Can't get Gantt chart to show any issues

[Stephen Weiss]

I'm trying to set up this Gantt chart plugin but nothing is working for me. I tell it not to show me versions (because we don't really use them), but it shows them to me anyway. No matter what filter I pick (or even if I just choose the whole project), no issues are displayed, and when I go to Resource Planning it tells me there are no issues in any of my filters, which is just not true.

I really need to find a good Gantt plugin but every single one seems to have problems - does anyone have a good recommendation for a Gantt plugin that will show unlimited numbers of issues (at least more than 100) and ... well, actually displays issues?! I really would not like to have to dump this all out into MS Project.

[Frank Polscheit · Accepted solution]

Hi Stephen,

your problems are just configuration topics only! I have tested my Gantt-Chart AddOn for JIRA using 1000 issues within a test project: it takes some time while loading, but then you can scroll vertically and horizontally without limits, change from daily view to weekly, monthly or quarterly view on the fly and just do your job ...

Did you use an existing project with issues being created before installation of my Gantt-Chart plugin? In that case, did you generate the necessary planning dates for the existing isssues?

If not, please switch to admin mode, go to the related project, open the left hand tab "Gantt-Chart", specify the default estimated effort (> 0 days) for those issues having no originally estimated efforts and click on the large button "generate planning dates ...". If an issue has no due date, today will be taken as start date and the original estimation, or your default effort if no estimation has been set, will be used to calculate the related end date taking non-working days into account. If an issue has a due date set, the end date will be set to that due date and the start date be calculated as end date minus original estimation/default effort accordingly.

Additionally, I recommend to put the Gantt customfields "planned start date", "planned end date" and "Gantt-Option" and "baseline start", "baseline end" to your default screen as JIRA admin to verify and maintain planning dates manually.

An issue will be displayed on a Gantt-Chart if planning dates are available, planned start date < end date and fitting into the range you have selected. Please verify that your time range (from - to) is not blank!

If you use Greenhopper Classic Board to set up a version hierarchy or assign start and end date to a version, such version will be treated like an issue and being displayed on the Gantt-Chart. This was a customer request for being able to just to high-level planning of phases without having issues. If you click on the "config"-button, you can specify the e.g. the layout: enable the option show versions and your issues will be grouped by version, having installed Greenhopper and enabled the option show sprints and your issues will be grouped by sprint. You can combine both options as well or disable both.

Being displayed on a Gantt-Chart, you can interactively:

• link issues using all 4 types of dependencies (finish-start, start-finish, start-start, finish-finish): linked issues will be re-scheduled automatically.

• move issues via drag'n drop: using the left mouse button to shift the planned start date of an issue and using the right mouse button to shift the planned end date: dependent issues as well as sub-issue are re-scheduled automatically

• modify duration by shifting planed start or end date of issues via drag'n drop like moving but keeping the other time-border (end or start date) as it is: dependent issues as well as sub-issue are re-scheduled automatically

If you have any further question, please do not hesitate to contact me at frank@polscheit.de

Regards,
Frank

[Stephen Weiss]

Thanks Frank!

I followed your steps and a handful of issues came up - in the filter that I'm trying to work with now, 18 out of the 125 issues are now displayed. However, the rest still do not have Start Dates and End Dates assigned. Is there any other way to get start dates and end dates assigned so that they will show up without having to do it manually? There are thousands of issues in this project, it would probably be best just to give them all a default to start with... Thanks again for your help.

[Frank Polscheit]

Try to re-index and than do the same again using the "generate planning dates"-button. What's on the resulting note?

Alternatively, you can just use JIRA's native feature of bulk editing and just set the planned start date to x and planned end date to y of the selected issues.

Do you use Greenhopper?

Regards,
Frank

[Stephen Weiss]

Yes! Reindexing did the trick - thank you! It looks great now.

We do use Greenhopper, although not for most of its scrum-related features (we use it more as a kanban board).

[Frank Polscheit]

If you are using Greenhopper's Rapid Board, you may reorder issues (rank field) by shifting them around via drag'n drop. In the background, their planning dates are auto-adjusted depending on its assignee: please have a look at the related Gantt-Chart, which is automtically in sync with your Greenhopper. So, you do not have to maintain a huge amount of finish-start dependencies: they are implicitely used to update the Gantt-Chart. It's a try wealth!

Regards,
Frank

[Stephen Weiss]

Thanks for the tip! Will do!!