Control Chart Gadget

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https://youtu.be/lnCFBoBpgr4

Overview

Depending on how you configure it, this gadget can calculate key metrics like "Cycle Time" or "Lead Time" for the issues from a specified filter and for a certain time interval. It shows the issues with their cycle time in a scatter plot chart. Optionally, the average cycle time can be displayed as a separate line and a custom threshold line can be added for easily identifying the issues that had an abnormally long cycle time. In addition, you can choose to display the rolling average line to see the trend and the standard deviation to easily identify the outliers.

You can use this gadget to see how quickly your team delivers and to identify the issues that took longer than expected. Hovering the mouse pointer over an issue in the chart will display a tooltip with the issue details, like the issue key or cycle time.

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The data is displayed for a specified time interval or an interval relative to the current day. The gadget identifies those issues from the specified filter (or dashboard's filter) that had a cycle completed in this interval, determines the cycle(s) duration and displays them in the chart along with the date when their cycle was ended.

See the settings description below for how to configure the gadget.

Tips & Tricks
To calculate "Cycle Time", set the following:

  • Cycle starts = When the issue entered a status that has category "In Progress"

  • Cycle ends = When the issue entered a status that has category "Done"

To calculate "Lead Time", set the following:

  • Cycle starts = When the issue was created OR When the issue entered a status that has category "New"

  • Cycle ends = When the issue entered a status that has category "Done".

Configuration

The settings of this gadget are divided in 3 tabs:

  • Data tab - contains the required settings of the gadget, such as title or data source

  • More Settings tab - contains the optional settings

  • Colors tab - lets you customize the color of the lines displayed in the chart

Data tab

On this tab you can configure the required settings of the gadget.

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Setting

Description

Setting

Description

Gadget title

Choose what to display in the title bar of the gadget.

Data source

Select the type of Data Source used by the gadget:

  • The agile Board of your team.

  • A Saved filter containing the issues for which you want the metrics to be calculated. Make sure that the specified filter is shared with the users who will also visualize this gadget. Check Include the sub-tasks if you want the sub-tasks from the selected board, filter or JQL to be included in the calculation.

  • A JQL query that returns the issues you want to be processed by the gadget.

Cycle starts

Indicates what to consider as the start event of a cycle.

You can choose between:

  • When the issue was created

  • When the issue entered a status that has category "New" - the cycle starts when the issue was transitioned to any workflow status of category "New". This includes those gray-colored statuses from Jira, like New, Backlog or To Do.

  • When the issue entered a status that has category "In Progress" - the cycle starts when the issue was transitioned to any workflow status of category "In Progress". This includes those blue-colored statuses from Jira, like In Work, In Progress or In Testing.

  • When the issue entered this status - cycle starts when the issue was transitioned to the specified workflow status.

Choose also how to handle the case when there are multiple transitions to the start status or to the status category by setting If multiple entries in the start status, consider the ? entry to first or last. See the example below.

Example
You configured the gadget to start the cycle When the issue entered a status that has category "In Progress" and to end the cycle When the issue entered a status that has category "Done" and there was a Jira issue that had multiple entries in the "In Progress" status before being moved to "Done". How should the cycle time be calculated, from the first or from the last transition in the "In Progress" status?

If you set If multiple entries in the start status, consider the first entry, the cycle will start when the issue was transitioned in the "In Progress" status for the first time.

If you set If multiple entries in the start status, consider the last entry, the cycle will start when the issue was transitioned in the "In Progress" status for the last time.

Cycle ends

Indicates what to consider as the end event of a cycle.

You can choose between:

  • When the issue entered a status that has category "Done" - the cycle ends when the issue was transitioned to any workflow status of category "Done". This includes those green-colored statuses from Jira, like Done, Resolved or Closed.

  • When the issue entered a status that has category "In Progress" - the cycle ends when the issue was transitioned to any workflow status of category "In Progress". This includes those blue-colored statuses from Jira, like In Work, In Progress or In Testing.

  • When the issue entered this status - the cycle ends when the issue was transitioned to the specified workflow status.

  • When the issue entered its current status

You can also choose how to handle the case when there are multiple transitions to the end status by setting If multiple entries in the end status, consider the ? entry to first or last. See the example below.

