The Latest Structure Update for Jira Cloud Delivers Powerful Formulas with Real-Time Calculations

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Formulas — the powerful, flexible, time-saving feature in Structure for Jira Server and DC versions — is now available for Jira Cloud users, too!

To understand the power of Formulas, let’s take a few steps back.

In Jira, it can be difficult to pull data together in meaningful ways across a portfolio of projects.

Structure is a Jira project management app that solves this exact problem by letting you view all of your data in one place, through powerful spreadsheet-like views called structures, like the one below.

A structure is a cross-project, spreadsheet-like view based on rules you define

With Structure, you can create any kind of Jira hierarchy — be it for release tracking, sprint planning, or backlog grooming — by adding Jira fields as columns, making it one of the most flexible solutions available for Jira project management.

Why use Formulas?

The Formulas feature takes Structure’s power and flexibility even further by letting you do real-time calculations without ever leaving Jira, eliminating the need to export Jira data to Excel, Google Sheets, or other tools. Why do manual work, if you could do real-time work right in Jira?

Instead, all you need to do is add a Formula column, type out your formula, and the data will be displayed in real-time, right in your structure.

The Formulas feature lets you calculate Jira values within any structure

The quickest way to get started

The latest Structure update for Jira Cloud comes with many built-in formulas for common project management scoring models — like RICE and WSJF — and other popular use cases.

Built-in formulas 

BugFix % (Count)	Displays the percentage of bugs among all sub-issues. Bugs are identified by having issue type "Bug".
BugFix % (Time)	Displays the percentage of time scheduled and spent on bugs, compared to the time scheduled and spent on all sub-issues. Uses Jira time tracking fields.
Due In	Displays the amount of calendar time left before each issue's Due Date.
RICE	RICE is a scoring model used to prioritize features. The RICE score is calculated based on the following formula: Reach x Impact x Confidence / Effort Reach – How many people will the feature affect over a given period? Impact – How much will this benefit the users or your goal? Confidence – How confident are you in the numbers above? Effort – How much work will be required to complete the feature? To use this formula, you must set up custom number fields for Reach, Impact, Confidence, and Effort.
Time Since Last Update	Displays the amount of calendar time that has passed since the issue was last updated.
Time to Resolve	For resolved issues, displays the amount of calendar time that passed between issue creation and its resolution.
Total Underestimation	Displays the percentage by which the total actual time expenditure exceeded the total original estimate. Uses total Time Spent and Remaining Estimate fields to calculate the actual time. This "Totals" formula uses the SUM function to calculate a value for the issue and all its sub-issues.
Total Work Ratio (Points)	Ratio of total work done to the total amount of work. The amount of work is counted in Story Points, and issues are considered "done" when they have a non-empty Resolution field. This "Totals" formula uses the SUM function to calculate a value for the issue and all its sub-issues.
Total Work Ratio (Time)	Ratio of total work done to the total amount of work. The amount of work is based on the sum of Time Spent and Remaining Estimate values. This "Totals" formula uses the SUM function to calculate a value for the issue and all its sub-issues.
WSJF (Basic)	Weighted Shortest Job First metric, based on basic attributes available in any Jira – Priority, Votes, Watchers, Due Date, Story Points and Remaining Estimate.
WSJF (SAFe)	Weighted Shortest Job First metric, based on recommendations from Scaled Agile Inc. To use this formula, you must set up the following numerical fields: Job Size User/Business Value Time Criticality Risk Reduction Opportunity Enablement If you have such fields but they are not numeric (for example, a select list), edit the formula and replace the usage of a variable with a CASE() function, where you can assign individual numerical weights to each option.
WSJF (ALM Works)	Weighted Shortest Job First metric, according to categories used at ALM Works: Benefit Pain Marketability Impact Cost Risk Clarity To use this formula, you must set up such fields with the following values: Nil, Low, Medium and High.

Read about all the samples and built-in formulas in our documentation.

Write your own formulas

In this release, you’ll be able to create Formula columns that use data from any Jira field as variables. They can be built using the powerful Expr language, which supports variables, arithmetic operations, and functions.

Let’s see Formulas in action and walk through a few popular, simple examples.

Comparing actual time spent to the original estimate

With Formulas, we can easily compare the actual time spent to the original estimate, by writing a formula like:

​​IF timeSpent > originalEstimate : "over work estimate"

A quick and easy formula to spot scope creep

Identifying forgotten Jira issues

This formula will tell you how long it’s been since any work has been done on each issue, so you can see at a glance which issues haven’t had much attention lately.

DAYS_BETWEEN(updated, now())

This screenshot was taken on March 7 at 5:35pm

Checking for mismatched versions

This formula checks that each parent issue and all its children are assigned to the same Fix version. If not, it returns the message “Version Mismatch”.

WITH parentVersion = PARENT{fixVersion}:
    IF fixVersion != parentVersion: "Version Mismatch"

A handy formula to identify anomalies


Find more Formulas use cases, as well as additional resources, in our documentation.

Try Formulas in Structure for Jira Cloud

Find Structure in the Atlassian Marketplace to try Formulas and all other features, free for 30 days.

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PS: Thank you @Nicholas Ellis _ALM Works_, our Formulas guru, for his assistance in writing this article.

[Domenic Wiley]

When will I be able to drag and drop ordering my results when using generators?