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Getting Started

This guide takes you from installation to your first interactive dashboard. The whole process takes about five minutes.

A populated Insights dashboard — the Team overview on a Jira project

Prerequisites​

  • A Jira Cloud instance (Insights and charts is a Forge app and runs only on Jira Cloud).
  • Jira administrator access to install the app. Once installed, anyone with access to the app can build dashboards.

Step 1: Install from the Marketplace​

  1. Open the Atlassian Marketplace and search for "Insights and charts".
  2. Click Get it now and select your Jira instance.
  3. Review the permissions and click Install. The app only requests read access to your Jira work plus app storage — see Security for the full list.

After installation you'll find it in the Jira navigation under Apps → Insights and charts.

Step 2: Open the app​

Open Apps → Insights and charts. The first time you arrive, a short guided tour points out where to start. The product onboards you in context — one tour when you first land, another the first time you open a dashboard, and a third the first time you add a chart — so you learn by doing rather than reading a wall of text.

Replay the tour anytime

Click Take a tour in the top-right of the app to replay the walkthrough for wherever you currently are.

Step 3: Create a dashboard​

A dashboard is a saved page of charts. To create one:

  • Click the + in the left rail to start a blank dashboard, or
  • Pick a template below it (Team overview, Cycle time & flow, Velocity & burndown, and more) for a ready-made set of charts.

If you start from a template, skip ahead to Explore & cross-filter — the template already includes charts.

Step 4: Add a dataset​

A dataset is the set of issues every chart on the dashboard reads. A new dashboard has none, so add one first — click Add a dataset and choose a source:

  • Project — all issues in a Jira project (it also unlocks per-project history and rollups).
  • Agile board — a Scrum or Kanban board (required for velocity and sprint burndown).
  • Saved filter — any Jira saved filter; its JQL becomes the dataset.
  • Custom JQL — write your own JQL, with autocomplete for fields, operators, and values.

See Datasets for the full reference.

Step 5: Add a chart​

Click + Add widget. You have two paths:

  • Start from a use case — pick a ready-made recipe from the gallery on the right (e.g. "Issues by status", "Cycle-time control chart", "Velocity"). It loads into the builder so you can tweak before adding.
  • Build your own — choose a chart type, then set what to group by (the dimension) and what to measure (count, sum of story points, median cycle time, and so on).

Click + Add widget to drop it on the dashboard. See Adding charts.

Step 6: Explore & cross-filter​

This is where it gets interactive:

  • Click any segment — a bar, a pie slice, a cell — and every chart on the dashboard refilters to that selection. Click more segments to multi-select; your selection shows as chips you can clear.
  • Drill down — charts with a hierarchy (e.g. issue type → status, or year → quarter → month → day) let you click in and follow a breadcrumb back out.
  • Filter the whole dashboard from the filter bar at the top (status, type, priority, assignee, cycle-time bucket, created-date range).

See Cross-filtering & drill-down.

Step 7: Save & share​

Dashboards auto-save as you edit. To share:

  • Copy link to view (under Export) captures your current filters in the URL so a colleague opens the exact view you're looking at.
  • Share the dashboard with specific people as viewers or editors, or mark it restricted so only invited people can open it.

See Sharing, export & gadgets.

What's next​

  • Core concepts — the mental model: dashboards, datasets, widgets, dimensions, measures, derived dimensions.
  • Derived metrics — cycle time, time-in-status, WIP aging, SLA, and reopens.
  • Templates & recipes — a recipe for every common reporting question.