User Guide

Owned by Rajagopal R
Last updated: Dec 09, 2021
7 min read

 

 

1. Gantt Installation 

Login with admin account. Go to Settings → Add-ons → Find new add-ons and search for 'Crystal Gantt'.

2. Selecting Data Source

Open our addon and then click Select data source to open the data source dialog. Select the project/board & sprints you want to load. Then click Load / Load & Close button to load the issues.

2.1 Loading issues from project

If you want to load issues from a specific project select Project option and then select the project you want to load from the dropdown.

2.1 Loading issues from board

If you want to load issues related to a specific board select Board option select the board you want and then the sprints and/or backlog to load.

2.3 Usage of “Force write into custom fields”

Crystal Gantt stores custom data related to issues such as Start date time, End date time, Sort Order, etc... In custom fields. To update these custom fields Jira requires that those custom fields to be added to the respected screens of each issue type in the project.

When you don't want to add the custom fields to the project, you can enable the Force write into custom fields option to save data to the custom fields. This option will only work for issues in Classic/Company-managed projects and only when custom fields are not added to screen. For Next-Gen/Team-managed projects see here.

 

Because of the way it works, when you enable Override Screen option and the custom fields are not in screen the Jira's History will show as "Crystal Gantt update the <field>" instead of showing the name of user who updated the value.

To track which user updated the issue. The addon will use "Last User to Update via Crystal Gantt" field.

 

 

3. Gantt Data Display

3.1 Gantt Taskbar

Tasks on our Gantt Chart is displayed in the form of Task Bars with a default color, whereas the parent task has a double-sided hook representation with a default color(black). When color by status is applied, regular tasks gets the color changed based on their status. When hovering task bar, a pop-up is displayed containing name, start, finish, duration, progress.

 

 

3.2 Task Progress

Custom field for Progress Percent is available. They are represented by a darker shade of taskbar's color. You can change this progress value in the Jira issue editor, CG's grid or by using the resize cursor to the right of the progress bar.

 

 

Progress value for a task without children is set by the user, unless the Status is set to Done, when the progress is shown as 100% automatically.

Progress value for a parent task (including Epic) is not settable by the user and is based on the children's progress values. For example, if there are 2 children with progress values 100% and 50%, then the parent's progress will be set to 75%.

Optionally, if you need this Progress field value to be calculated automatically, the icon helps you to update the Progress % of all the tasks in this Program (including the tasks that are hidden due to a filter) based on the task's Start and End Time and the Current Time.

 

 

For example, if a task Start is Feb 1st and End is Feb 10th and current time is Feb 6th, then the Progress % for this task will be set to 50%.

3.3 Time Tracking Progress

We calculate Time Tracking Progress based on the time tracking fields(Original and Remaining Estimate) value as specified by user in Jira issue.

Time Tracking Progress = 100 - (100 * Remaining Estimate / Original Estimate)

3.4 Milestones

A milestone is a task with zero duration. It appears on the Gantt chart as milestone symbol(rectangular - diamond shape). Milestones are generally used to indicate important dates on the project plan, key events or goals. You can convert normal taskbar to milestone and vice versa using the taskbar context-menu.

 

 

4. Structuring Tasks

These commands let you structure the task's order,  position, etc. within the Gantt:

  • Move Up - Moves the selected task one row up.

  • Move Down - Moves the selected task one row down.

  • Indent and Outdent - The parent-child relationship between adjacent tasks can be affected by indenting and outdenting them.

 

 

5. Context Menu

In Grid:

  1. Indent - Makes this task as child of the previous one.

  2. Outdent - Makes this task a sibling of the previous one.

In Chart:

  1. Milestone - Lets you switch a task type between Milestone and normal Task.

  2. Dependency - Delete/Change issue link type.

6. Color Tasks by Status

You can get the tasks rendered with different colors based on their Status. Some statuses supported are:

  • Blue - ToDo

  • Yellow - Pending

  • Green - Completed

The Color by Status button lets you do this.

 

 

7. Critical Path

A project's Critical Path is defined by a list of tasks whose delay will directly or indirectly affect the project's finish date. An activity could indirectly affect the project finish date because of the presence of dependencies that would in turn affect other activities move past the current project end time.

It's often required to highlight such critical activities for proper project planning. You can highlight the cirtical path by clicking 'Color tasks based on critical path' icon.

 

8. Expand/Collapse

Expand/collapse all issues using these icon which gives a overview of all parent tasks.

1.Expand   

 

 

 2.Collapse 

 

 

9. Export

You can export the Gantt in PDF or Excel format by clicking the below export icon from the toolbar.

 

10. Linking Tasks

Linking tasks (by a simple mouse-drag connecting one task with another in the Chart area) creates a dependency between those two tasks making one a predecessor and the other a successor. You can setup these 4 kinds of link types that are introduced by Crystal Gantt into your Issue Linking configuration (refer Issue Link Configuration for more details),

  1. Start-To-Start.

  2. Start-To-Finish.

  3. Finish-To-Start.

  4. Finish-To-Finish.

By default, when 2 tasks are linked in the Gantt, a Finish-To-Start link is setup. You can then delete/change link type using our dependency context menu.

Once you link the tasks, every change you make to the predecessor affects the following successors.

For example, you can connect a task CW-2 below to 2 other tasks making CW-2 the predecessor.

 

 

Then the links are represented like this in the task description:

 

 

11. Filtering

The following filtering options are provided in the Gantt,:

  • Quick filter

  • Assignee filter

  • Date range filter

  • Search box filter

You can filter by more than one of these options.

11.1 Quick filter

There are 2 sub-options here:

  • Filter by Updated - loads gantt with tasks that has been updated within the past 7 days.

  • Filter by Unresolved - loads gantt with tasks that are not resolved, having status ToDo, Open, Reopen, Testing and Backlog.

 

11.2 Assignee filter

Loads gantt with tasks that are assigned to a specific user. 

Note: If a resource is not found, you will see an empty gantt.

 

11.3 Date range filter

Loads Gantt with tasks based on the specified start and end date range. Task times intersecting with this range will be displayed.

 

11.4 Search box filter

Allows users to filter out the desired task and bring to view based on the keyword entered in search box.

 

12. Gantt Scaling

Using this feature we can switch the Gantt chart header to zoom in or out to Minutes, Hours, a Day, a Week, a Month, or a Year.

 

13. Creating Issue

The 'Create Issue' button when clicked, opens Jira's Create Issue dialog box. The newly created task will be automatically added to Gantt Chart and Jira Project. 

 

 

14. Save

Changes made in the Gantt will be saved immediately into JIRA.

15. Resource Load View

You can get a overview of whole issues based on assigned users (Resource).