Counting Status Transitions

Overview

Reporting on the number of times a Jira issue transitioned to a particular status can be extraordinarily helpful for tracking metrics like:

Jira issue reopen counts
the number of revisions a story or specification required before moving into development
management approval passes
efficiency in triaging tasks, stories or bugs
QA, testing or other approval failure counts
the number of exchanges required with customers to qualify reported issues

Using Arsenale Dataplane and the ScriptRunner for Jira add-on, tracking these metrics in Jira is simple.

In this example, we'll report on the number of times a Jira issue was reopened. You can easily adapt this example to report on any particular Jira status or statuses relevant to your workflows or processes.

Configuring Your Jira Instance

Install the ScriptRunner for Jira add-on.
Create a new ScriptRunner custom field ("Scripted Field") in Jira, called "Reopen Count" (or whatever status you'll be tracking). Select Number Searcher for the "Search Template" option for this field, since the field will be returning numeric values.

See our Reporting on Calculated Values with ScriptRunner documentation for details on using ScriptRunner custom fields with Dataplane.
You may also wish to review the general ScriptRunner primer on how to work with Scripted Fields.
After creating the new custom ScriptRunner field, go to Jira's Administration -> Add-ons page.
Click on Script Fields under the ScriptRunner section of the left sidebar.
Click Edit.

Enter the following script. (Substitute your status of interest for "Reopened".)

import com.atlassian.jira.component.ComponentAccessor

def theStatus = 'Reopened'
def changeItems = ComponentAccessor.changeHistoryManager.getAllChangeItems(issue)
def transitionsCount = changeItems?.findAll{it.field == 'status' && it.getTos().values().contains(theStatus)}.size()
return transitionsCount as Double

Select Number Field for the Template setting for this field.
Reindex Jira. This is necessary whenever adding a new custom field in Jira.
Once Jira is reindexed, go to Dataplane Reports -> Administration and click on Sync Index to have Dataplane register the newly added custom field.

We're now ready to create the Dataplane report.

Creating the Report

For this example, we'll use a Dataplane historical report to display a count of issue re-openings plotted against issue resolution date.

In the Dataplane report directory, under New Report, select the Advanced category of reports.

Select the Sum Numeric Field by Date Report.

For report configuration options, set up your report as follows:

Option	Selection	Comments
Time Period	any	Select your dates of interest using relative dates ("Last 3 Months", "This Year") or a custom Start Date and End Date.
Search	any	Select your Jira projects, project categories and filters of interest. Or click on the JQL tab in that field to enter a command using Jira Query Language (JQL).
Issue Field	Reopen Count	Select the name of the new ScriptRunner custom field just added.
Date Basis	Resolution Date	Select the date on which each issues' reopen count will be plotted. You might alternatively choose "Created Date", or a custom date field.
Chart Type		Select the Column Chart

Now click on the Run Report button to create your report.

We see a clear report of issue reopen counts across the selected time period.

To better understand what type of issues in this project were most frequently reopened, let's go back to the report configuration page and add Issue Type (Historical) to the Segment By field to break down the results.

Here's what the report configuration now looks like:

Running the report again, we now get the same results segmented by issue type:

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