Here’s Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Jira Dashboards

‘Jira’ doesn't have to be a four-letter word (you have other, more exciting choices for that!). 

Nevertheless, Jira continues to be a source of potential confusion. In the midst of all your other sprint activities, it seems that the ins and outs of a functioning, productive Jira dashboard get lost in the ether. 

But that stops here and now. Sit down, kick back, and pull up your favorite Jira Agile board. We’re here to give you the A-Z of everything and anything Jira board-related. 

How to Create a Dashboard in Jira

Your dashboard is there to quickly and easily display exactly what you need to see. You’ll have immediate access to your assigned work, comments from coworkers, and all the other data you could ever want or need. 

We highly recommend you create (or adjust, see above) your own Jira dashboard. It's super easy to do, too! 

1. Go to the ‘Dashboards’ link in the left-hand sidebar. 
2. Click on the ‘...’ in the top right-hand corner of the page. 
3. Choose ‘Create dashboard’ from the menu that pops up. 
4. Choose a name for your new dashboard, as well as fill in the other details. 
5. Click ‘Create’. Et voilà! 

Pro tip: choose to ‘Favorite’ this new dashboard (if you'd like to regularly see it), to have it pop up as a default dashboard every time you log into Jira. 

How to Customize a Jira Dashboard

Now that you know how to access and create your own dashboard, the fun part starts: creating and tweaking a custom Jira dashboard to get the very best from it! 

This is where you can ‘hack’ (figuratively, that is!) the Jira dashboard to make it work for you. You can edit the layout and theme, and even add and customize gadgets (see the section below for more on this).

To customize your Jira dashboard by editing the layout: 

1. Choose the Jira dashboard you’d like to edit the layout of.
2. Click the ‘edit layout’ option at the top right-hand corner.
3. Check out the options available (columns, etc), then click ‘close’. 
   

Simple, right? Your changes should take effect immediately. 

Jira Dashboard Gadgets

‘Gadgets’, or, as you might recognize them, ‘widgets’ can massively enrich your Jira dashboard, whether you’re looking to create your own custom Jira dashboard, or customize an existing one. 

You have a limit of up to 20 gadgets per dashboard, which is really more than enough, but if you're thirsting for more, you can also edit the properties in Jira’s advanced administration area. 

Our advice? Less is more. We found that going over 7ish gadgets really clogged up our dashboard, and made things a little harder on the eyes. 

Having said that, adding gadgets is super easy. 

To add a Jira dashboard gadget

1. Open the dashboard you want to add your gadgets to. 
2. Click ‘Add gadget’ (at the top right-hand corner). 
3. Choose the gadget/s you want to add, and click the ‘Add gadget’ button next to each. 
4. Click close, and your gadgets will be added immediately.

You can also customize your added gadgets. 

To customize your Jira dashboard gadgets

You can change a range of things with one gadget, including the type of data shown, the frequency it refreshes and updates, and more. 

To customize your gadgets: 

1. Choose the gadget to customize. 
2. Click the ‘...’ in the gadget’s inner-menu, then ‘Edit’.
3. Choose the options you'd like to customize. 
4. Click ‘Save’. Your changes should take effect immediately. 
   

Jira and GoRetro for the Sprint Review Win

By connecting Jira and GoRetro, you don’t only run unlimited sprint retrospectives with unlimited team members for FREE, but soon you will have the option to run sprint reviews as well. 

Get the full picture and go from speculating on root causes to knowing what to fix. And yes, it is still Free as part of GoRetro :)

If you’re already a GoRetro user, simply navigate to that section and sign up to be notified when ready. And if you’re not yet on GoRetro… sign up - you’ve got no idea what’s in store.