to know the feature is called Planning.
6. Field reference — the header and URL
| Control | Type | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Scenario switcher | Select, grouped | Drafts first, then Committed; a committed entry shows its commit date, a draft with drift shows a count |
| Scenario menu | Popover | Edit name, notes & time boxes (drafts only), Clone as a new draft, Archive |
| New scenario | Button | Needs Manage planning; New on a phone |
| Drift badge | Button | No drift or N drift; opens the Drift drawer (drafts only) |
| Ask AI | Button + popover | Three starter questions and Ask something else…; needs View planning |
| Compare | Button | Appears once at least one scenario exists |
| Suggest with AI | Button | Drafts only; needs Manage planning and Planning AI; Suggest on a phone — see Suggest with AI |
| Commit | Button | Drafts only; needs Manage planning |
| Tabs | Define · Capacity · Plan · Goals · Timeline · Live | Kept in the URL; the Plan tab's key is still board. Define has no scenario controls |
| Draft saved | Text beside the header buttons | Saving draft…, then Draft saved HH:MM; Not saved — retry the last change when a change failed |
| Full screen | Toggle at the end of the tab row | Hides the app sidebar and top bar; not shown on a phone |
Deep links carry the state, so you can paste a link to a colleague. Every parameter is optional:
| Parameter | Values | Effect |
|---|---|---|
project | A project id | Selects that project in the header picker before the page loads |
scenario | A scenario id of that project | Selects the scenario; otherwise the first draft, else the first committed scenario |
tab | define · capacity · board · goals · timeline · live | Opens that tab (board is the Plan tab); anything else opens Plan |
by (more) | resource · size · category | On the Plan tab, plans the board by person, size or category |
lanes | resource · size · category · sprint · phase | On the Plan tab, cuts the columns into swimlanes (Group by); ignored when the view does not offer that dimension |
by | phases | On the Plan tab, plans by phases; absent means by sprints |
phase | A phase id | On the Plan tab by sprints, shows that phase's sprints; otherwise the phase running today |
fullscreen | 1 | Opens the page full screen |
timebox | A sprint or phase id | With tab=live, focuses the burndown and goal check on that box (it must have a committed plan) |
action | new-scenario | Opens the New scenario dialog (Manage planning) |
new-hire | Switches to Capacity and opens Add planned hire (Manage planning) | |
suggest | Opens Suggest with AI on the selected scenario when it is a draft and you hold Manage planning and Planning AI; stays on Capacity if you asked for it, otherwise switches to Plan |
/org/tasks/planning?project=<project id>&scenario=<scenario id>&tab=board
/org/tasks/planning?project=<project id>&tab=board&by=phases&fullscreen=1
/org/tasks/planning?project=<project id>&tab=live&timebox=<sprint id>
/org/tasks/planning?action=new-scenario
/org/tasks/planning?tab=capacity&action=new-hire
/org/tasks/planning?tab=board&action=suggest
An action runs once and is then removed from the address, so reloading the page does not reopen the dialog. When you lack the permission an action needs, the page simply opens without it.
A committed scenario is read-only; the page says so and offers to clone it. Archiving a draft discards its planned items; archiving a committed scenario keeps the committed plan on the live tasks and in the commit history.
7. Worked example
A delivery lead plans Q4 for a nine-person team. She creates the scenario Q4 baseline covering the two sprints of the Release 3 phase with the backlog included. On the Capacity tab two people are on leave in sprint 1, so their cells are lower than the rest. On the Plan tab, by sprints, she drags tasks until every column reads OK, then clones the scenario as Q4 with backend hire, adds a planned hire at 40 hours per week and moves four tasks onto it. Compare shows sprint 2 dropping from 118% to 92% with the hire. The team agrees to recruit; she commits Q4 with backend hire. Next morning the cockpit's Planning Pulse shows sprint 1 as ok at 92%, and Planned hires reads 1 active with a 4 tasks unfilled chip — she presses it and lands on the Capacity tab of the same project. The tasks planned on the hire stay unassigned on the live board with a planned-hire marker until the person joins.
8. The admin contract
- Permissions: View planning opens the page and every drawer read-only. Manage planning enables scenario changes, capacity edits, goals, planned hires and Commit — it is the only route to writing real tasks from here, so grant it deliberately. Planning AI runs the goal check and Suggest with AI, both of which spend credits. Rescheduling a phase from the Timeline tab additionally needs the project milestone permission. Your administrator grants these on roles under Organisation → Roles.
- Time boxes live on the Roadmap. On a draft scenario, the Plan tab can create, edit, move and delete sprints and phases; those changes stay in the scenario and are written to the Roadmap by the commit. They need the project milestone permission (Manage milestones) as well as Manage planning — to make them and to commit them. Without it the add column only offers boxes that already exist.
- Define changes live project configuration for every scenario at once; it needs Manage planning.
- Search results and Quick create entries follow the same permissions; nothing else needs configuring. The Planning Pulse tile appears for anyone with View planning.
- Project settings → Planning sets estimation, date rules, focus factor and whether commit tolerates drift — see Settings.
9. Don't confuse this with…
- Kanban board — the live board; every drag there is real.
- Planning assistants — the AI Plan sprint drawer proposes a fill for one sprint on the Roadmap; the Planning workspace is where you hold several plans and commit one.
- Cockpit Risk Radar tile — delivery risk across every project; Planning Pulse is only about plans, capacity and hires.
- Task Timelines — the Gantt of tasks and dependencies; Planning's Timeline tab shows only the phase → sprint → milestone tree.
10. Troubleshooting
| Symptom | Cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| "Planning is not available to you" | You lack View planning | Ask your administrator for the permission |
| No Planning entry in the sidebar | The role lacks the menu permission of the Planning module, or the package does not include it | Administrator: grant it on the role |
| The page asks for a project | No project in the header picker | Pick one; the URL then carries project= |
| New scenario is missing | You have View planning but not Manage planning | Ask for Manage planning |
| A sprint you created in Planning is not on the Roadmap | Sprint and phase changes wait in the scenario | Commit the scenario |
| The Define tab is read-only | You lack Manage planning | Ask for the permission |
| A scenario is greyed and says it was committed | Committed scenarios are read-only | Clone as a new draft |
| Pick a scenario, but the list is empty | All scenarios are archived | Create a new one |
| No Planning Pulse tile on the cockpit | You lack View planning | Ask for the permission |
| Planning Pulse shows no capacity for a sprint that is fully staffed | The sprint has no committed plan, so its committed net capacity is 0 h | Commit a scenario that includes the sprint |
| A search result or Quick create link opened Planning but no dialog | You lack Manage planning (or, for action=suggest, Planning AI, or the selected scenario is not a draft) | Ask for the permission; select a draft and use Suggest with AI |
| The app sidebar and top bar are gone | The page is in full screen (fullscreen=1 in the address, often from a shared link) | Press the toggle at the end of the tab row, or remove fullscreen=1 |
A link with timebox= opens the Live tab on a different box | That box has no committed plan | Commit it, or pick the box in Pick a committed time box |