Goals & Planning Panel

Goals & Planning Panel

Hierarchical tree view for organizing strategic work alongside your daily execution

The Goals & Planning Panel is an overlay that appears on the left side of your Work Tracker and Timeline views. It organizes your work from big-picture strategic initiatives down to individual tasks in a hierarchical tree, with progress tracking that automatically updates as your team completes work.

What the Goals & Planning Panel Shows

The panel displays your organization's work in a hierarchical tree structure with five configurable levels. By default, you see the top three levels—Initiatives, Projects, and Epics—which represent your strategic planning. This keeps your high-level planning separate from the day-to-day work shown on your Work Tracker.

Progress indicators update automatically as your team closes issues and merges pull requests. When an issue gets completed, its parent Epic updates, which updates its parent Project, which updates the Initiative. You get accurate strategic visibility without manual status reporting.

The hierarchical tree lets you expand and collapse items to focus on specific areas. Click the chevron arrows to expand parents and see their children, or collapse completed sections to reduce clutter when reviewing active work.

Understanding the Five-Level Hierarchy

The Goals & Planning Panel organizes work into five hierarchy levels, with terminology you can customize to match your organization's planning vocabulary.

Level 1: Initiatives are strategic objectives spanning multiple quarters or years. These represent major business goals driving product direction, like "Improve user retention" or "Scale platform performance."

Level 2: Projects are large bodies of work contributing to initiatives, typically spanning several months. Examples include "User onboarding redesign" or "Payment system upgrade."

Level 3: Epics are themes of work grouping related issues around specific features that development teams can execute. Think "User profile management" or "Notification system."

Level 4: Issues (Stories/Tasks/Bugs) represent day-to-day development work completed in days. These execution-level items appear on your Work Tracker and connect directly to repository work.

Level 5: Sub-tasks are specific work within issues, typically measured in hours. Examples include "Write unit tests" or "Update documentation."

Customizing Your Hierarchy

Your organization's planning vocabulary might differ from the default terminology. Access "Edit issue types and hierarchy" to customize each hierarchy level.

Terminology customization lets you rename each level to match your organization's language. Change "Initiatives" to "Objectives" or "Epics" to "Features" to make the hierarchy feel natural to your team.

Default issue types can be configured for each level, establishing what type of GitHub issue gets created when you add items at that level. This ensures consistency across your organization's planning structure.

Level visibility can be toggled for Level 4 (Issues) and Level 5 (Sub-tasks). Most teams keep these hidden to focus on strategic planning, but the flexibility exists for workflows requiring complete visibility.

Workspace vs Company-Wide Views

Two tabs at the top of the panel control which work you see.

This workspace shows only hierarchical work items from your current workspace. This focused view helps teams plan and track their specific projects. Most daily planning happens in this view.

Company wide displays all projects and epics across every workspace in your GitHub organization. This organizational perspective helps leadership see cross-team initiatives and understand how different projects relate.

Both views update in real-time and share the same underlying data. Changes made in one view immediately appear in the other.

Filtering and Organizing Your Work

The Filters menu at the top of the panel helps you focus on specific aspects of your strategic plan.

Search lets you enter text to find specific initiatives, projects, or epics by name. Useful in large organizations with many active items.

Issue type filters by specific hierarchy levels. Show only Initiatives for executive planning, or filter to Epics when coordinating with development teams.

Status controls whether you see Open items, Closed (top-level), or Closed (sub-issues). Focus on active work during planning, or include closed items to review completed initiatives.

Sort options let you organize items alphabetically or manually. Drag items using the grip handle for custom ordering that persists across sessions.

Creating Work in the Hierarchy

You can create new hierarchical items using two methods.

Method 1: Green "+ Create" button (top right of screen)

1. Click the green "+ Create" button

2. Select "New GitHub Issue" or "New Zenhub Issue"

3. Choose the issue type (Initiative, Project, Epic, etc.)

4. The item appears in the Goals & Planning Panel based on its type

Method 2: Blue "+" button in panel (top of Goals & Planning Panel)

1. Click the blue "+" button

2. Click the issue icon to switch between "Create a strategic GitHub issue" and "Switch to Zenhub issue create"

3. Select the hierarchy level from the dropdown (Objective, Key Result, Project, Epic, Untracked)

4. Complete the creation form

Both methods create items that immediately appear in the panel hierarchy. Add child items to any parent by clicking to expand the parent and creating within that context.

