Flow Metrics Now

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 three simple steps.

Comprehensive Instructions for Accessing Your Flow Metrics

1. Start the Application

2. Select a Workflow Map

3. Execute Query

1. Start the application

After installing the application, proceed to the following options in Jira’s menu bar:

Apps> 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.

Open

_{Figure 1. Delivery Flow query bar and user settings}

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.

Open

_{Figure 2. User settings dialog in Delivery Flow}

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.

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.

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 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 organisation, 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:

Apps> Manage Your Apps>

Then, navigate to the following section in the Left Side Bar:

Delivery Flow Admin> Color Mapping

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.

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:

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. 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:

Here is an example autogenerated JQL query in the referenced format:

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