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Iterations

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An iteration in GitLab refers to a time-boxed workflow that groups issues to be worked on during a specific period of time, usually lasting 1-3 weeks.

Teams can use iterations to track velocity and volatility metrics. For tracking the same item over multiple concurrent periods, you can use iterations with milestones. Create and manage various iteration cadences in a group.

For example, you can use:

  • Milestones for Program Increments, which span 8-12 weeks.
  • Iterations for Sprints, which span 2 weeks.

In GitLab, iterations are similar to milestones, with a few differences:

  • Iterations are only available to groups.
  • Iterations are grouped into iteration cadences.
  • Iterations require both a start and an end date.
  • Iteration date ranges cannot overlap within an iteration cadence.

Iteration cadences

  • Introduced in GitLab 14.1 with a flag, named iteration_cadences. Disabled by default.
  • Changed in GitLab 15.0: All scheduled iterations must start on the same day of the week as the cadence start day. Start date of cadence cannot be edited after the first iteration starts.
  • Enabled on GitLab.com and self-managed in GitLab 15.0.
  • Changed in GitLab 15.4: A new automation start date can be selected for cadence. Upcoming iterations are scheduled to start on the same day of the week as the changed start date. Iteration cadences can be manually managed by turning off the automatic scheduling feature.
  • Generally available in GitLab 15.5. Feature flag iteration_cadences removed.

Iteration cadences are containers for iterations and can be used to automate iteration scheduling. You can use them to automate creating iterations every 1, 2, 3, or 4 weeks. You can also configure iteration cadences to automatically roll over incomplete issues to the next iteration.

Create an iteration cadence

  • Changed the minimum user role from Developer to Reporter in GitLab 15.0.

Prerequisites:

  • You must have at least the Reporter role for a group.

To create an iteration cadence:

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your group.

  2. Select Plan > Iterations.

  3. Select New iteration cadence.

  4. Enter the title and description of the iteration cadence.

    To manually manage the iteration cadence, clear the Enable automatic scheduling checkbox and skip the next step.

  5. Complete the required fields to use automatic scheduling.

    • Select the automation start date of the iteration cadence. Iterations are scheduled to begin on the same day of the week as the day of the week of the start date.
    • From the Duration dropdown list, select how many weeks each iteration should last.
    • From the Upcoming iterations dropdown list, select how many upcoming iterations should be created and maintained by GitLab.
    • Optional. To move incomplete issues to the next iteration, select the Enable roll over checkbox. At the end of the current iteration, Automation Bot moves all open issues to the next iteration. Issues are moved at midnight in the instance time zone (UTC by default). Administrators can change the instance time zone.

  6. Select Create cadence. The cadence list page opens.

To manually manage the created cadence, see Create an iteration manually.

View the iterations list

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your group.
  2. Select Plan > Iterations.

To view all the iterations in a cadence, ordered by descending date, select that iteration cadence. From there you can create a new iteration or select an iteration to get a more detailed view.

NOTE: If a project has issue tracking turned off, to view the iterations list, enter its URL. To do so, add: /-/cadences to your project or group URL. For example https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/sample-data-templates/sample-gitlab-project/-/cadences. Issue 339009 tracks improving this.

Edit an iteration cadence

Prerequisites:

  • You must have at least the Reporter role for a group.

To edit an iteration cadence:

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your group.
  2. Select Plan > Iterations.
  3. To the right of the cadence you want to edit, select the vertical ellipsis ({ellipsis_v}) and then select Edit cadence.
  4. Edit the fields.
    • When you use automatic scheduling and edit the Automation start date field, you must set a new start date that doesn't overlap with the existing current or past iterations.
    • Editing Upcoming iterations is a non-destructive action. For example, if ten upcoming iterations already exist, changing the number under Upcoming iterations to 2 doesn't delete the eight existing upcoming iterations.
  5. Select Save changes.

Turn on and off automatic scheduling for an iteration cadence

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your group.
  2. Select Plan > Iterations.
  3. To the right of the cadence for which you want to turn on or off automatic scheduling, select the vertical ellipsis ({ellipsis_v}) and then select Edit cadence.
  4. Select or clear the Enable automatic scheduling checkbox.
  5. If you're turning on automatic scheduling, complete the required fields Automation start date, Duration, and Upcoming iterations.
    • For Automation start date, you can select any date that doesn't overlap with the existing open iterations. If you have upcoming iterations, the automatic scheduling adjusts them appropriately to fit your chosen duration.
  6. Select Save changes.

Example: Turn on automatic scheduling for a manual iteration cadence

Suppose it's Friday, April 15, and you have three iterations in a manual iteration cadence:

  • Monday, April 4 - Friday, April 8 (closed)
  • Tuesday, April 12 - Friday, April 15 (ongoing)
  • Tuesday, May 3 - Friday, May 6 (upcoming)

The earliest possible Automation start date you can choose in this scenario is Saturday, April 16, because April 15 overlaps with the ongoing iteration.

