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In JIRA timeline - I want to see start date, due date and actual completion date on bar

rohit_ambekar

In JIRA timeline - It is normally Start date and due date is seen if you hover over any bar of task, I want to know if I add one field "actual completion date" then can I see also in the bar actual completion date ? so that the bar shows in same bar - Target completion and actual completion. so that with this view - we can able easily see in that single bar - both dates and delay portion can it be with different colour ?

Is this possible ? and if Yes then how we can set it in configuration ?

Accepted answers

Trudy P Claspill

Hello @rohit_ambekar

Welcome to the Atlassian community.

No, that is not possible.

In a Plan in the Timeline view you can add the Actual date field to the Custom fields that are displayed, but you cannot show three dates on the bar.

Sharad Dadarao Chate

Hi @rohit_ambekar

Jira Timeline can show Start Date + Due Date only.

A custom field like “Actual Completion Date” cannot be shown on the same bar.

Jira does not support dual-color bars (target vs actual) in Timeline.

rohit_ambekar

Thanks a lot for this answer. I thought of adding actual completion date in plan column and I did this with Automation query. However I also need add one more Column Delay (Exceeded) in that plan so that we can atleast see delay in column. I took a help from Copilot to set the rule for this Delay (It should be in Numbers, like no of days). So i did multiple trials with normal as well JSON code. But I am not getting the result.

Could you please support here how to set the rule to calculate and show delay in that column "Exceeded"? Screenshot 2026-01-02 162518.png

All comments

Trudy P Claspill

Hello @rohit_ambekar

Welcome to the Atlassian community.

No, that is not possible.

In a Plan in the Timeline view you can add the Actual date field to the Custom fields that are displayed, but you cannot show three dates on the bar.

Sharad Dadarao Chate

Hi @rohit_ambekar

Jira Timeline can show Start Date + Due Date only.

A custom field like “Actual Completion Date” cannot be shown on the same bar.

Jira does not support dual-color bars (target vs actual) in Timeline.

rohit_ambekar

Could you please support here how to set the rule to calculate and show delay in that column "Exceeded"? Screenshot 2026-01-02 162518.png

rohit_ambekar

Could you please support here how to set the rule to calculate and show delay in that column "Exceeded"? Screenshot 2026-01-02 162518.png

Trudy P Claspill

Hello @rohit_ambekar

When asking for help with an automation rule we need to see the rule you have created in order to help you debug it. Please provide screen images showing the entire rule and the details of each step.

The simple rule statement might be

"When the Actual Completion Date is set, then calculate the difference in days between that value and the Target End Date, and put that value in the Exceeded field".

However you also need to consider the case where the Target End Date is empty. Also, what would you want to happen if either the Target End Date or the Actual Completion Date was changed or cleared after the calculation had been done?

To calculate the difference in days between two date fields you would need to use a smart value. Information on that smart values for date/time field difference calculations can be found here:

https://support.atlassian.com/cloud-automation/docs/jira-smart-values-date-and-time/#Date-difference---

rohit_ambekar

Thanks a lot Trudy, Yes sorry , I forgot to paste Automation rule which I applied, Please find here.

Step 1: Step 1.png

Step 2 : I just paste my rule in Additional Field so that you can see it. This Rule I put in Exceeded Box (Just above that additional Field and run the program).

Meaning of Exceeded- No of Days task got delayed from Due date. name of this custom field is "customfield_11175" and type is Number , I created this.

Actual completion date is another custom field I create - name is " issue.customfield_11142"

and Due date name is - "issue.dueDate"

Also I am pasting here that rule :

{ "fields": { "customfield_11175": "{{#if(issue.dueDate)}}{{#if(issue.customfield_11142)}}{{#=}} max(0, daysBetween(toDate(issue.customfield_11142), toDate(issue.dueDate))) {{/}}{{/}}{{/}}" } }

Could you please help me - whether it is correct or not ? I generated this rule from Copilot, But I am not getting date difference in Number format in Exceeded Column which I shared you earlier.

Step 2.png

Trudy P Claspill

Hello @rohit_ambekar

With the trigger you have set on this rule, the Exceeded value will be calculated only when an issue transitions to Done. If the dates are changed, the Exceeded value will not be re-calculated. To re-calculate, based on just this rule, you would have to change the work item Status back to In Progress, In Review, or Blocked and then transition it to Done again. Is that acceptable to you?

As for the actual calculation of the value the syntax you inserted to set the value is not valid in this location:

Screenshot 2026-01-05 at 11.12.55 AM.png

You can't use JSON syntax there. If you want to use JSON syntax that can only be used in the More Options area.

I'm not sure if the syntax you have used for nesting IF statements is valid. I don't regularly work with IF statements. I think that nesting IF statements in that manner is not valid based on discussions such as the one in this post:

https://community.atlassian.com/forums/Jira-questions/Automation-using-If-statement-in-smart-value-for-quot-Edit-work/qaq-p/3152717

Let me see if I can restate the logic you are trying to implement:

If there is a value for Due date
  And if there is a value for Actual Completion date
    Determine which number is larger:
      0 or
      the number of days between Due date and Actual Completion date
    And set Exceeded to the larger number

If I have stated the requirement correctly the following would be one way to implement it.

Your field name	The field name in my example
Due date	Due date
Actual Completion date	Actual end
Exceeded	SK Only Number field

Ignore the trigger in this rule. Keep what you have.

This is the value I use in the Edit action:
{{#=}} max(0,{{issue.duedate.diff(issue.Actual end).days}}) {{/}}

I added Log Actions to print the date fields and the max() calculation into the rule execution log file for reference.

Screenshot 2026-01-05 at 12.23.37 PM.png

黄雍蓉

Adding a note for anyone who lands here later, since the accepted answer is correct but there may be another angle.

Trudy is right that the timeline bar can only read Start date and Due date, and that a custom "Actual Completion Date" field can't be rendered on it. That's a hard limit of the native timeline.

What I've been experimenting with is not adding another field at all, but reading the actual dates back out of the issue's changelog. Every status transition is already recorded there — the first move into an In Progress category is the actual start, the move to Done is the actual end. Nobody types anything, and it works retroactively on issues that closed months ago, which the automation-rule approach can't do.

Rendered outside the native timeline (in an app panel) you can then draw the actual duration as its own bar and put the planned Start/Due bar next to it, which gets you the planned-vs-actual comparison the native view can't do.

Disclosure: I'm building this, so treat it accordingly. Measured across six real projects it reconstructs a duration for roughly 55% of issues on average — higher on teams that consistently move tickets through In Progress, lower where issues get filed and never picked up.

@rohit_ambekar — would that have covered what you needed, or was the delay-in-days number the part that actually mattered?

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