Enable planning for child work items on the timeline

The ability to plan work using child-level work items (such as stories, bugs, and tasks) is not enabled by default. This is because work items on the timeline are scheduled using the Start date and Due date fields which might not align with everyone’s workflows.

Before enabling this feature, an administrator needs to add the Start date and Due date fields to the work item view for company-managed projects (they’re shown by default in team-managed projects). How to add these fields to your work item view.

Once allowed in your site, you can plan work items at the Epic (level 1) and Story (level 0) hierarchy levels on your timeline. The timeline doesn’t show work items at the Subtask (level -1) level.

To enable planning for child work items on your timeline:

1. Next to your board’s name in the sidebar, select More actions (•••), then Board settings. Alternatively, from your timeline, select More actions (•••), then select Configure Timeline from the upper right of your timeline view (next to view settings).

2. Make sure that Timeline is selected from the list, then toggle the switch for Child level child work item scheduling.

   1. Those planning in scrum can also choose whether your timeline shows child child work items based on their sprint dates or using their exact start and end dates by selecting Visualize child child work items by sprints or Schedule child child work items by dates respectively.

Once enabled you can now plan child-level child work items on your timeline.