Gantt Suite for Jira v 2.1.x: Scope

Owned by Mariia Korolishyna
Sept 30, 2022
4 min read

Here, you define what data will be included into a chart.

  • Name - chart’s name

  • Description is optional

  • Projects - one or multiple Jira projects to show on a chart

  • Scheduling mode- in “By task start” mode, the task end date is calculated as the sum of task start date and task duration; in “By task end“ mode, the task start date is calculated as task end date minus task duration.

We strongly recommend you to use the scheduling mode by task start as scheduling by task end may significantly slow down a chart generation.

If scheduling mode is set by task end, planning by whole days is strongly recommended. Planning in hours and minutes may lead to incorrect app behavior.

  • Task start field - defines a Jira field to store task start date/time. Both, date and datetime fields are allowed. Fields of type date can’t store time, so time component will be lost and tasks would always start at start of a day. For your convenience, the field type is displayed on the right side in parenthesis.
    The field must be added by admin user to project’s create/edit screens.

  • Task end field - defines a Jira field to store task start date/time. Both, date and datetime fields are allowed. Fields of type date can’t store time, so time component will be lost and tasks would always start at start of a day. For your convenience, the field type is displayed on the right side in parenthesis.
    The field must be added by admin user to project’s create/edit screens.

  • Task duration - defines how task duration is calculated, e.g. how long the task will be on Gantt chart.
    There are two options:
    1) Calculated based on start and end dates only
    Task duration is calculated as task end date minus task start date. Default duration of one day will be set if start or end date aren’t provided. This option requires Task start field and Task end field (see above) to be configured. Otherwise error will be shown.
    2) Calculated based on provided estimate, otherwise based on start and end dates
    Task duration equals task estimate. Estimate comes from Jira’s standard time tracking field. If estimate is missing, task duration will be calculated as end date minus start date.

Please note that the tasks will acquire a fixed duration, once edited on a chart that is configured with a task duration calculation Calculated based on start and end dates only. Meaning that duration will be changed without affecting the task estimates in Jira. Thus, you may want to rely on this information when editing tasks via drag-and-drop or resizing.

Even though the task duration is switched to Calculated based on provided estimate, otherwise based on start and end dates, the described above behavior will be observed. In order to reset the behavior you would have to clear task duration on Edit dialog.

  • Chart start date / Chart end date - define chart boundaries. In most cases, data outside this range is not visible, and chart can only be scrolled within this range.
    These dates can be left blank. In this case, app will try to determine dates based on chart tasks. But this might be inconvenient when creating a chart since task dates aren’t yet defined and chart range would be too narrow.

  • JQL filter - Jira JQL query, allows to narrow down the task selection for a chart.
    Gantt Suite appends JQL filter to own query. The resulting query can be viewed by clicking view generated link below the label. If JQL filter contains “OR” keyword, please wrap the query in parentheses ( ), like shown below. Otherwise, the resulting JQL will return incorrect results from Jira. Also, please note that “order by …“ clause stays out of parentheses.

  • Impersonated view - normally, users without permissions to access projects or issues will not see them on a chart. This option lets users with restricted access to see tasks on a chart in view-only mode. The name of a person who enabled the impersonated view is shown next to enabled Impersonated view.

To summarize, this option allows everybody to see a chart like the impersonation person does (even though, viewers might not have have the required Jira permissions).

  • Screens, which are present on 'Chart settings' tab of the chart configuration, is a convenient feature that allows to assign Jira fields to Jira project screens directly from the chart configuration. The Screens field, in chart configuration, is only visible to admin users. The app will try to populate screens automatically, once a project is selected inside the Project field. On Add fields button click, the app would assign selected Task start/end fields and Time Tracking field to selected screens. The app requires the Time tracking field in order to specify the task duration, and will not work correctly if the field is not added to the project screens. Despite the Screens feature, we strongly recommend our customers to additionally review and correct, if needed, Jira project screens. This can be done either by Jira admin or project admin, in project settings.