📈 Your Guide to Better Status Reports with Actonic Report Builder

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Collecting data can take hours. And as soon as your Excel sheet is finished, the data is already outdated. Sound familiar? It’s the classic project reporting struggle - manual updates, limited insights, and a lack of real-time data can make it nearly impossible to create the kind of report your stakeholders need.

The other edge case is using complex solutions and methodologies to report against small-scale projects, where just a few charts is enough.

In this article, you’ll learn how to create powerful project status reports that are accurate, and always up-to-date, yet good for a smaller teams.

📌What is a project status report?

A project status report is a concise, data-driven update that provides a snapshot of your project’s progress. It answers critical questions like:

• Where are we in the project phase?

• What progress has been made?

• What’s coming next?

• Are there any risks or blockers?

At its core, a project status report is designed to align stakeholders, keep your team on track, and highlight the key milestones and challenges.

❗ Why are project status reports important?

First and the most important - project status reports are requested by management to stay calm! Just kidding. We all know, that without regular status updates, projects can drift off course, stakeholders may feel left in the dark, and small risks can snowball into major roadblocks. A good project status report:

• Keeps everyone aligned on progress and goals.

• Offers early visibility into potential risks.

• Highlights accomplishments to maintain momentum.

• Reduces the need for lengthy meetings by consolidating updates in one place.

🧾 Types of project status reports

Not all projects are the same, and neither are the reports you need to manage them. Depending on the audience, purpose, and timing, your project status report can take various forms.

• Weekly or Monthly Reports

  • These reports provide a consistent update on the project progress over a set timeframe. A monthly report is ideal for tracking major milestones, while weekly reports are better suited for high-paced projects that require frequent updates. They are best for teams that need a structured cadence for their project updates.

• Milestone Reports

  • Milestone reports focus on significant project achievements, such as completing a phase or reaching a key deliverable.

• Risk and Issue Reports

  • These reports zero in on potential blockers and risks, helping teams stay proactive in resolving issues before they escalate. Projects with high complexity or tight timelines can benefit best from this type of project status report.

• Executive Reports

  • Designed for leadership, executive reports focus on the big picture. They prioritize key takeaways and progress over detailed metrics.

• Final Project Reports

  • Once a project is complete, a final report provides a comprehensive review of its lifecycle.

🧩 What should be included in a project status report?

A valuable project status report provides just enough information to keep everyone aligned and informed. Whether you’re building a weekly report, a monthly report, or a milestone update, these are the elements to include:

1. Project overview

Start with a brief summary of the project’s current state. This should provide a high-level look at where we are in the project phase, including:

• The project’s status (e.g., “On Track,” “At Risk,” or “Delayed”).

• Key goals and deliverables for the current phase.

2. Key milestones

Highlight what’s been accomplished so far and what’s next. Milestones are the backbone of your project progress and help stakeholders see if timelines are being met. For instance “Milestone X. Work item A: User testing - completed. Work item B: Deploy - scheduled”

3. Project progress

Use measurable data to demonstrate progress. This could include:

• Percentage of tasks completed (e.g., “70% of Sprint 4 tasks are complete”).

• Visuals like progress bars or pie charts to make the information easy to digest.

4. Risks and challenges

Be transparent about what might affect the project’s success. Clearly outline risks, their potential impact, and how your team plans to mitigate them. For instance: “Risk [Note: could be risk work item type]: Supplier delays could impact delivery. Mitigation: Engaged alternate supplier to reduce risk.”

5. Upcoming periods highlight

End with clear, actionable steps to highlight the progress expected in future. Stakeholders should leave your report knowing what’s coming up and where their focus should be. Example: “Finalize design by February 10th. Begin user feedback surveys by February 15th.”

🛠️ Where to create project status report?

When it comes to creating a project status report, the tool you choose matters. After all, your report is only as good as the data behind it. That’s why we recommend starting with Jira. It’s the number one agile project management tool, trusted by over 65,000 organizations - including giants like Spotify, eBay, and Airbnb.

If you’re already managing your projects in Jira, you’re in luck. All the data you need for a great project status update - tasks, deadlines, priorities, and risks - is already there, ready to be turned into a report.

Using the report elements (certain charts, tables, dashboard gadgets) created in Jira, you can always make your report more context-rich with using Confluence Templates to add texts, labels, and comments to the report.

But how do you take that raw data and turn it into a polished, up-to-date status report? We’ll guide you through using the app Report Builder for Jira.

📈 Create a Jira status report with Report Builder

Report Builder is the perfect tool to transform your Jira data into an actionable and visually appealing project status update. Instead of manually gathering data and organizing it into a document, Report Builder allows you to pull real-time information directly from Jira and customize it to suit your audience and project needs for Data Center and Jira Cloud. Here’s how to get started:

1. Navigate to Apps menu, and selected “Report builder”. Then select Universal Report

2. Define Your Data Scope → Select Jira projects, Filters, Epics, issues etc.

3. Choose Visualization

4. Select Fields for Analysis and enjoy the result

• Fields to group data by rows and columns
  Typical are:

  • Project

  • Issue Status

  • Sprint (if applicable)

  • Assignee

  • Issue Type

  • And ANY other JIRA field

• Measures:

  • Count of Issues

  • Story Points Sum

  • Logged Hours

  • Remaining Estimate

  • Progress by time

  • Progress by issue

  • And many more!

5. Add conditional formatting to highlight important values

Every report you need can easily be created in the app, or as a Jira gadget. Combine multiple gadgets to build a clear, compelling, and beautifully structured project status report.

🧪 Examples of project status reports

• Simple cross-project progress report
  

• Project progress report by assignee
  
• Project progress by status

• Project Risks Dashboard

📤 Share Your Status Report

Once your report is ready, share it with your team and stakeholders directly from Jira or export it as an Excel file. As just shown above, you can also create a widget and copy the code to embed it in Confluence.

🌐 Why bring it to Confluence?

Not all stakeholders have access to Jira, but most are familiar with Confluence. Embedding the report ensures your data is accessible to a broader audience, making it easier for executives, clients, or cross-functional teams to stay informed without additional access barriers.

For tips on creating visually appealing Confluence project status report pages—and how to embed your Report Builder data seamlessly—check out this helpful article from our friends at Aura Apps from Seibert: How to Create Stunning Project Status Reports in Confluence.

🎉 Project reporting is easy - try it!

Creating a project status report doesn’t have to be a manual process. With Jira as your project management tool and Report Builder to transform your data into actionable insights, you can create reports that are always accurate, up-to-date, and tailored to your (and your stakeholders’!) needs. Report Builder ensures your reporting process is efficient, effective, and designed to keep everyone aligned.

👉 Try Report Builder for free today or book a free demo with our experts to see it in action!

[Patricia Modispacher _appanvil_]

What a great article! 🤩

As someone who's not a number-person, I totally love how easy it is to visualize important facts with Report Builder!