Jira provides multiple ways to view data in different formats, such as lists, calendars, timelines, boards, and dashboards. For whatever reason, boards seem to get all the love and attention! Boards are great for showing current issue status, but when you need to understand statistics, use a dashboard instead. Dashboards are a great way to show a high-level overview or a snapshot in time.

A Jira dashboard is a statistics-based view of issues from one or more projects. A dashboard displays a lot of issue data at once as graphs, counts, trends, and charts. You can quickly gauge a system's health, view a team’s workload, or detect trends in issue data. There’s a default system dashboard for everyone to use, and users can create custom dashboards, too.

Just like boards and reports, dashboards are driven by JQL queries. Additionally, dashboards use gadgets to display dynamic content. Each gadget type has its own settings to determine how the information returned in a JQL query is shown. Here’s an example gadget.

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In the screenshot example, one dashboard gadget on the left displays a count of issues by priority and assignee. This is an example of a “Two-Dimensional Filter Statistics” gadget. Two data points are displayed in one table. On the right is a list of other gadgets to add to the dashboard.

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If the built-in gadgets don’t meet your needs, explore third-party apps from the Atlassian Marketplace. Many add-ons specifically for reporting include additional dashboard gadgets.

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Jira Dashboard Examples

Let’s examine some example dashboards in Jira Cloud so you can get ideas for building your own custom views.

Daily Work “To Do” List

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Here’s my real personal dashboard in my production application. When I start work in the morning, I check my custom dashboard to see what I must focus on first. I check this view multiple times daily, so it’s easy to spot new issues. I prefer checking my dashboard to relying on endless Jira email notifications.

On the left are business goals for the quarter and issues assigned to me. On the right are reminders for various consulting agreements. At the bottom right is a Stream gadget showing recent Jira activity.

Think of what you need to know when you start work each day and display that information on a personal dashboard.

Detecting Problems and Missing Data

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This is a different type of dashboard. I built this to find and address frequent problems like missing issue details. Each gadget has a JQL statement that checks for a different undesired scenario. The overall goal is for the dashboard to display zero results! If there are no results, then there are no follow-up actions to perform. If results are returned, it means there’s a data problem that needs to be corrected.

For example:

• The “Missing Account” gadget on the top left finds issues that have work logged but are missing an account provided by the Tempo time tracking app. If issues appear in this list, the work won’t be attributed to the correct expense account.
  
• The “Issues with no Org” gadget on the bottom right finds issues not associated with an organization in a Jira Service Management project. The users checking this dashboard need to open these two issues and associate them with the correct org. Once this is corrected, the dashboard will remain empty, which is the desired state.

What are some frequent data problems in your Jira application? Create a dashboard to detect them!

Personal Goals and Self-Improvement

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I also use Atlassian tools outside of work to track personal growth items. This dashboard tracks progress on personal goals, displays a heatmap to highlight common themes, shows a pie chart for progress on my bucket list, and calculates various statistics, percentages, and work logs. Tracking personal projects in your own Jira application is a great way to experiment and learn.

Whether you use dashboards, boards, reports, or other visualization methods, there’s no wrong way to view data in Jira. Use whatever you’re most comfortable with that provides the information you need.

Dashboard Tips

• Limit dashboard data to what’s important right now.
• Break up large amounts of data with multiple dashboards if needed.
• Create a dashboard to display overall statistics for each team, department, or long-term initiative.
• Create a dashboard for your personal “to-do” list.
• Use the “currentUser()” clause in JQL queries so multiple people can share the same filters and dashboards.

• Example: Use “assignee = currentUser()” instead of “assignee = rwright”.

Measuring Gadget Use in Salto

Have you ever wondered how many dashboards use a specific gadget? Maybe you’re researching whether anyone uses extra gadgets from apps you’re paying for. Or, maybe you’re having trouble finding a specific dashboard, but remember a certain gadget it uses. Luckily, you can use Salto to measure and find gadget use. Simply search for a gadget by name, and in seconds, Salto returns a list of where it is used.

The example shows the “Pie Chart” gadget used in four dashboards. The dashboard named “Customer Dashboard (Internal use)” is the one I was looking for but couldn’t find. Problem solved!

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Activities to Try

Now it’s your turn! Perform a search, save the results as a filter, and use the filter to power gadgets on a dashboard.

Ideas

• Demonstrate your accomplishments this quarter by displaying the issues you worked on. Share the dashboard URL or take a screenshot to prepare for your compensation review meeting!
• Create a view for leadership showing all high-value or cost-saving projects your team is currently working on.
• Create a list of issues in the backlog, ordered by priority and impact, so users can see where their request ranks against others.

Resources

• What is a Jira dashboard? — https://support.atlassian.com/jira-work-management/docs/what-is-a-jira-dashboard 
• Learn about Jira reports & dashboards — https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/guides/reports-dashboards/overview#what-are-dashboards 
• Five steps to create a killer dashboard in Jira — https://www.atlassian.com/blog/jira/5-steps-to-build-a-killer-dashboard