Progress Tracking and Completion Percentages

Progress indicators update automatically based on actual GitHub activity. As your team closes issues and merges pull requests, completion percentages update without manual status reporting.

Percentage calculations roll up through the hierarchy. An Epic's progress calculates from its child Issues, a Project's progress from its Epics, and an Initiative's progress from its Projects. This ensures strategic goals accurately reflect actual work completion.

Hover for details over any percentage to see breakdowns including date ranges, sub-issue counts, story point totals, and progress across workflow states (To-do, In progress, Completed). This shows not just overall progress but work distribution and current focus areas.

Cross-workspace visibility means progress breakdowns include sub-issues outside the current workspace, providing visibility into cross-team dependencies.

Using Goals & Planning with Timeline

The Goals & Planning Panel appears on both your Work Tracker and Timeline views as a consistent overlay. Click "Timeline" in the left sidebar to see the same hierarchical work displayed in gantt-style format.

Both views share the same data. Changes made in the panel immediately appear on Timeline, and vice versa. Create items in the panel and they appear on Timeline. Adjust dates on Timeline and the panel reflects those changes.

Filtering applies to both views. When you filter the Goals & Planning Panel to show only Epics, Timeline also displays only Epics. This coordinated filtering helps you focus on specific planning horizons.

Timeline provides additional visualization features like dependency lines, predicted end dates, and export capabilities. See the Timeline article for complete details on gantt-style planning features.

Common Issues and Solutions

Items appearing greyed out: This happens when the top-level item (Initiative or Project) doesn't match your current filters or search, but at least one child issue does. The greyed-out treatment helps you see relevant children even when their parent wouldn't normally appear based on your filters.

Items not showing: Check your active filters—items might be hidden by issue type, status, or search filters. Verify the item has the correct hierarchy level set. Remember that "This workspace" view only shows items from your current workspace.

Progress percentages not updating: Verify that child issues are properly linked and that issue statuses are being updated in GitHub. Progress only rolls up from actual closed issues, not from manual status updates.

Can't reorder items: Manual sorting requires dragging by the grip handle. Ensure you have proper permissions and note that reordering works for items within the same parent level.

Panel not appearing: The Goals & Planning Panel is an overlay that appears on the Work Tracker and Timeline views. If you don't see it, check that you're on one of these views rather than Reports or other sections.

FAQ

Q: Why don't issues from my Goals & Planning Panel appear on my Work Tracker?
A: This separation is intentional. The Goals & Planning Panel focuses on strategic planning (Initiatives, Projects, Epics), while Work Tracker handles execution-level work (Issues, Tasks). This keeps strategic planning distinct from daily development coordination. Enable Level 4 visibility through "Edit issue types and hierarchy" if you want to see execution-level work in the panel.

Q: How is completion percentage calculated for parent items?
A: Progress rolls up automatically through the hierarchy. A Project's percentage calculates from the completion of its child Epics, which calculate from their Issues, which calculate from their Sub-tasks. The calculation is based on actual closed issues in GitHub—as your team closes work, percentages update in real-time.

Q: Can I customize the hierarchy levels to match our terminology?
A: Yes, access "Edit issue types and hierarchy" to customize each level with your preferred terminology and default issue types. Change "Initiatives" to "Objectives," "Epics" to "Features," or any other terms that match your organization's planning vocabulary.

Q: What's the difference between "This workspace" and "Company wide" views?
A: "This workspace" shows only hierarchical work from your current workspace for focused team planning. "Company wide" displays all projects and epics across every workspace in your GitHub organization for complete organizational perspective. Both views share the same data and update in real-time.

Q: Why are some items greyed out in the panel?
A: Items appear greyed out when the top-level item doesn't match your current filters but at least one child issue does. This helps you see relevant children even when their parent wouldn't normally appear based on your active filters.

Q: Can items from Goals & Planning Panel be used in sprint planning?
A: Strategic items (Initiatives, Projects, Epics) remain in the Goals & Planning Panel, but their child Issues appear on the Work Tracker where sprint planning happens. Break down your strategic work into execution-level Issues to make them available for sprint assignment and velocity tracking.