Contents

Prerequisites

Almost ready to go! Ensure that you are good on the following prerequisites:

• Time tracking or the Story Points field is available
• Burndown report is added to your dashboard
• You have configured the Burndown gadget

Reading the chart

Your Burndown report displays the following information:

• Sprint data
  • Sprint estimates – blue colored dash line
  • Sprint actuals – blue colored line
  • Sprint start / end – circles
• Version data
  • Version estimates – green colored dash line
  • Versions accomplished – green colored line
  • Version delivery dates – circles
• Acceptable deviation and danger zone – a user defined deviation area around the sprint estimates. When the sprint actuals are inside this area, the team progress is considered to be on track even if the actuals are below the estimates. 
  • Deviation Ahead or Upper Limit – a gold to aim for. This is the hardest line to reach on the chart but at the same time the sweetest one. Very rarely do teams reach that gold but it's worth trying! 
  • Deviation Behind or Lower Limit – this line marks the maximum deviation from planned work beyond which the team progress is not considered to be on track and thus – entering the danger zone.
  • Danger zone – transparent red area below the Lower Limit (Deviation Behind) line. Do not let the Sprint Actuals line enter the danger zone for this is when the team is so behind the plan that a serious retrospective, analysis, and replanning might be necessary.

More flexibility with additional filtering

Starting with version 3.1 of Agile Reports you can filter the report data further by version, sprint, or another single select custom field, like Product or Platform for instance. When you view a refined report with these parameters, they are also reflected in the report header to help you see the context of the report. For example, the following header implies that the Burndown report is built for the Jira project called "Teams in Space", and this report is showing progress on release 2.0 only.

Configurable report type

Some people prefer to see how much work they have accomplished (burnup), others – how much work remains to be done (burndown). Starting with Agile Reports for Jira 3.0 we added the flexibility to define whether you'd like to work with the burnup or the burndown reports.

Selecting the lines to display on the chart

You get to choose which lines matter more for you. For instance, if you are focused on how the sprint actuals compare to the deviation lines, you can hide the other lines by clicking them in the chart legend as shown below. To display the lines again, click them again.

Tooltips

For you to have an instant insight into what the certain parts of the chart mean and how much work was delivered at a certain point in time, hover over a place on the chart. The tooltip will show details for the selected point on the report.

Zoom feature

If you have too many sprints displayed on the report, it might get difficult to read data (see screenshot), so you can zoom in to see only a few sprints of interest. To zoom in, hover over the chart area and use the mouse wheel or your track pad. Also, you can pan over the chart by clicking and dragging on a section of the chart. To zoom out, you can use your mouse wheel or click the Refresh button.

Burndown details in tabs

Working with the report details, you might want to have more insights in addition to chart view. For this purpose we provide detailed information, insights, and warnings in a table view below the chart.

There are the following tabs with the report insights:

• Summary tab
• Sprints tab
• Versions tab
• Warnings tab

Summary tab

Here you can view information about planned and delivered work measured in the selected metrics (story points or time), average numbers for the sprint and version deliverables, and warnings in case the actual progress is behind the plan.

Sprints tab

The Sprints tab displays information about the committed and delivered work, sprint status and dates. For in-depth sprint analysis, click the necessary sprint, and you will be redirected to the report for that particular sprint.

Versions tab

The versions in the Versions tab are now clickable (starting with Agile Reports v3.1), and you can drill down to details of the specific version just by clicking this version in the Versions tab. 

Warnings tab

Warnings are generated to help you identify cases when chart's data might show not the actual picture. For instance, when an issue is not estimated or when a ticket is resolved outside of the sprint and is not marked as a duplicate or clone. The tickets in the Warnings tab are not in included into the chart calculations, so to ensure the chart's accuracy, click the issue in the warning and take action, for instance – fill out the necessary fields in this ticket.

Exporting the Burndown report data

You can save the chart image, all you have to do is right click on the chart area and select Save image. You can also export the details of the sprints and versions by clicking the Export button.

Other tips and tricks

For you to have a meaningful data on the Burndown gadget, check on the following items:

• You have at least 1 active sprint to filter by SCRUM board
• There are at least 5 days between the start and end dates for the report
• Deviation percentage is not greater than 30%. If it's very low (10% for instance), then your team has to operate in very tight boundaries and will often fail to be on track even though their progress might be good enough. If you set the deviation for more than 30%, reporting starts to lose its purpose as a very significant delay will not ring the bell, you will not get the warnings, while the work delay might be an alarming one.
• You check the Warnings tab from time to time and process tickets there. The tickets shown in the Warnings tab are not included into the chart calculations, and to see the accurate picture on the chart, you might want to triage those tickets first.