Why is There An Auto-Refresh Interval in Jira At All?

Question

Jira has been driving me insane for years.  I have a Jira dashboard with widgets Issues in Progress and Assigned to Me.  When I change an issue in Assigned to me to “In Progress”, the Issues in Progress widget should be automatically updated to include this newly updated issue.  But it does not.

I would totally understand it not refreshing to show other's additions or updates ... in that case, a 15 minute interval is fine.   But c'mon.  It's my stuff that's updating.  Any web app built in the last umpteen years has the ability to update another part of a screen when one part is updated.

I have heard it said the Jira gadget architecture treats widgets like autonomous pages.  While this explains why the problem occurs, it does not make the DevEx suck less for me.

Arkadiusz Wroblewski · Answer

Hello @Craig Riecke

Jira gadgets query independently to save load, which is why updating an issue in one gadget doesn't instantly refresh another.

You can reduce this delay by setting a custom refresh rate via Dashboards → View all dashboards → More actions → Configure automatic refresh, or by switching to modern Filter Results gadgets.

Submitting feedback for real-time gadget updates is definitely worth doing to highlight the core usability gap! 👀😉

Best,

Arek 🤠

Craig Riecke · Answer

Oh and tas for "why not use Todoist to manage your work life?"  the answer is Jira is proof that I have actually done something to my boss and co-workers, and they use it the same way.  Maybe that's the problem.

Craig Riecke · Answer

Perhaps my problem is I'm using Jira to manage my development life.  I create 99% of the issues that I then work on.  So my typical use case is:

* I create an issue and assign it to myself.  It's in Issues Assigned to Me  widget
* 5 weeks later or whatever,  I start progress on it.
* I only work on issues that are in In Progress widget.  But the ticket isn't there yet ... until I click refresh on it.

That makes absolutely no sense to me.   But if I were waiting for other people to create my issues, than a 5 minute or 15 minute refresh time would be ... well, more acceptable.  Not ideal (what if the issue is really urgent?) but acceptable.

The thing is ... this sounds like more than a feature to me.  It's more like a deep architectural change.  I have sent this to Atlassian more than once via the Feedback About Jira, but have heard nothing back.