“Why is this report so slow?”
“These numbers don’t match what I expected…”
“Why are my gadgets blank again?”
If you've ever asked questions like these while building Jira dashboards or exporting status reports, you’re not alone.
The truth is, most reporting issues in Jira don’t come from your tools. They come from your task scope. That’s right — what you choose to report on matters even more than how you visualize it.
Let’s break it down and walk through how to fix it, using Time in Status (a Jira reporting app) as an example tool for time-based issue tracking and analysis.
Jira gives you the flexibility to build dashboards, gadgets, and exports using any combination of issues. But that freedom is exactly what causes most reporting chaos.
Imagine trying to calculate the average Cycle Time on 1,500 issues across different workflows, statuses, resolutions, and projects — some from last week, some from two years ago. You’ll get:
Garbage in = garbage out. That’s the law of Jira reports.
Here’s what bad scoping looks like in the real world:
❌ Mistake |
💥 Why It’s a Problem |
project = ABC |
Pulls every issue in the project — including 5-year-old Epics, abandoned subtasks, and untriaged bugs. |
Mixed workflows |
Some statuses don’t match or aren’t used in the same way, resulting in inaccurate calculations. |
Unresolved issues in lead time reports |
Leads to inflated, open-ended numbers. |
Too few tasks |
Averages on 3 issues? That’s not insight — it’s noise. |
Overlapping filters |
Tasks counted multiple times across different dashboard gadgets, reports, etc. |
Instead of asking “What project or board do I report on?”, start with: What question am I trying to answer?
Here are some smart questions — and how to scope for them.
Report type: Average Time Report
Metric: Lead Time
Scope: Choose all issues that are of type "Bug", belong to the "Support" project, have a status of "Done", and were resolved within the last 30 days.
Tip: Group statuses into meaningful phases like Reported → Triaged → In Progress → QA → Done.
Report type: Status Count Report
Metric: Bottleneck Analysis
Scope: Choose all issues that are of type "Task", belong to the "XYZ" project, and are part of currently active (open) sprints.
Insight: If most time is spent In Review, that’s a signal to improve handoff or QA response times.
Report type: Assignee Time Report
Metric: Time-in-Progress per person
Scope: Choose all issues from the "XYZ" project that are not in the "Done" status category and have been updated within the last 7 days.
Pro tip: Use the heatmap to visualize where work is piling up.
Report type: Average Time Report
Metric: Time in 'To Do'
Scope: Choose all issues that were previously in the "To Do" status, are no longer in the "To Do" status, and have been updated within the last 14 days.
Insight: This helps you measure Time to Start, not just Time to Complete — critical for Agile velocity.
Besides the usual suspects (Lead Time, Cycle Time), here are other insightful metrics made easy with Time in Status:
Metric |
Why It Matters |
Report Type |
Rework Time (time in Reopened/Backlog) |
Measures quality issues and failed QA |
Average Time |
Blocked Time |
Understand delays due to dependencies |
Status Count |
Throughput per Assignee |
Useful for performance reviews |
Assignee Time |
Time in UAT/Review |
How long does QA or product approval take |
Average Time |
Total Time in Progress |
Spot slowdowns in delivery |
Time in Status by Assignee |
Want to build Jira reports that get used? Here's how to set yourself up for success:
When your Jira reports feel slow, wrong, or confusing, it’s almost always a scoping problem.
It’s tempting to throw everything into one report and hope for clarity, but that never works.
With Time in Status by SaaSJet, the tool is already powerful. But when paired with a clear scope and a strong question, it becomes your secret weapon for data-driven decision-making.
Before you build a report, ask:
Iryna Komarnitska_SaaSJet_
Product Marketer
SaaSJet
Ukraine
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