Jira Tips for Traditional / Agile Project Management – Filters, Dashboards & Reports

This article is part of our blog article series on “Jira for roles in project management” in which we illustrate Jira tips for traditional and agile project management. We provide helpful advice for the individual roles, such as Scrum Master and Product Owner. In this article of the series, you will get practical tips on how to work better with multiple parallel projects in Jira using filters, dashboards and automated reports.

The article has the following chapters in store for you:

• Why is control over your project pipeline important?
• Jira tips for your project pipeline
• Multi-project filters
• Dashboards
• Automated reports
• Conclusion: Jira tips for traditional / agile project management

Let us dive in!

Why Is Control over Your Project Pipeline Important?

Projects can develop fast and gain in complexity. When organizing multiple parallel projects, it can also become difficult to keep track of everything and ensure that things run smoothly.

Without an effective method of organizing your project pipeline, such an environment can quickly lead to chaos and frustration for all involved. As a powerful platform for task and project management, Jira can help you in the role of project manager. It supports you in staying on top of your project pipeline.

In traditional and agile project management, Jira allows you to visualize your processes, set priorities and make better use of resources. This enables you to concentrate on the essentials and to maximize the results of your projects.

From beginning to end, Jira makes it possible to see exactly where your project is and which steps are yet to come. This gives you the confidence that you are in control of all aspects of your project and can respond to potential issues proactively.

Find out how 3 Product Owner Jira tips make using the tool really easy.

Jira Tips for Your Project Pipeline

Jira is not only suited to the single project environment. Due to the versatile configuration options of this software, it can also be used for the project pipeline. To this end, you can make use of the board function in Jira.

Using the board function, you can set up any number of boards for one project. In this context, boards are a customizable display of the project information.

As the contents of the board are filtered freely, you can also set up boards across multiple projects. This allows you to map the following use cases, among others:

• One Jira project and several project teams: Each team has its own team board on which only a subset of the information is displayed, e.g. filtered by label or category.
• Several Jira projects and an aggregate board: The aggregate board also displays the contents of all other Jira projects. It is even possible that these Jira projects differ in their project type (software or business) or other properties.
• Team-internal view and view for external viewers: In the team-internal view, all data is shown. With the aid of filters, only subsets are displayed in the view for external viewers, e.g. only tasks with the status “In progress”.
• Requirements management as a higher-level Kanban board: For instance, the requirements are described as Epics. And the teams working on them integrate these Epics via filters into their board.

As you see, there are many different ways to configure Jira for the project pipeline and for multi-project management. Below, you will learn how to set up and use several Jira projects and an aggregate board with the overall status using an example.

Good Practices for Working with Jira in Your Project Pipeline

Multi-project filters

To display the information from several projects on one board, you must edit the board filter. To do this, click on the three dots at the top right of the board or the backlog and then click Board Configuration. In the General tab, open the filter query for the project by clicking on the link Edit Filter Query.

Now, you can edit the filter and, for example, load the Items of multiple projects. In the following example, we are loading all Items from the projects “ST” and “PIPE” in one board. In addition, all Epics from the “Projektplan” project are displayed, provided their status is “In Progress”.

In this place, it would also be possible to filter by assigned team, category, label or other Issue properties. Hence, higher-level but also team-specific or lower-level boards and views can be freely configured.

In the example presented here, there is a parent Jira project listing major requirements (i.e. “Anforderung 123” in the illustration below) and entire projects (e.g. “Projekt A”):

What is more, there is a Scrum Team working on multiple projects and requirements that is presented with both of these as Epics in the Backlog:

Are you a Scrum Master? Check out our 3 Scrum Master Jira tips.

The idea is to work on Epic basis only in the parent project. Therefore, the Backlog Items of the teams involved are not shown. This means that the filter of the PIPE project remains untouched. Yet, once you click on the Epic, you will get to see all linked Items from the other Jira projects, too, in this case the team’s “User Story” (see “Child issues” in the illustration below).

Another interesting read: 7 Multi-Project Management Success Factors

Dashboards

In addition to the option of setting up team-specific backlogs, it is also possible to configure the reports in the dashboard individually. A multi-project view might show the statuses of the Epics, for example, as well as data across multiple projects.

The example shows bugs across all projects and diverse project-specific or team-specific data. You have the options to either create a dashboard for yourself only or share it with your organization or your team.

To do this, click on the three dots in the top right corner and select Rename or share. In the subsequent dialog, you can add viewers and editors of the dashboard.

Important note: Once you have made your selection, click Add before saving the result. Otherwise, the selection will not be applied.

Automated Reports

With the aid of automated reports, you will keep your tasks in view. You can also re-use the filters you previously set up for the dashboard or the multi-project view. For example, if you wish to receive an overview of the open issues by e-mail every Friday, this is how it works:

1. 1. Create filter or use an existing filter
   2. Add a new subscription in the filter details

3. Choose recipients, sending frequency and sending time

With this setting, you can have all possible filters evaluated and sent automatically by e-mail. Thus, you could also create a filter for open issues which have not been updated for X days. This would enable you to send reminders by e-mail to ensure tasks in Jira are kept up to date.

Interested in reporting? Read our articles on the topic:

• Project Status Report
• PPM Report
• PMO Reports

Conclusion: Jira Tips for Traditional / Agile Project Management

Jira is a powerful tool for companies of every size. It is easy to customize and use. Used appropriately, Jira will enable you to plan and manage your projects in traditional / agile project management efficiently and identify problems before they arise.

In addition, it will make collaboration with other people on your team easier for you. The wide range of reports and dashboards gives you a quick overview of the progress of your projects in the multi-project environment. You have received a few important tips for this in the article.

The Blog Series “Jira for Roles in Project Management”

This article with Jira tips for traditional / agile project management is part of a series in which we describe the options Jira and Confluence provide for different roles. Find an overview below:

• Jira for Product Owners
• Jira for Scrum Masters
• Jira Tips for Filters, Dashboards and Reporting (this article)

Our final tips

Get to know the individually adaptable “PPM Paradise” – the optimal environment for your enterprise-wide project, program, portfolio and resource management. Download the eBook now (just click, no form).

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Further good tips are provided in the three Atlassian Jira training courses offered by TPG as company seminars that are taught online, partly by the author of this article.

Do you have further questions or comments regarding our Jira tips for traditional / agile project management? Let us know in the comment area.

About the author: Patric Eid has been a freelance trainer, consultant and agile coach for project management with a focus on hybrid and agile project management, Scrum and software training (Jira et al.) since 2013. Previously, he worked in the roles of Scrum Master, (agile) project manager and software developer, and he incorporates this experience into his consulting mandates and trainings.

More on Patric Eid on LinkedIn.

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