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A faster, smarter, and more intuitive way to work is here. We’ve redesigned BigPicture navigation to give you a smoother experience and better access to what matters most.
→ Discover what’s new, explore key improvements, and review feature name updates on the New navigation page.
→ The rollout will happen gradually, and the previous navigation will be retired in September 2026.
Project health (RAG)
Visit the Contextual reports page to learn about availability, permissions, and how to add reports to your view.
See the video about the project health report.
Project health
The Project health report visualizes project health using the RAG (Red-Amber-Green) system.
It displays a clean, visual status overview with three colors: Green (on track), Amber (caution/risks), and Red (critical issues/immediate action needed).
The following project health indicators are shown:
Progress burndown
Capacity vs. workload
When a team's workload exceeds the capacity thresholds defined in the Administration settings, the indicator’s color will automatically update. For example, if a team with a capacity of 10 story points is assigned 12 story points for the Sprint, the 120% utilization rate triggers an "exceeded capacity" (Red or Amber) status.
High severity risks
Customize the indicator thresholds
The color-status thresholds for each indicator can be customized by a Jira Admin and App Admin in App settings > Administration > Reports.
Change the report view
The Project health report offers two different views you can switch between by clicking the middle button in the top-right corner:
Pie chart: Shows health statuses for the parent box (based on all child boxes). If the box has no children, no data is displayed.
Table: Shows health statuses for the current box.
Check the health of the sub-boxes
To see which sub-boxes fall within the selected RAG category, click the corresponding color on the pie chart or the status in the pie chart view.
Customize the RAG settings
Box Admins and Box Editors can customize the report:
Click the cog button on the report.
Select one option in each category:
Project health selection mode:
Automatic - based on all metrics (app automatically assigns the overall project health status)
Manual - user selected (user assigns the project health status manually)
Report scope:
Portfolio
Own-scope
Sub-boxes
Progress:
Original estimate
Story points
Burndown progress calculations are based on your selected configuration, which currently supports either story points or original estimate as the primary metric. It is not possible to calculate the combined project health of the box when some sub-boxes have effort expressed in story points and others in the original estimate.
Capacity vs Workload
Workload
Overall capacity
Click Save to finish.
Manually assign the project health status
To manually assign the health status to your project:
Select the Project health selection mode in the report settings.
Switch to the table view.
Click the top health indicator to open the dropdown
Select the status to assign it to the current box:
Not set (gray)
Off track (red)
At risk (amber)
On track (green)
How is the project's risk health calculated?
The data used to calculate the health status of risks in your project is pulled from the Risk Management module.
The calculation is based on a matrix algorithm that is independent of user-defined colors or labels. Instead, it analyzes the risk's position (coordinates) within the risk register (matrix).
Visit the Create new risks register page to learn about the sizes and types of risk registers (risk matrices).
The risk calculation process consists of three main steps:
Normalization: The app converts risk values into coordinates (Indices).
Severity Index Calculation: It then determines the numerical "strength" of the risk.
Classification: And finally, it compares the result against thresholds (which depend on the matrix size).
The system "virtually" builds the matrix (under the hood) and tests every possible cell. The algorithm below flags cells that return the HIGH status.
Calculation algorithm
START: Task risk analysis.
Get matrix dimensions (N x N).
Example: For a 5x5 matrix, N = 5.
Determine risk coordinates on the matrix (X, Y).
Values are sorted in ascending order: Lowest = 1, Highest = N.
Example: Risk Likelihood is 5 and Risk Consequence is 4 => X =5 and Y = 4.
Calculate the severity index.
a) Find MIN and MAX for the XY coordinates:
min = Math.min(X, Y)
max = Math.max(X, Y)
b) Check the Spread:
Is (max - min) > 1?
YES (large spread) => Index = max -2
NO (close together) => Index = min
Determine a HIGH threshold (based on N).
Is N >= 5? (Large matrix)
YES => HIGH threshold = N -1
NO => HIGH threshold = N
Final verdict
Is Index >= HIGH threshold?
YES (HIGH) => Included
NO (LOW/MEDIUM) => Ignored
Risk health calculation examples
Scenario 1: A large 5x5 risk matrix
For a 5x5 matrix, the HIGH threshold is 4 (5 - 1 = 4).
For a cell (5,5):
min = 5, max = 5 => Difference = 0
Index = min = 5
5>=4 => HIGH risk (the highest possible risk; included).
For a cell (4,5) or (5,4):
min = 5, max = 4 => Difference = 1
Index = min = 4
4>= 4 => HIGH risk (included).
For a cell (3,5):
min = 3, max = 5 => Difference = 2 (large spread)
Index = max - 2 => 5 - 2 = 3
3 < 4 => MEDIUM risk (not counted as HIGH)
Final verdict: For the 5x5 matrix, the "high risk" zone is effectively the 2x2 block in the top-right corner.
Scenario 2: A medium 3x3 risk matrix
The algorithm is more restrictive in this scenario.
For a 3x3 matrix, the HIGH threshold is 3 (N =3).
For a cell (3,3):
min = 3, max = 3 => Difference = 0
3 >= 3 => HIGH risk
For a cell (2,3):
min =2, max = 3 => Difference = 1
Index = min = 3 - 1 = 2
2 < 3 => MEDIUM risk
Questions and answers
Q: What if I set my highest risks in the bottom-left corner?
A: BigPicture will ignore your "highest risks" in the bottom-left and will count those in the top-right instead. This happens because the mechanism relies on numerical values (value), not colors or UI placement.
Example:
In this scenario, you used a sort of "inverted Logic” to classify your risks. The 1 = Worst and 5 = Best. If you configure a matrix where 1x1 is "Critical" (Red), and 5x5 is "Safe" (Green), then:
Sorting: The app sorts the values in ascending order: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
Anchoring: The algorithm always looks for the maximum values (5x5), assuming that higher numbers indicate higher probability and impact.
Result: The app will flag the safe (green) level as High Severity and include those tasks in the report.
Ignore: Your bottom-left corner (1x1, red) will be mathematically treated as Low Severity and ignored.
This is not a bug but an intended behavior.
The Risks module also assumes risk increases with the numerical sequence. It adheres to the philosophy that a higher number = a higher risk.
So if the bottom-left is just a result of UI sorting (for example, displaying descending order) but the numerical values remain standard (Worst = 5), the calculation will work perfectly. The system ignores the UI and looks only at the numbers.
This ensures that even if you label a cell (5,5) as "Low" (text-wise), the system will mathematically identify (5,5) as a critical position and include those tasks in the Project health report.