This document serves as your comprehensive guide to initiating Delivery Flow for the first time. It outlines the process of accessing flow metrics for your work in four straightforward three simple steps.
Comprehensive Instructions for Accessing Your Flow Metrics
Generate Select a Workflow Map Using a Project Template
1.
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Start the application
After installing the application, proceed to the following options in the top Jira’s menu of Jirabar:
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Apps> Manage Your Apps>
Next, navigate to the following section in the Left Side Bar:
Delivery Flow Admin> Workflow Maps
Upon successfully completing these steps, a screen similar to the one below will be displayed:
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Click on the New Map button. The dialog for creating a new workflow map will appear:
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Click on the Use existing project as a template selection box. The dropdown will display the name of all projects in your Jira instance, each accompanied by its unique project key. Choose the project you intend to focus on. A Workflow Map Name will be automatically generated. Modify it if necessary, then proceed to click Create. Make a note of the project used as we will refer to this in step 3.
Subsequently, the newly generated Workflow Map will be visible on the Workflow Maps Admin Page. This map leverages the selected project to define lanes and values within the workflow map. At this point, you can edit the Workflow Map should it not align precisely with your requirements.
2. Establish Issue Color Coding
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Delivery Flow
In Delivery Flow, workflow maps are crucial, as they allow Delivery Flow to understand the process your issues must follow to achieve completion. If this is your organisation's first time running Delivery Flow, it’s likely that your administrator has not yet created any workflow maps. In this situation, the application will automatically create up to ten default workflow maps, based on the most recently updated projects in your system.
Delivery Flow is influenced by your project's board, lane statuses, and status categories when creating a default workflow map. After a map is generated, if it does not align with your needs, the site administrator has the ability to modify it or create new maps. Nevertheless, the auto-generated maps should suffice for conducting your initial queries in Delivery Flow. You can refine the default workflow maps at a later stage as needed.
2. Select a Workflow Map
To identify the Workflow Map you would like to use with executing JQL queries in Delivery Flow, click on User settings located beside the query bar. The User settings dialog will appear.
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To view the available workflow maps, click on the "Preferred Workflow Map" field in the settings dialog. A dropdown menu will then display the names of all existing workflow maps, with each name corresponding to its related project. Simply select the desired map and remember to save your changes.
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3. Execute Query
When you choose a workflow map, Delivery Flow will automatically populate the query bar with a suggested JQL query. If this query does not align with your specific requirements, adjust as required. If you are uncertain, we recommend running the generated query first, reviewing the results, and then making any necessary modifications. To execute the query, simply press Enter on your keyboard or click the Search icon in the query bar. Delivery Flow will then retrieve all issues defined by the query and calculate the relevant flow metrics for those issues.
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Once execution of the query is complete, you will have access to the Flow Overview, Flow Types, Flow Demand,Flow Times and Flow History pages. You are now in a position to refine your query and repeat its execution if necessary. If you are an admin, you can also adjust your Workflow Map or create new Workflow Maps for other projects or products being developed within your organisation.
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The range of possibilities for your query is extensive. However, for a first run, it is advisable to begin with a simple query or just use the auto-generated query. Ultimately, the goal is to measure how effectively you are providing products to customers. As you refine your query, take into account your product, the different teams involved, and all the work undertaken by these teams. Your polished query should encompass all these activities. |
Note: Issue Colour Considerations
This step is optional but recommended. Many graphs in Delivery Flow display data at an Issue Type level. By default, each Issue Type is denoted by the color grey. Assigning colors randomly assigned one of 18 colours from Atlassian’s chart visualisation palette. Assigning colours to different issue types aids in identifying them and promotes consistency throughout your organizationorganisation, as these settings are system-wide. Therefore, you should consider your options and make your adjustments. For example, we always like to assign red to defect issue types and green to feature issue types.
To access the Color Mapping Page, follow these steps in Jira's top menu:
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Within this section, you can define and assign colors to your various issue types. For detailed instructions, you can refer to the guide on mapping colors to your issue types.
3. Determine the Appropriate JQL Query
With Color and Workflow Map setup complete, the final step to access your Flow Metrics is to input and run a JQL query that encompasses all the work you intend to measure. However, your query demands careful consideration. Primarily, you must contemplate the query's scope. For example, are you seeking data for your team, a cluster of teams, or the entire organisation?
Additionally, you must factor in time. Certain projects have extensive durations. Merely specifying the scope without setting a time constraint could lead to the extraction of an overwhelming volume of irrelevant data. Here is a simple example to get started:
Focus on project used to create Workflow Map
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Project in (TEAM) AND updated >= startOfWeek(-12) |
Hopefully, the strategy is apparent. The Workflow Map developed in step 1 will analyze the Jira workflow that these issues have passed through, generating precise metrics for all the issues in the query. The example above refers to project TEAM. Substitute this value with the key of the project that you chose in step 1. Additionally, this query restricts the data retrieval to approximately 12 weeks.
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The range of possibilities for your query is extensive. However, for a first run, it is advisable to begin with a simple query. Ultimately, our goal is to provide products to our customers. As you refine your query, take into account your product, the different teams involved, and all the work undertaken by these teams. Your polished query should encompass all these activities. |
4. Execute the Query to Obtain Your Flow Metrics
Navigate to the Delivery Flow App Page from Jira's top menu:
Apps> Delivery Flow>
This action will direct you to the main page of the application.
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Click on User Settings located in the top right corner of the application. This action will prompt the user settings dialog to appear.
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Click on the Preferred Workflow Map selection box and choose the Workflow Map that was created in step one. If not already set, enter 90 for the number of days in flow calculations. Click Save to save your settings and return to the main screen. Now, input your JQL query in the Delivery Flows query bar located at the top of the page and press enter. Delivery Flow will retrieve your data, conduct its flow calculations, and populate the application with your flow metrics.
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Once execution of the query is complete, you will have access to the Flow Overview, Flow Types, Flow Demand,Flow Times and Flow History pages. You are now in a position to refine your query and repeat its execution if necessary. You can also adjust your Workflow Map or create new Workflow Maps for other projects or products being developed within your organisation.
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Only application administrators can set Issue Colors. |
Note: Auto-generated Queries
Delivery Flow uses details in the workflow map and user settings to generate the query. Typically, this query will have 3 components:
Project Scope - If the project name or key is used in the workflow map name or if it is associated with the statuses referenced in the map, it will be assumed as part of the project scope. If no project references are found, the project statement will be omitted.
In Flow Statuses - A workflow map determines the lane where work is considered to have started and finished. Once work has started, it is considered to be In Flow. This statement captures all statuses an issue can hold when work has started but is not finished.
Status Changed - Any issue that has moved over last n days. For example, an issue may have moved from an In Flow status to Done. The value of n is set in user settings.
The generated query will always take the following form:
Issues in Project Scope AND (Issues In Flow OR issues with Status Change over last n days)
Here is an example autogenerated JQL query in the referenced format:
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Project in ("Test Project") and (status in ("In Progress", "Wait Review", "In Review", "Wait QA", "In QA") or status changed after startOfDay(-90)) |
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