If you select Monday, April 18 as the automation start date to automate scheduling iterations every week up to two upcoming iterations, after the conversion you have the following iterations:

  • Monday, April 4 - Friday, April 8 (closed)
  • Tuesday, April 12 - Friday, April 15 (ongoing)
  • Monday, April 18 - Sunday, April 24 (upcoming)
  • Monday, April 25 - Sunday, May 1 (upcoming)

Your existing upcoming iteration "Tuesday, April 12 - Friday, April 15" is changed to "April 18 - Sunday, April 24".

An additional upcoming iteration "April 25 - Sunday, May 1" is scheduled to satisfy the requirement that there are at least two upcoming iterations scheduled.

Delete an iteration cadence

  • Changed the minimum user role from Developer to Reporter in GitLab 15.0.

Prerequisites:

  • You must have at least the Reporter role for a group.

Deleting an iteration cadence also deletes all iterations in that cadence.

To delete an iteration cadence:

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your group.
  2. Select Plan > Iterations.
  3. To the right of the cadence you want to delete, select the vertical ellipsis ({ellipsis_v}) and then select Delete cadence.
  4. Select Delete cadence.

GitLab Automation Bot user

When iteration roll-over is enabled, at the end of the current iteration, all open issues are moved to the next iteration.

Iterations are changed by the special GitLab Automation Bot user, which you can see in the issue system notes. This user isn't a billable user, so it does not count toward the license limit count.

On GitLab.com, this is the automation-bot1 user.

Create an iteration manually

  • Changed the minimum user role from Developer to Reporter in GitLab 15.0.

When an iteration cadence has automatic scheduling enabled, iterations are created on schedule. If you disable that option, you can create iterations manually.

Prerequisites:

To create an iteration:

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your group.
  2. Select Plan > Iterations.
  3. To the right of the cadence in which you want create an iteration, select the vertical ellipsis ({ellipsis_v}) and then select Add iteration.
  4. Complete the fields.
  5. Select Create iteration. The iteration details page opens.

Edit an iteration

  • Changed the minimum user role from Developer to Reporter in GitLab 15.0.

Prerequisites:

  • You must have at least the Reporter role for a group.

To edit an iteration:

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your group.
  2. Select Plan > Iterations and select an iteration cadence.
  3. Select the iteration you want edit. The iteration details page opens.
  4. In the upper-right corner, select the vertical ellipsis ({ellipsis_v}) and then select Edit.
  5. Edit the fields:
  6. Select Save changes.

Delete an iteration

  • Changed the minimum user role from Developer to Reporter in GitLab 15.0.

Prerequisites:

To delete an iteration:

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your group.
  2. Select Plan > Iterations and select an iteration cadence.
  3. Select the iteration you want edit. The iteration details page opens.
  4. In the upper-right corner, select the vertical ellipsis ({ellipsis_v}) and then select Delete.
  5. Select Delete.

Iteration report

You can track the progress of an iteration by reviewing iteration reports. An iteration report displays a list of all the issues assigned to an iteration and their status.

The report also shows a breakdown of total issues in an iteration. Open iteration reports show a summary of completed, unstarted, and in-progress issues. Closed iteration reports show the total number of issues completed by the due date.

View an iteration report

To view an iteration report:

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your group.
  2. Select Plan > Iterations and select an iteration cadence.
  3. Select an iteration.

Iteration burndown and burnup charts

The iteration report includes burndown and burnup charts, similar to how they appear when viewing a milestone:

  • Burndown charts help track completion progress of total scope.
  • Burnup charts track the daily total count and weight of issues added to and completed in a given timebox.

View iteration charts scoped to subgroups or projects

View burndown and burnup charts for iterations created for a group in any of its subgroups or projects. When you do this, the charts only count the issues that belong to the subgroup or project.

For example, suppose a group has two projects named Project 1 and Project 2. Each project has a single issue assigned to the same iteration from the group.

An iteration report generated for the group shows issue counts for all the group's projects:

  • Completed: 0 of 2
  • Incomplete: 0 of 2
  • Unstarted: 2 of 2
  • Burndown chart total issues: 2
  • Burnup chart total issues: 2

An iteration report generated for Project 1 shows only issues that belong to this project:

  • Completed: 0 of 1
  • Incomplete: 0 of 1
  • Unstarted: 1 of 1
  • Burndown chart total issues: 1
  • Burnup chart total issues: 1

Group issues by label

Group the list of issues by label to view issues that belong to your team, and get a more accurate understanding of scope attributable to each label.

To group issues by label:

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your group.
  2. Select Plan > Iterations and select an iteration cadence.
  3. Select an iteration.
  4. From the Group by dropdown list, select Label.
  5. From the Filter by label dropdown list, select the labels you want to group by.
  6. Select any area outside the label dropdown list. The page is now grouped by the selected labels.

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