Just Launched! — Use Master Features on the Starter Roadmap
August 22, 2019

Just Launched! — Use Master Features on the Starter Roadmap

by Bryan McCarty

“Please, please implement this!” “This would make the starter roadmap much more powerful.” Those are just a few of the comments you left on the idea about adding master features (you may call them epics) to the Aha! starter roadmap. We agree.

Teams need a way to visualize features grouped by themes and also by release — now you can do both on the starter roadmap.

Master features are a way to organize work that is bigger than an individual feature but not as sweeping as a strategic initiative. Product teams often refer to these as epics or themes. If your marketing team is using Aha! too, these records will be labeled in their workspace as master activities. (And you can always customize the terminology in Aha! to match how your team works).

You could already create goals, initiatives, releases, and features on your starter roadmap. Now you can toggle to view by release or view by features. The features view is helpful for quickly creating master features and associated features while you move items around before crafting detailed plans. You will also notice we updated the colors on the bars to be consistent with other roadmap views.

If you are not currently using master features, product and workspace owners in Aha! can enable (or disable) the functionality. All Aha! users can view and update the configuration of saved starter roadmaps — such as choosing to color the bars by type or status. Aha! users with owner or contributor permissions can add and edit records on starter roadmaps as well.

Here is a closer look at how it all works:

Add new master features to your starter roadmap Do you need to quickly build a roadmap? The starter roadmap is a good choice. Simply drag and drop master features and features onto your starter roadmap or choose to add existing ones. The new records created here are instantly accessible across the rest of your product or workspace — such as on the features board or in a list report.

New master features created on the starter roadmap will be added to the release with the soonest ship date (the far-left release on your features board).

Communicate release dates (or not) Because master features typically span multiple releases, it is helpful to visualize when the work will be delivered. This is why we made it so the starter roadmap defaults to showing release dates. Not ready to share those dates yet? No problem. Uncheck the box.

To understand how the work is progressing, you can choose to color the bars by status under the same customize view menu.

To understand how the work is progressing, you can choose to color the bars by status under the same customize view menu.

Share your roadmap plans Your roadmap is looking great. Now it is time to share your plans with the team. Go ahead and add it to a presentation or generate a shareable link that anyone can view (including non-Aha! users).

You can expand or collapse each master feature to show or hide the features contained within.

You can expand or collapse each master feature to show or hide the features contained within.

Give it a try today — see just how quickly you can create a beautiful roadmap in Aha!

The starter roadmap is a great place to begin building your plans. As you add and move bars around, you are also creating and linking real product data into your account. This means that the data you create here can be used to unlock even more visualizations. Ready to explore more roadmaps? Check out the features roadmap or build something custom.

Sign up for a free Aha! trial — be happy The starter roadmap is available to all Aha! customers. If you are not already an Aha! customer, you may want to sign up for a free 30-day trial or join a live demo to see why more than 250,000 users trust Aha! to build and market lovable products.

Bryan McCarty

Bryan McCarty

Bryan was a senior product marketing manager at Aha! — the world’s #1 product development software.

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