Example
You configured the gadget to start the cycle When the issue entered a status that has category "New" and to end the cycle When the issue entered a status that has category "Done" and there was a Jira issue that had multiple entries in "Done". How should the cycle time be calculated, till the first or till the last transition in the "Done" status?

If you set If multiple entries in the end status, consider the first entry, the cycle will end when the issue was transitioned to the "Done" status for the first time.

If you set If multiple entries in the end status, consider the last entry, the cycle will end when the issue was transitioned to the "Done" status for the last time.

Multiple cycles

Decide how the gadget should handle those Jira issues that have multiple cycles. This situation occurs if the issue was transitioned multiple times through the start and the finish statuses of the cycle.

Example
You configured the gadget to start the cycle When the issue entered a status that has category "In Progress" and to end the cycle When the issue entered a status that has category "Done" and there was a Jira issue that was moved from "In Progress" to "Done" multiple times, so it had multiple cycles. What cycle do you want to be displayed?

You can choose between:

  • Display all cycles - all the cycles will be displayed with their own dot in the plotting chart and their own entry in the data table.

  • Display only the first cycle - only the first cycle of the issue will be displayed, with all the others being ignored

  • Display only the last cycle - only the last cycle of the issue will be displayed, with all the others being ignored

  • Display as one cycle from the start time of the first cycle to the finish time of the last cycle - a single cycle will be displayed, having as the start time the moment when the first cycle started and as the finish time the moment when the last cycle ended. See the picture below.

Time interval

Represents the time interval displayed by the gadget.

You can choose from multiple options:

Custom dates - choose this option if you want to manually enter a Start date and an End date.

A number of days back - By choosing this option, the gadget will use a rolling time interval with a number of days back to the current day.

Dates of a project release - Choose this option if you want the gadget to use the start and end dates of an existing project release (added on the Releases page of a Jira project). Make sure the selected release has a Start date and End date set. Any subsequent changes to the release dates made on the project's Releases page will be automatically reflected in the gadget, without the need to reconfigure it.

More Settings tab

On this tab you can configure the optional settings of the gadget.

 

Setting

Description

Setting

Description

Calculate in

Specify in what time unit measure the results will be displayed.

Don't count weekends

Check this option if you want to exclude the weekends (Saturdays and Sundays) from the cycle time calculation.

Display average line

Check this option if you want the chart to display a line with the average cycle time for the specified time interval.

Display rolling average line and standard deviation

Check this option if you want the chart to display the rolling average line, which allows visualizing the trend, along with the standard deviation that allows identifying the outliers. You must also specify the odd number of X issues representing the window used for calculating the rolling average and the standard deviation. The rolling average and standard deviation are issue-based, not time-based. For every issue shown on the chart, the rolling average and the standard deviation (at that point in time) are calculated by taking the issue itself, X/2 issues before the issue and X/2 issues after the issue, then averaging their cycle times. For example, if you choose to calculate based on a 15-issues window, the calculation will be based on the issue itself, with 7 issues to the left and 7 issues to the right.

Display threshold line

Check this option if you want the chart to display a line representing a threshold. The issues that have a cycle time higher than the specified Threshold value will be colored in red.

Display percentile lines

Check this option and enter the values (percents) corresponding to the percentiles to be displayed. A percentile is a value from the data set that splits the data into two pieces: the lower piece contains the percent of the data, and the upper piece contains the rest of the data. For example, the 75% percentile will be displayed as a horizontal line with 75% of the issues under it and the rest of the issues (25%) over it.

Use logarithmic scale for the vertical axis

Check this option if you want the chart to display a logarithmic scale instead of a linear scale for the Y axis.

Show legend

Check this option if you want the chart legend to be displayed.

Show data table

Check this option if you want a data table to be displayed along with the chart. The Data tab displays the issues along with their cycle time details and the average calculation.

Colors tab

On this tab you can customize the color of the lines displayed in the chart.

Setting

Description

Setting

Description

Automatically assign colors

Check this if you want the chart to automatically assign colors for the series.

Custom colors

Select any custom color you want the series to be displayed on by either entering the color's hexadecimal code or picking a color.

You can also use the Copy and Import buttons to copy and import the color configuration to gadgets of the same type.

 

Related blog articles

The following blog articles provide more information on how to use this gadget.