Add milestones and break them into epics

Turn an objective into dated milestones, then split each milestone into epics your engineers can deliver.

5 min readFor PMs and engineers

What you'll end up with

A milestone with a target date and status, broken into epics with owners, each showing its progress.

Milestones for Pulse Analytics in the Meridian Labs demo.

Why it matters

Objectives say what you want to change. Milestones are the dated moments along the way that a customer or stakeholder would notice. Epics are the bodies of work that get you there. Linking all three means anyone can click from a ticket up to the reason it exists, and progress rolls up without anyone reporting it.

Before you start

A product with at least one objective (see Set up your first product)

Add a milestone

On the product Overview, press New milestone in the Milestones section.
Fill in Name, Owner and Target date, and set Confidence to On Track, At Risk or Off Track. Add a Description if it helps, then press Create milestone.
New milestone above the list.

Break it into epics

Go to Epics and press New epic.
Fill in Epic name and a one-line Description, for example "Dashboard builder" and "Drag-free dashboard composition with saved views". Set the Owner and Target date, then press Add to plan.
Open the milestone, press Edit, and tick the new epic under Linked epics. Press Save.
Epics for Pulse Analytics, each with its progress.

Watch progress roll up

Nobody types a percentage. Progress comes from the issues underneath.

Epic progress counts the epic's issues. If every issue has story points, it's the share of points done. If any issue is unestimated, it's the share of issues done.
Milestone progress is the average progress of its linked epics.
The product's Delivered figure is the average progress of its current epics that have delivery data. Partly finished epics count before they're done.
28% delivered on the Pulse Analytics overview.

How it connects

Where the milestone sits among the other records.

Troubleshooting

My milestone shows 0% even though work has started.

Milestone progress only comes from linked epics, and epic progress only moves when their issues are done. Check the milestone has epics under Linked epics, and that those epics have issues. Work that's in progress but not done doesn't count yet.

Can an epic belong to two milestones?

Yes. An epic can be linked to more than one milestone, and it counts towards each one's progress.

What's the difference between an epic and a milestone?

A milestone is a dated outcome. An epic is a body of work that delivers part of it. One milestone usually has several epics.

Next stepNext: Plan and run a sprint from the backlogGet the backlog ready, plan a sprint the team can finish, run it, and close it out honestly.

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Updated 29 September 2026 · Still stuck? Email hello@ondule.com.