Reporting · Integration

Team KPI dashboard from the Jira API

Answering 'what did the team get done this week?' with data instead of words

RoleIT Business Analyst

automated data source: Jira API
Jira issues on the tracked board: 1,333
client-reported bugs ticketed the same day (sprint 29): 100%
committed work completed (sprint 33): 84%

Client names are withheld; examples and data are simulated. The process, methods and result figures are real.

The problem

The client asked about progress every week. Compiling it by hand from Jira took time and was easy to get wrong because statuses were miscounted. Internally it was also hard to see who was overloaded and which bugs had been open the longest.

Before the dashboard

Client asks about progressevery week
Compiled by hand from Jiraslow, statuses easy to miscount
Figures nobody trusts

Context and role

I created 624 of the 1,333 issues on the project board, the most on the team.
The client did not want to have to open Jira to know the progress.
My role: agreeing the KPI definitions, pulling the data through the API, building the dashboard and writing reports for the client and management.
Constraints: the API key is read-only; no personal information is exposed outside the team.

Step 1: Agree the KPI definitions before pulling data

If a KPI is vague, the dashboard is meaningless. Each KPI needs a question it answers, a formula and a data source.

KPI definitionsEach indicator answers exactly one question

	Question it answers	Formula
Sprint completion	How much of what was committed got done this sprint?	Points done divided by points committed
Throughput	How many tickets are finished each week?	Number of tickets moved to Done in the week
Cycle time	How long does a ticket take from start to finish?	Median time from In Progress to Done
Blocked	Is anything stuck?	Tickets flagged as blocked for more than one day
Bug age	How many days has the oldest bug been open?	Today minus created date, for open bugs
Bug rate	How many bugs per completed story?	New bugs divided by completed stories
Outstanding client feedback	Is any feedback still unhandled?	Tickets labelled client feedback that are not Done
Workload per person	Who is holding how much work?	Open tickets by assignee

Step 2: Pulling data through the Jira REST API

API requestSearch tickets with their change history

GET /rest/api/3/search
  jql     = project = PRJ AND updated >= -14d
  fields  = summary, status, issuetype, assignee, created, labels, story points
  expand  = changelog

How the data flows

Jiracall page after page until all tickets are retrieved
Change historywhen a ticket entered In Progress and Done
Compute KPIsusing the agreed formulas
Anonymiseassignees become Dev A, Dev B
Dashboard and weekly report

One ticket in the change historyCycle time comes from the history, not the closed date

Created
In Progressclock starts
Donedragged across, no closed date
cycle time

Step 3: Dashboard and weekly report

A one-page dashboard: a row of KPIs at the top, charts in the middle, detail tables at the bottom. The weekly report is written from the same data.

LayoutOne-page dashboard

Row 1

Sprint completion

Weekly throughput

Cycle time

Blocked

Row 2

Throughput by week

Bug age by day bucket

Row 3

Blocked ticketswith reasons

Unhandled client feedback

Workload per person

Step 4: Using the dashboard to make decisions

In client meetingsSignal on the dashboard, decision that follows

	Decision
Bug age concentrated in one module	Set time aside to clear bugs before taking on new stories
Workload piling up on one person	Redistribute during sprint planning
Outstanding client feedback rising steadily	Add a fixed weekly slot to triage feedback

Step 5: A bug register for the client

The client needed a place to follow bugs without opening Jira. I built a pipeline that pushes bugs from Jira into a Google Sheet with a dashboard and a column tracking recurring bugs, together with an operating SOP.

Bug register

Bugs in Jira
Data export and dashboardruns automatically
Write into tabs the client edits by handruns only with confirmation

Results

Sprint reports with figures that can be checked:

Items past development, sprint 2974.1%43 of 58 items

Client-reported bugs ticketed the same day, sprint 29100%

Committed work completed, sprint 3384%

The team’s progress and KPIs are reported to the client through a dashboard that takes its data directly from Jira.
Every KPI has a definition and a formula agreed by the client and management.
The weekly report no longer depends on compiling figures by hand.

What I learned

Agree the KPI definitions with the client before pulling data. Otherwise you end up with a good-looking dashboard that nobody trusts.
In Jira, the status change history is the most reliable data source.
Putting problems at the top of the report is the fastest way to earn the client’s trust.

Jira API
REST API
KPI
Dashboard
Sprint report