How to Monitor Jira Task Progress with ProScheduler

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Hi Atlassian community, I’m Asia from TeamBoard team! I’m excited to share a new use case on how you can enhance Jira task progress tracking using TeamBoard ProScheduler. 

If you’ve ever struggled with the limitations of Jira statuses like To Do and In Progress, this article is for you.

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Tracking task progress may sound simple, but in practice it’s one of the most important—and most misunderstood—parts of project management. Teams rely on progress data daily, and all reporting depends on how accurately progress is tracked.

ProScheduler supports multiple ways to track task progress, allowing teams to adapt the approach to their specific workflows and data practices. The most effective method depends on how your team plans work, what information is already maintained in Jira, and the level of precision required for reporting.

This article explains the three main approaches to tracking task progress in ProScheduler at all task levels, helping you understand when to use each method and what trade-offs to consider.

Challenges of Tracking Task Progress in Native Jira

Native Jira primarily relies on issue statuses to indicate progress. While statuses such as To Do, In Progress, and Done are effective for visualizing workflow stages, they do not accurately represent how much work has actually been completed. The main challenges of status-based progress tracking in Jira include:

• No indication of percentage completion: A task marked as In Progress could be barely started or nearly finished. Jira statuses show where work is in the workflow, not how complete it is.
• Lack of progress granularity: Jira does not provide a native, editable “percent complete” field, making it difficult to track incremental progress over time.
• Limited hierarchy roll-up: Progress from sub-tasks does not translate into a meaningful, quantitative progress value on parent issues such as stories or epics. Parent issues typically remain In Progress until all children are completed.
• Manual reporting effort: Project managers often need to manually gather information from multiple issues, statuses, or work logs to produce accurate progress reports.
• Weak visibility into plan vs. execution: Without clear progress metrics, it is difficult to compare planned work against actual execution and identify risks such as delays, bottlenecks, or resource overload early.
• Restricted progress visualization: Although Jira includes time tracking fields, native views offer limited ways to visualize progress as a clear, percentage-based indicator without additional configuration or apps.

Because of these limitations, many teams struggle to obtain a reliable, real-time view of project progress using native Jira alone—especially for complex, long-running, or hierarchical work. This is where tools like TeamBoard ProScheduler add significant value by enabling accurate, visual, and scalable progress tracking.

How to Track Task Progress with ProScheduler

TeamBoard ProScheduler addresses the limitations of native Jira progress tracking by introducing clear, flexible, and percentage-based progress tracking that reflects real execution—not just workflow states. Instead of relying solely on statuses, ProScheduler allows teams to measure how much work is actually complete and visualize that progress consistently across tasks, hierarchies, and projects.

Progress for Individual Tasks

In TeamBoard ProScheduler, task-level progress is the foundation of all project tracking. Once progress is defined at the task level, ProScheduler automatically visualizes it in the Gantt chart and rolls it up to parent tasks, epics, and higher-level plans. ProScheduler provides three different methods for tracking task progress, allowing teams to choose the approach that best matches how they plan and execute work.

Method 1: Default Progress Method (Manual Update)

The Default method allows users to manually update task progress, giving them full control over the completion percentage. This method is ideal when progress is based on observation, expertise, or qualitative assessment rather than time tracking.

How Users Update Progress

With the Default method enabled, users can update task progress in two ways. Both methods stay fully in sync.

• Update Progress Directly on the Gantt Chart

Users can drag the progress slider directly on the task bar in the Gantt Chart to visually adjust the completion percentage. This provides a fast and intuitive way to reflect real-time progress without opening the Jira issue.

• Update Progress from the Table View

Users can enter a numeric value (0–100) directly in the Progress (TeamBoard) column in the Gantt table. Any update made in the table is immediately reflected on the Gantt chart.

When to Use the Default Method

• When your team does not rely on time tracking
• When progress is estimated based on experience or observation
• When tasks are difficult to measure in hours

This method offers maximum flexibility with minimal setup.

Method 2: Jira Field–Based Progress

With the Jira Field method, task progress is automatically calculated based on values stored in a linked Jira field. This allows teams to keep progress data aligned with Jira while benefiting from ProScheduler’s visualization and roll-up capabilities.

Option A: Number Field (0–100)

A custom Jira number field can be used to represent the percentage of task completion. How it works

• The progress value is stored directly in Jira
• ProScheduler reads the value and displays it as task progress
• Users can update progress by typing a number or dragging the progress slider

When to use this option

• When your team does not use time tracking
• When progress is assessed manually using internal criteria
• When you want progress values to be visible and editable in Jira

This option is ideal for teams that want manual percentage tracking while keeping Jira as the single source of truth.

Option B: Time Tracking (Time Spent)

TeamBoard ProScheduler also supports automatic progress calculation using Jira’s time tracking fields.

Calculation logic

Progress = Time Spent ÷ (Time Spent + Remaining Estimate)

As time is logged in Jira, progress updates automatically in ProScheduler. When to use this option

• When your team logs time consistently in Jira
• When effort is difficult to estimate upfront
• When tasks may evolve or extend beyond initial estimates

This method ensures progress reflects actual work performed, not assumptions.

Method 3: Auto Progress (Scheduled vs Logged Time)

The Auto method calculates progress by comparing logged time with the scheduled time defined in TeamBoard ProScheduler. This provides a real-time view of how execution compares to the original plan.

Calculation logic

Progress = Logged Time ÷ Scheduled Time

When to Use the Auto Method

• When your team uses ProScheduler to schedule tasks
• When you want progress to reflect delivery against the plan
• When early detection of delays or overruns is important

Progress for Parent Tasks (Ascendants)

As projects grow in size and complexity, progress tracking cannot stop at individual tasks. Teams need a reliable way to understand how work is progressing at higher levels—such as stories, epics, or entire phases—without manually calculating results. In TeamBoard ProScheduler, this challenge is addressed through ascendant progress tracking.

An ascendant refers to a parent or higher-level task that groups multiple child tasks (also called descendants). Common examples include stories that contain sub-tasks, epics that group stories, or phases made up of multiple tasks. Rather than relying on workflow statuses alone, ProScheduler automatically calculates progress for these parent tasks based on the real progress of the work beneath them.

Automatic Progress Roll-Up Based on Descendants

When the Based on Descendants option is enabled, the progress of a parent task is derived entirely from its child tasks.

In this mode:

• Parent task progress is calculated automatically
• The progress value cannot be edited manually, ensuring consistency
• Updates happen in real time as child tasks are completed or updated

This approach ensures that parent-level progress always reflects actual execution, not assumptions or manual overrides.

Final Thoughts

By combining flexible progress calculation methods with visual Gantt-based tracking and automatic hierarchy roll-ups, TeamBoard ProScheduler replaces status-based guesswork with clear, measurable insight. Teams no longer have to infer progress—they can see exactly how work is progressing as it happens.

ProScheduler provides a consistent and scalable way to track progress from individual tasks through stories and epics, creating a shared, reliable view of project health. The result is greater transparency, stronger alignment between planning and execution, and more confident, data-driven reporting—all within Jira.

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If you think these methods for tracking task progress suit your team’s needs, give TeamBoard ProScheduler a try!