For software and product teams
A product roadmap and release timeline for small software teams
Your tracker is good at tickets. It is less good at answering “when will this ship?” Timeline Studio puts the release on a Gantt chart, from initiative down to subtask, with the dependencies and the critical path that decide the date.
Why a timeline next to your tracker
The backlog says what. The roadmap has to say when.
Sprints and boards keep a team moving week to week, but stakeholders ask a different question: what lands this quarter, and what happens to the launch if the API work slips? Answering that from a backlog means a spreadsheet, a slide, or a long explanation.
Timeline Studio is a Gantt chart and roadmap planner for small teams. It doesn't try to replace your issue tracker. It gives you one place to plan releases across design, engineering, QA and marketing, see how the pieces depend on each other, and share a plan that people outside the team can read.
Plan structure
From initiative down to subtask, on one Gantt chart
Structure the plan the way product teams already think: initiatives for the big bets, epics and features underneath, tasks and subtasks for the work itself, and milestones for code freeze, beta and launch. Each task has an assignee, a status and a percent complete that fills its bar, and a parent's progress rolls up from its children.
Switch the same plan between the Gantt chart timeline, a Kanban board with To do, In progress, Blocked and Done columns, and an outline list. Engineers can work from the board while the roadmap stays in sync.
- Initiatives, epics, features, milestones, tasks and subtasks
- Status: to do, in progress, blocked or done
- Parent progress rolls up from its children
Import
Bring the backlog in from a Jira CSV export
Export the issues from Jira as CSV and import the file. Timeline Studio keeps epics and parent issues, assignees, start and due dates, and “blocks” links as dependencies. You match the columns, see a plain list of anything it had to adjust, and fix names and dates before the timeline is created. Files are read in your browser.
The import makes a new timeline from the file; it isn't a live sync. Most teams import once to get the roadmap started, then plan at the level of epics and features in Timeline Studio while day-to-day tickets stay in the tracker.
- Jira CSV exports, CSV files and pasted cells
- Epics and parents, assignees, dates and “blocks” links
- Up to 1,000 rows and 2,000 links
Dependencies and critical path
See which chain of work sets the release date
Draw a dependency from the API work to the mobile client, from the client to QA, from QA to launch. Move a task and everything after it moves too. Switch on the critical path and the zero-slack chain is outlined on the chart, so the team knows which work can't slip without moving the date.
- Dependency arrows that follow the work
- Move a task and everything after it moves
- Critical path outlined on the chart
What-if simulation
Answer “what if we cut scope?” with the plan open
What happens if the payments integration takes two more weeks? If we drop a feature from the first release? If two engineers are away in the same sprint? Switch on simulation mode, make the change, and every dependent task moves with it. Apply the version you agree on, or exit and leave the real plan untouched.
- Changes stay in the sandbox until you apply them
- Dependent tasks move with every change
- Broken dependencies are flagged before you apply
Team workload
Balance the team across parallel workstreams
Give each task an assignee and an allocation, and the workload panel shows a lane per person with their peak load each week. Anyone booked over 100% is listed, and their tasks get a red badge on the timeline, which is usually the first sign that a release date is optimistic.
- An assignee and allocation on every task
- Weekly peak load for each person
- Over-100% warnings on the Gantt chart
Status updates and a roadmap stakeholders can read
Connect your own API key from Anthropic, OpenAI or Google and Timeline Studio turns the last week, two weeks or month of timeline activity into a stakeholder update: completed work, changes, risks and what's next, ready to paste into email or Slack. The same connection runs the AI project planner, which drafts tasks, dates, dependencies and effort ranges from a short brief for you to review before anything is created. Only the brief and start date go to the provider, and your key is encrypted and never sent back to the browser.
Invite product, design and leadership as editors, commenters or viewers, or share a view-only public link. Everyone sees each other's cursors on the timeline, comments support @mentions, and the activity feed shows who changed what. When you need the roadmap in a deck, export it as an image.
Working days and distributed teams
Each timeline has its own work week, such as Sunday to Thursday, plus your own holidays and one-click public holidays for the US, UK, Germany, France, Canada, Poland and Ukraine. With “Skip days off when scheduling” on, task lengths, dependency shifts and the critical path count working days only.
Turn the backlog into a roadmap this afternoon
Import a Jira CSV export, start from the sample app launch plan, or draft a plan from a short brief. Invite the team when it looks right.
Free to start, with limited usage. Works in the browser on desktop, tablet and phone.