Use Plan Templates - Nextedy Documentation

What this guide covers

When you enable the New Plan feature in widget parameters, Planningboard generates new Plans from a template. This guide shows you how to configure the template parameters — name pattern, ID pattern, duration, parent, and optional team expansion — so every new Plan follows your project’s naming conventions.

Prerequisites

Planningboard widget already embedded in a Polarion LiveDoc or Wiki page
Widget parameters accessible (page editor or administration)
At least one existing Plan in the project (auto-numbering extracts the sequence start from the last matching Plan)

Enable the New Plan feature

Open the page containing your Planningboard widget and enter edit mode.
Open the widget parameters panel.
Locate the New Plan section and enable it.

Once enabled, a plus (+) button appears in the board toolbar. Until you configure the template parameters (steps below), clicking it creates Plans with default values — proceed to the next steps to control naming and structure.

Set the Template ID

The Template ID parameter tells Polarion which plan template to use (for example iteration or release). This controls the Plan type that gets created.

Template ID: iteration

The value must match an existing Polarion plan template ID in your project, not a display name. Using an incorrect ID silently creates a Plan of the wrong type or causes creation to fail.

Configure name and ID patterns

Two pattern parameters control what the new Plan is called and what identifier it receives:

Parameter	Purpose	Available placeholders
`Plan Name Pattern`	Display name shown in column headers	`{planNum}`, `{teamName}`
`Plan ID Pattern`	Unique identifier in Polarion	`{planNum}`, `{teamId}`

The {planNum} placeholder is replaced by an auto-incremented integer. Planningboard determines the next number by:

Querying for existing Plans matching the same template ID and project.
Extracting {planNum} from the last matching Plan’s ID.
Incrementing by 1.
Defaulting to 1 if no matching Plans are found.

Example — single-team iterations

Plan Name Pattern: Iteration {planNum}
Plan ID Pattern:   iteration_{planNum}

This produces Plans named Iteration 4, Iteration 5, etc., with IDs iteration_4, iteration_5.

Example — SAFe-style naming with dashes

Plan Name Pattern: I-{planNum}
Plan ID Pattern:   I-{planNum}

A parsing bug in earlier versions caused column spans to render incorrectly, capacity to show zero, and plan shortcuts to disappear when plan names contained dashes (for example I-2401-1 or PI-2401). If you use dash-containing naming patterns, confirm you are running version 25.3.0 or later before relying on this feature in production.

Set a Parent Plan (optional)

If your project contains multiple release versions and you want new iterations created under a specific parent, set the Parent ID parameter:

Parent ID: Version_3_0

Leave this blank to place new Plans at the root level of the project.

Without a Parent ID, Planningboard looks for the most recent Plan of the same template type anywhere in the project. If multiple versions are active, new Plans may be placed under the wrong parent. Specifying Parent ID ensures consistent placement.

Set the Plan duration

New Plan Duration defines how long each generated Plan spans. Enter the duration in days:

New Plan Duration: 14

Planningboard calculates the start date of the next Plan by looking for the last Plan matching your template and project (using Last Plan Query and Last Plan Sort if configured), then placing the new Plan immediately after it.Date calculation fallback sequence:

1. Use nextStartDate if explicitly provided (YYYY-MM-DD)
        |
        v
2. Find last plan via Last Plan Query + Last Plan Sort
   (default sort: latest dueDate)
        |
        v
3. Calculate new start = last plan's end date + 1 day
        |
        v
4. Calculate new end = new start + New Plan Duration

If no previous Plan is found, the system falls back to the parent Plan’s start date, then today’s date.

Configure Last Plan Query (optional)

By default, Planningboard finds the “last plan” by querying all Plans in the project with the same template ID, sorted by due date (latest first). You can override this with a custom Lucene query:

Last Plan Query: projectId:MyProject AND type.id:iteration
Last Plan Sort:  dueDate

Leave both blank to use the default behavior.

Enable Teams (optional)

If your board uses multiple teams, enable the Enable Teams option and define team name/ID pairs. When Teams are enabled, clicking the plus (+) button creates one new Plan per team in a single operation.

Enable Teams: true
Teams:
  - name: Alpha Team
    id:   alpha
  - name: Beta Team
    id:   beta

Plan Name Pattern: {teamName} - Iteration {planNum}
Plan ID Pattern:   {teamId}_iteration_{planNum}

This produces Plans named Alpha Team - Iteration 4 and Beta Team - Iteration 4 simultaneously.

When you enable Teams, the widget pre-populates the name and ID patterns with {teamName} and {teamId} placeholders. If your project does not use teams, remove these placeholders — otherwise {teamName} and {teamId} appear as literal text in your Plan names.

Create a Plan

Save the widget parameters.
Return to the board view and click the plus (+) button in the toolbar.
A confirmation dialog appears showing the calculated values (name, ID, dates, parent).
Review the values and confirm.

The new Plan appears as a column on the board immediately after the page refreshes.

The confirmation dialog shows what Planningboard calculated for name, ID, start date, and end date. If the values look wrong (wrong sequence number, unexpected parent), cancel and check your pattern configuration before proceeding.

Verification

You should now see:

The new Plan column in the board with the name matching your Plan Name Pattern.
The Plan ID in Polarion matching your Plan ID Pattern with the correct sequence number.
The Plan’s start and end dates consistent with the previous Plan’s end date plus the configured duration.
If Teams are enabled, one column per team created in a single operation.

If the column does not appear, use the Refresh data toolbar button to reload the board without a full page reload.

Configuration summary

Parameter	Required	Example	Notes
`Template ID`	Yes	`iteration`	Must match an existing Polarion plan template ID
`Plan Name Pattern`	Yes	`Iteration {planNum}`	Uses `{planNum}`, `{teamName}`
`Plan ID Pattern`	Yes	`iteration_{planNum}`	Uses `{planNum}`, `{teamId}`
`Parent ID`	No	`Version_3_0`	Scopes new Plans under a specific parent
`New Plan Duration`	Yes	`14`	Duration in days
`Last Plan Query`	No	`type.id:iteration`	Lucene query to find the anchor Plan
`Last Plan Sort`	No	`dueDate`	Field used to pick the “last” Plan; default is `dueDate`
`Enable Teams`	No	`true`	Creates one Plan per team on each click

​What this guide covers

​Prerequisites

​Example — single-team iterations

​Example — SAFe-style naming with dashes

​Verification

​Configuration summary

​See also

What this guide covers

Prerequisites

Example — single-team iterations

Example — SAFe-style naming with dashes

Verification

Configuration summary

See also