Gantt charts or dependency based scheduling

[Brendan Murphy]

Hello all,

I've been looking for a Gantt chart add-in for Jira because it seems like the standard Roadmaps do not support showing individual issues or dynamically updating start/end dates based on preceding Epics.

1. Is it possible to show individual issues in standard roadmaps?
2. Is is possible to have the start dates of an Epic automatically update based on epics that block it?

If these features are not available in Jira, I know there are paid plugins available. But we are a nonprofit group and not everyone will be using Gantt charts. Does anyone know of a free way to do this, or at least a way to only pay for the number of users who need it? 

I had also been thinking about using an external tool like MS project but I'm unsure how easy it is to export the data from Jira and into something else.

[Paul O · Accepted solution]

@Brendan Murphy - How issues are shown on the standard roadmap depends on your Jira project type. If you are using a scrum project you can see both EPICs and Issues as bars on the roadmap view. This won't happen if you are using a Kanban project.  For issues, the bar will show the sprint dates. (If you use the business project template, the "timeline" view will show all of your tasks in a similar form to the roadmap view)

Automation is the best route to update start dates based on other blocking dates. It's fairly easy to do but depending on your plan, you may hit limits to the number of updates you can perform.

If you are looking at add-ins, the costs of add-ins will be determined by the number of users on your instance rather than the number of individuals using a plug in.

How you approach this really depends on how you wish to run your projects. Jira is completely different to MS Project in the way it works and the types of teams it is aimed at. Scrum and Kanban are specific approaches in which you are less likely to want to dynamically update start/end dates so it's not default functionality and you'd definitely need to look at add-ins or premium subscriptions if you want auto scheduling features and more Gantt like functionality 

[Brendan Murphy]

Hi Paul, thanks for that info. I will have to try the automation stuff at some point.

I don't think I'll be using any scrum projects so don't think that will work for me.

Yeah I know Jira is mostly built for agile workflows but we're an engineering group where there is quite a lot of stuff that has to happen sequentially, mainly with the manufacturing end of things. So I really do want more Gantt functionality, I was just looking for a way to do it without having to use add-ins.

[Dave Rosenlund _Trundl_]

Hi, @Brendan Murphy. In my experience, you are not alone. Many organizations have a mix of Agile (maybe even multiple flavors of Agile) and Waterfall methodologies.

Also from experience, I have seen many Atlassian customers struggle with exporting to MS Project or other tools because the data can become stale as soon as it is exported.

So, if you haven't already done so, you may want to explore the Atlassian Marketplace for additional options. Atlassian has cultivated a very active ecosystem of app developers who offer extensions to Atlassian's products. All of these products are developed around Atlassian APIs. Those APIs make it possible to work with "live" Jira data. So, changes in Jira — or changes made in the app — are reflected in real-time in nearly all Marketplace apps.

There are a number of Gantt solutions for Jira. At least one of them, Structure + Structure.Gantt, even allows you to have a mix of project types (Agile, non-Agile, different forms of Agile, etc.) in a single work breakdown structure and corresponding Gantt chart.

Full disclosure, I work for the company that makes Structure.Gantt — it's an optional extension for Structure. But with the following link, you can find the others. I just don't know them well enough to know if they also support mixing Agile and non-Agile projects in a Gantt chart.

https://marketplace.atlassian.com/search?hosting=cloud&product=jira&query=Gantt

Hope this helps,

-dave [ALM Works]

[Brendan Murphy]

Hi Dave, 

Glad to hear I'm not the only one in this situation! I had thought about the out of date issue with using Project, wasn't sure of a better way.

I was aware that there were Gantt add-ins for Jira however I was looking for something included in the base system so we wouldn't have to increase the cost. We're a non-profit student group so cost is typically the main driver.

Can Structure.Gantt be used standalone or does it have to be used with the base Structure package?

Thanks.

[Dave Rosenlund _Trundl_]

Hi, @Brendan Murphy. Does your company qualify for the 75% discount Atlassian offers for "registered charitable non-profit organizations that are non-government, non-academic, non-commercial in nature, non-political, and have no religious affiliation?"

If so, we may be able to offer the same discount for Structure & Structure.Gantt. (For now at least, you need both - Structure for the WBS, and Stucture.Gantt for the Gantt charts. A stand-alone version of Structure.Gantt is planned — it will have basic WBS capabilities built-in.)

-dave 

[Ignacio Aredez]

To the first question I would say yes and I don't understand how the difficulty is generated because it is something like "standard". This is not a criticism, maybe I don't understand the problem well and I say it with the objective of being able to understand you better.

For the second question you could try using automation rules that edit the value of a field based on the value of the other field.

[Brendan Murphy]

Sorry, I should have been more specific. I know that individual issues are shown on standard roadmaps, I was wondering if they could be displayed like Epics where they show up as a bar with the dependency lines. I really just want Roadmaps to be a Gantt chart so I'm really trying to figure out how to get it as close to that as possible.

I am aware of automations, though I haven't started playing with them yet. I'm also looking to do updates to preceding and following issues but I have a feeling it will be kind of chaotic to do it like that.