In kind cooperation with Old Street Solutions
The itch you can’t scratch
For many users, Jira reporting is like an itch in the middle of your back you can’t get to. You’ll do what you can, like rubbing it against a wall. That might placate the itch, but it’s just not quite as satisfying or effective as letting your fingers have at it.
This is how users stuck with out-of-the-box Jira for their reporting feel. They can make some reports, and they can make them pretty darn easily. But those reports aren’t as visual or dynamic as they want them to be, or they don’t show the right information or relay the right message. It’s like walking up a perpetual hill where the peak is always out of reach.
Most of our clients have project managers using Advanced Roadmaps for Jira and BigPicture for their reporting. These powerful tools are great for giving you the numbers, maintaining control of your budget, and getting a broad overview on all your projects. However, they don’t address the needs of smaller teams having to do their own reporting. Plus, you have to be a Jira admin to be able to use the bigger tools anyway.
The smaller teams have only native Jira in their toolbox: the starter kit. Most people will eventually outgrow the starter kit. But they don’t want to go from the starter kit to the super-pro-wizard kit, one that’ll turn out uber-expansive reports on a million different variables. More likely, they just want a bar chart in different colors.
Bar charts, line charts, pie charts… exactly how you want them
A bar chart in different colors is a simple thing you’d think would be easy to do in native Jira. Sadly, it’s not so. Nor are there options for labeling, adding descriptions, combining or rearranging segments, showing/hiding data points, or charting by story points and time spent. You can’t make a stacked bar chart either, and who doesn’t love a stacked bar chart (it’s a great way of visualizing multiple variables at once).
To do all of this, you need the Atlassian Marketplace app, Custom Charts for Jira, from Old Street Solutions, a Kreuzwerker partner. This app acts as an extension of Jira’s native capabilities, but with the same learning curve. You can create and customize a whole range of dynamic reports in a few clicks, rather than spending hours using an unwieldy tool to make one bar chart.
Custom Charts is actually a Jira dashboard gadget, one that lets you build multiple reports and charts using a single gadget, directly on your Jira dashboard (unlike many tools that force you to build your reports in a separate screen or platform). You can have these charts alongside the native gadgets on your Jira dashboard. Alternatively you can swap out the native gadgets for more flexible and customizable Custom Charts versions.
A reporting solution for small teams, business teams, and Jira beginners
(and anyone else who wants to build a pretty chart quickly)
The beauty of Custom Charts is not just the charts but the fact that if you know how to use a computer, you know how to use the app. Its intuitive, drag-and-drop user interface is designed for business teams who don’t want to use a complicated business intelligence platform for reporting, or touch coding with a barge pole.
Custom Charts lets everybody create the reports they want to make, showing the most useful information to their team in the format of their choice. You can even share your charts outside of Jira thanks to a new and continually evolving feature called Shared Dashboards. Currently this enables users to share live reports in the Jira Service Management portal so that customers can see the progress you’re making in real time. In due course, this feature will let you share live reports anywhere: in an email, on a website, through messaging platforms like Slack, and more. In effect, you’ll be able to share progress updates with stakeholders who may not have access to your Jira.
If you’re interested in making customized reporting a cakewalk that doesn’t involve plunging into a bottomless pit of time, get in touch and we’ll tell you more about Custom Charts for Jira!