How do I access Control Chart information using Smart Values?

[Paul Vandenbos]

I am trying access control chart information for a particular project using smart values, so that I can have automatically updated lead/cycle times for our work sent out to clients in an automated email.

The red box below shows the value that I am interested in pulling (the average), but really any of the values would be helpful to some degree:

I cannot find anything related to the control chart on the smart values help sections for Automation for Jira

[Ravi Sagar _Sparxsys_ · Accepted solution]

Hi @Paul Vandenbos 

I don't think you can find these control chart specific numbers using smart values. You will have to recalculate them either outside Jira (may be in Excel), use an app like ScriptRunner or eazyBI to do that.

Ravi

[Bill Sheboy · Accepted solution]

Hi @Paul Vandenbos 

Agreeing with what @Ravi Sagar _Sparxsys_ noted that you cannot get these values directly from out-of-the-box Jira... (and, I am uncertain that one should as the measurement practices seem unclear, at best.)

There are several alternatives to try:

• Buy a marketplace add-on to measure the data and report on it
• Use a webhook to push the logs into another tool and parse them for analysis/reporting
• Use the REST API to pull the data into another tool and parse for analysis/reporting
• Use custom fields and Jira automation rules to build your own.  This is what we are doing at my company to measure lead time, cycle times, age of WIP, etc.  For example, to get lead time:
  • Add a custom field for lead time
  • When an item transitions to "done/released" compute the time difference from created to resolved and save it in the field
  • Use another rule (or filter subscription) to send out updates on measures

Best regards,

Bill

[Paul Vandenbos]

Thanks @Bill Sheboy I appreciate the options you posted.  I think the custom field option sounds like it might be promising as an alternative.

Question on your post though: you mention " (and, I am uncertain that one should as the measurement practices seem unclear, at best.)"  What do you mean by this?

Thanks,

Paul

[Bill Sheboy]

Hi! The "control chart" in Jira has often puzzled me how it works...

• It isn't really a control chart, process-measurement speaking
• Manually recalculating the measures to try to understand the chart does not match the displayed values.  Perhaps there is some interpretation of the log data (filtering for assumptions?) happening.  These assumptions are not disclosed in the documentation.
• The chart does not account for changes in workflow (baselining) and so any team improvements are not clearly indicated as "before" and "after" changes

As a result, I usually build my own reporting or investigate vendor tools before we try them out so we understand what they are displaying.

__Bill

[Paul Vandenbos]

Interesting.  Thanks for the analysis.  I really appreciate your help!

Paul