Use custom smart filters and smart columns on your dashboard

In this article, you will explore two features of Rich Filters for Jira Dashboards — smart filters, which allow you to filter and group your issues using configurable smart clauses based on JQL, and smart columns, which will enable you to include computed columns in Rich Filter Results gadgets to highlight information in your issues. You'll also learn how smart filters can be used in other contexts, such as statistics and quick charts.

Contents:

Prerequisites

• A basic understanding of Jira dashboards and rich filters, as explained in Get started with Rich Filters for Jira Dashboards.

• A basic understanding of Jira Query Language (JQL).

The final result of this tutorial

When you've worked through all the steps in this tutorial, you should have:

• A Rich Filter Controller gadget containing three smart filters.

• A Rich Filter Results gadget view includes custom smart columns highlighting your issues.

• A Rich Filter Statistics gadget displaying a breakdown of team stats based on a smart filter.

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Rich filter and dashboard basic setup

In this section, you'll set up a basic rich filter and dashboard.

1. If you've already worked through other tutorials in this series, you can base any gadgets you create while following this article on a previously created rich filter. Check that you have one available (find existing rich filters under Apps > Rich Filters). If not, follow the instructions in Get started with Rich Filters for Jira Dashboards to create a new rich filter before continuing.

2. Create a new dashboard (Dashboards > Create dashboard).

3. Make sure it uses the Left sidebar layout. You can set this using the Change layout menu at the top of the dashboard.
   
   

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4. Add a Rich Filter Controller gadget and a Rich Filter Results gadget to your dashboard, both based on your Rich filter (Create a simple dashboard that explains how to do this).

5. After saving the configuration of your gadgets, drag and drop them to move the controller to the left-hand column of your dashboard and the results gadget to the right-hand column.

6. Click Done to exit dashboard edit mode.

Add a smart filter to your controller

You are going to create a smart filter called Warnings, which will allow you to filter your issues based on three important criteria (as you'll see below, these are defined in the rich filter config as Smart clauses, each with its own JQL query):

• Top priority: The highest priority issues are open.

• Past due date: Unclosed issues that are overdue.

• No due date: Non-resolved/closed issues where the due date is empty.

Let's walk through adding this smart filter to your controller.

1. Open your rich filter configuration (described in the Easier configuration with the Rich filter menu).

2. Select the Smart Filters tab and click the Create Smart Filter button.
   
   

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3. Enter the Name Warnings in the resulting dialog box, and click Create. |
   You will be relocated to the Warnings smart filter config screen.

4. Click the Create smart clause button.
   
   

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5. In the resulting dialog box, enter the details required for the Top priority smart clause:

   1. Name: Top priority

   2. JQL: priority in (1, 2) AND status = Open
      
      

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   3. Click Create to finish creating it; you'll see it listed on the Warnings smart filter config screen.

6. Add two more smart clauses to the Warning smart filter:

   1. Name: Past due date
      JQL: duedate < now() and status != Closed

   2. Name: No due date
      JQL: duedate = EMPTY and status not in (Resolved, Closed)
      
      

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7. Go back to your dashboard and refresh it; you should now see the Warnings smart filter on your controller. Try selecting some different clauses, clicking Apply, and seeing how the list of issues displayed in your Rich Filter Results gadget changes based on your selections.
   
   

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8. Clear the filter by clicking the X button in the bottom-right corner of the controller.

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Highlight your issues with smart columns.

You can already see the value of smart filters. They build on what static and dynamic filters offer, allowing you to customize how you can filter your lists of Jira issues to provide more informative dashboards. But that's not all—you can also create new data columns in your Rich Filter Results gadgets based on your smart filters to easily highlight important information in your issues.

These are called smart columns. Let's add one to your dashboard.

1. Open your rich filter config.

2. Select the Views tab, then create a view called Delivery containing the columns Issue Type, Key, Priority, Summary, Assignee, Status, and Resolution (for more guidance, see Create a custom view of an issue list).

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3. Now for the smart column. Start typing Warnings into the Add a column… dropdown — you'll find that the Warnings smart filter is listed as an available column!

