Advanced Filter Flexi Charts

2 min read

One breakdown, one value, twelve chart types, and a switch to change your mind. Flexi Charts is the gadget for when you know what you want to show but not yet how it looks best.

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You’ll need edit rights on the dashboard and an advanced filter. See Create your first advanced filter.

Add it to a dashboard #

Open the dashboard, select Edit, then Add gadget, and search for Advanced Filter Flexi Charts.
Pick the Advanced filter.
Choose a Chart type, the Breakdown it’s cut by, and the Value it measures.
Select Save.

The twelve chart types #

Group	Types	Good for
Parts of a whole	Pie, Donut, Gauge per category, Sliced bar, Treemap, Percentage bar per category	Composition: “what’s our mix?”
Comparisons	Bar, Line, Word cloud	Magnitude and trend
Two dimensions	Clustered bar, Stacked bar, Multiline	A breakdown split by a second one

The last three need a Split by: a second breakdown giving each category one bar, segment or line per value.

The configuration form with a donut chart type, a priority breakdown and a work item count chosen. — Chart type, breakdown, and the value it measures.

Worth knowing under Advanced settings #

Setting	What it does
Order	The breakdown’s own order, by name, or by value, plus Reverse the order
Categories shown	1 to 50, 8 by default. A limit never changes the total
Group the rest as Other	Rolls everything past the limit into one category. Available for work item counts without a split
Show work items with no value as None	Gives them a category of their own
Value axis label	Names the scale. Use it, so a count is never mistaken for a duration
Working query	Optional JQL narrowing this gadget only

The chart won’t let you mislead people #

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A parts-of-a-whole chart claims to divide a whole. If your breakdown can put one work item in two categories, or the value can go negative, the form refuses that chart type and tells you why. Use a bar or line chart instead.

Likewise, a clustered bar, stacked bar or multiline saved without a Split by can’t be drawn; the form warns you and saves it as a plain bar chart.

A donut chart of work items by priority, with its legend underneath. — A donut cut by priority, one of the twelve types.

Every chart is also a table #

Show as table is one click away on every chart type: a category column, a value column, a share column where one applies, and a totals row. It sorts, and every cell with work items behind it opens them in Jira’s own search.

Readers who prefer numbers, and screen readers, get it with nothing configured twice.

The chart's numbers as a sortable table with category, value and share columns. — The table every chart offers, one button away.

With the Controller #

An Advanced Filter Controller on the same filter changes what every category measures.

Exporting #

CSV, Excel or PDF carry every category of the breakdown up to the export limit, including those past Categories shown or grouped as Other. The PDF adds the chart image as drawn. A chart with a Split by exports its matrix as drawn. Custom values and ratios read at their definition’s decimals on screen and in the PDF; CSV and Excel keep the full value.

If something looks off #

“This chart cannot divide a whole”: the categories overlap, so switch to a bar or line chart.
“This chart cannot show negative values”: a negative slice has no share of a whole, so switch to a bar or line chart.
“This breakdown cannot be grouped”: the field, smart rule or time series is no longer on the filter.
“Nothing to chart”: no work item contributed to this breakdown.
“1 value could not be read, so it matches no work items.”: the chart draws nothing rather than part of it until you select Remove what cannot be applied in the Controller’s warning, or in this one when no Controller shares the filter.