Controlling Which Field Values Show Up as Columns in Your Jira Reports

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Create an Any Field report on any Jira field that has dozens or more values, such as Vendor, Rejection Reason, Device Type, or anything else your team monitors. You used to receive a column for each value that appeared in the field, regardless of whether you were interested in it or not.

The report extends beyond your screen, and the more values there are, the more difficult it becomes to compare anything meaningfully. 

An Empty Columns Panel Still Produces a Full Report

You can now make that choice using the Columns panel in Timepiece's Any Field Duration, Any Field Count, and Any Field Duration per Time-Period reports. You can combine multiple values into a single consolidated column and select which values become columns.

Any Field reports already let you select more than one History Field at once, so a report's columns can come from a single field or from a combination of fields.
Up until now, Timepiece made its own standard choices about which values showed up as columns. With the new Column feature, you can make that decision by selecting the values you want, hiding the ones you don't, and configuring the report to reflect the comparison you're really attempting to make.  

Grouping Related Values Into One Consolidated Column

A Consolidated Column aggregates the duration of multiple field values into a single column. Timepiece users already use this feature to combine statuses like "In Progress" and "In Review" into a single Cycle Time figure in Status Duration reports. It now functions on any system or custom field, not just status.

In the same report, you could group "Missing Requirements," "Failed QA," and "Design Mismatch" under the "Internal Rejections" column and "Client Changed Scope" and "Budget Cut" under the "External Rejections" column. A single value may belong to more than one Consolidated Column if that is how you wish to slice the data, and a report may contain multiple Consolidated Columns. 

Values You Leave Out Don't Just Disappear

Turn on "Put unselected values into an Others column," and everything you didn't explicitly select or group gets aggregated into a single Others column, so nothing drops out of the report silently. A yellow caution icon does a related but separate job: it flags which field values have data behind them but aren't currently selected, so you can spot what's missing either way. Turn the Others column off, and those unselected values are excluded from the report entirely. 

Timepiece doesn't give you a blank report if you don't choose any columns or Consolidated Columns. It displays each field value as a separate column for the current data page, treating them all as selected. A functional report doesn't require first configuring the Columns panel; you only need to open it when you wish to group or narrow what is displayed. 

Why Reporting on High-Cardinality Fields Is Important

Over time, fields like Vendor, Rejection Reason, and Block Type tend to accumulate values, and a report that displays every single one of them becomes less helpful. Selecting, classifying, and labeling the important values while maintaining a safety net for the rest with the Others column and caution icon transforms a vast any field report into one that is focused on the particular query you are attempting to address.

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