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4. Click Warnings to add it to the list of columns for your view.

5. Go back to your dashboard and refresh it. You'll see the Rich Filter Results gadget update to the new view. This includes the new Warnings column, with the different clauses shown as colored tags on matching issues.

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Customize your smart filter tag colors.

For example, you can change the colors of your smart filter tags to provide a clearer visual indication of where problem areas can be found in your issue lists.

1. Open your rich filter config.

2. Select the Smart Filters tab, and select Warnings to go to your smart filter's config screen.

3. If you click the colored boxes to the left of the smart clause titles, you'll be given a color picker to select new colors for your clauses. You can choose from presets and enter custom colors using the controls at the bottom of the picker.

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4. We will choose orange for Top priority items, red for Past-due items, and gray for items with No due date. Feel free to choose different colors as you wish.

5. Go back to your dashboard, refresh it, and look at your new Warnings color scheme.

Add a second smart filter with a customized smart column layout

The available smart column customizations go beyond just changing tag colors. You can further change the look of your smart columns, including the column headers and how the label text is shown. And, as with all column types, you can change the position of the column in the table.

Let's investigate this by creating a new smart filter that calls out high-risk items — those that are high priority but have no assignee — in a separate column.

1. Open your rich filter config.

2. Select the Smart Filter tab and click Create Smart Filter.

3. Call your new smart filter Risk.

4. In the resulting Risk smart filter config screen, click Create smart clause and create a single, smart clause with the following data:

   1. Name: On

   2. JQL: Priority in (1,2) and assignee is EMPTY

   3. Color: Red is just fine for a high-risk warning.
      
      

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5. Click Create.

6. Select the Views tab of the rich filter config, and select your Delivery view to go to its config screen.

7. Add a Risk smart column to the view using the Add a column... dropdown menu.

8. Drag and drop the Risk column to a more prominent position in the table, for example, just after the Priority column (you can also Tab to the column to focus it, press Space, and then use the up and down cursor keys to adjust its position).

9. Edit the Risk smart column by clicking its Configure icon.
   
   

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10. In the resulting dialog box, you are presented with options for presenting the tags (color, label text, or both) and column headings (none, smart filter name or initials, or custom). Choose the following for your Risk column:

    1. Show tags as: Colors only.

    2. Column heading: Smart filter initials.

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11. Click Update, then go back to your dashboard and refresh it. You should now see your new column with header R and a colored red dot to highlight all the issues determined to be high-risk by the criteria specified above.
    
    

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Further exercises — smart filters in statistics and charts

In our final example, we've further demonstrated the power of smart filters by creating a new smart filter that splits your data into two teams, each made up of different assignees, and shows their issue counts and story point totals in a Rich Filter Statistics gadget. As we've said before, everything is connected to rich filters, and smart filters are no exception. You can use smart filters anywhere, and you can use other value types.

To complete the tutorial, you must follow the steps below.

Create a Teams smart filter

1. Create a new smart filter called Teams in the same manner as above.

2. In Inside Teams, create two smart clauses using the following data (replace the placeholder letters with your available assignee names, splitting them evenly between the two teams).

   1. Name: Blue team

      1. JQL: assignee in (a,b,c)

      2. Color: Blue.

   2. Name: Green team

      1. JQL: assignee in (d,e,f)

      2. Color: Green.

Display team statistics

1. Add a new Rich Filter Statistics gadget to your dashboard.

2. Fill in the following fields as described in its config form:

   1. Rich filter: Set this to the same rich filter your other rich filter gadgets are based on.

   2. Breakdown by > Statistic type: When you click the Statistic type dropdown, you'll notice that your smart filters are available as values to choose from! Select Teams.

   3. Values: Choose Issue Count and Story Points from the Pick a value... dropdown.

3. Drag and drop the statistics gadget below the Rich Filter results gadget in the right-hand column.

4. Click Submit.

Final result

Your final dashboard should look like the following image.

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Next steps

You are advised to work through the Fundamentals articles in order, but each one works as a standalone topic, so you can jump to specific topics of interest if that suits you better.

You can use the rich filter you created in this article as a starting point for other tutorials.