Jira Dashboard Guardrails & Policy

This page defines the guidelines and guardrails for creating and maintaining Jira Dashboards. Please read this before creating or modifying a dashboard.

General Principles

• Dashboards are for reporting and visibility - not for managing work. Use boards and backlogs for day-to-day work management.
• Keep dashboards focused - one dashboard per team or purpose. Avoid duplicating dashboards.
• All dashboards must have a clear owner responsible for keeping them up to date.
• Avoid creating personal dashboards for information that should be shared with the team.

Reference to Roadmaps

• Use the Roadmap view in Jira for high-level planning and timeline visibility.
• If you reference roadmap status on a dashboard, ensure the linked Epic or Version is up to date.
• Do not duplicate roadmap information into text gadgets manually - it will become stale.
• Roadmap gadgets should filter on a specific project - avoid cross-project roadmap gadgets unless agreed with your team lead.

Done Status

• Exclude Done issues from all active sprint and backlog gadgets unless specifically required.
• Use the following JQL to exclude done items:

project = YOUR_PROJECT AND statusCategory != Done ORDER BY updated DESC

• For retrospective or reporting dashboards where Done status is needed, apply a date filter to limit the volume:

project = YOUR_PROJECT AND status = Done AND updated >= -30d ORDER BY updated DESC

• Gadgets showing large volumes of Done issues will impact dashboard load times for all users.

Custom Charts & Filter-based Gadgets

Creating Filters for Dashboards

1. Go to Issues > Search for Issues
2. Build your JQL query
3. Click Save As and give the filter a clear, descriptive name (e.g. SPARKLE - Open Bugs Q2 2026)
4. Set filter sharing to your team or project so others can use the dashboard

Filter Naming Convention

Gadget Guidelines

• Two Dimensional Filter Statistics - use for breakdown by assignee, priority or status. Always base on a saved filter.
• Filter Results - limit to 20 rows maximum to avoid performance issues.
• Pie Chart - use for status or priority distribution only. Avoid using on filters returning more than 500 issues.
• Created vs Resolved - useful for trend analysis. Set period to weekly for sprint dashboards, monthly for programme dashboards.

Dashboard per Quarter

Quarterly Dashboard Structure

Each quarterly dashboard should contain the following gadgets:

Filtering per Quarter

Use Fix Version or a label to scope quarterly dashboards. Recommended approach:

Option 1 - Fix Version (preferred):

project = YOUR_PROJECT AND fixVersion = "Q2 2026" ORDER BY priority DESC

Option 2 - Label based:

project = YOUR_PROJECT AND labels = "Q2-2026" ORDER BY priority DESC

• Agree with your team which approach to use and apply it consistently.
• At the start of each quarter, clone the previous dashboard and update the filter references - do not edit the previous quarter's dashboard.

Dashboard Ownership & Housekeeping

Need Help?

If you need help setting up a dashboard or filter, raise a request via the Service Desk.

Last updated: May 2026 - Maintained by iSPARKLE-SPARKLE team