YouTrack Standalone 7.0 Help

Burndown

This chart shows the ideal progress vs. actual progress for any set of issues over a specified time frame.

  • The ideal burndown represents the effort that is required to finish the project.
  • The remaining effort represents the actual amount of work that has been performed to date.

The calculation can be based on the number of issues or any other estimation value. Unlike the agile board Burndown chart, this report is not limited to a single agile board or sprint.

When the report is calculated, the following options are available:

  • Move the pointer to a point on either line on the chart to see the difference between the ideal burndown and the remaining effort.
  • Click a label in the legend to show or hide the corresponding progress line in the report.

Prerequisites

If you want to calculate a burndown report that shows remaining effort and spent time, configure and use YouTrack according to the following guidelines:

  • Enable and configure time tracking in each project that you want to show on the report.
  • Enter values in the Estimation field for each issue.
  • Use time tracking to add work items to issues.

    If your issues have parent and subtask links, the spent time for a parent task is based on the total spent time for each of its substasks. To draw the report correctly, use the Query setting to filter out the subtasks and show calculations for parent tasks only, or filter out the parent tasks and calculate the report for subtasks.

    If the system-wide time tracking settings for your YouTrack server are configured incorrectly, the report cannot be calculated. For example, the work days are not defined or the hours per day are set to zero. For more information, see Time Tracking.

If follow a Scrum methodology and want to use story points for the estimation, configure and use YouTrack according tot he following guidelines:

  • Add an integer-type field that stores the number of story points that you assign to user stories in each project.
  • Assign story points to all of the issues that represent user stories in your projects.
  • Record your progress on issues by reducing the number of story points based on the amount of remaining effort. Update the values that you store in this field manually, for example, during the daily scrum with your development team.

Settings

Use the following settings to configure this report.

SettingDescription
Report NameThe name of the report.
ProjectsThe projects for which the report is calculated. The projects that are visible in the list are displayed based on your View Project access permissions.
QueryThe Query and Projects settings let you narrow the scope of your report to receive more precise results. The search query field supports the same syntax and auto-completion that are available in the search box.
PeriodThe time frame for which issues are displayed on the report.
Automatically RecalculateConfigures periodic recalculation for your report.
  • If you select Never, then the option is switched off. You can only refresh the report manually.
  • If you select any of the other options, YouTrack checks if the selected time period has elapsed when you open the report. If yes, the report is recalculated automatically. Reports with auto-recalculation enabled can still be recalculated manually.
Estimation FieldThe report can use the number of issues in the selected project or an estimation field. To calculate the estimations properly, all of the selected projects should store estimation values as the same data type. When time tracking is enabled for all of the selected projects, you can select an estimation field that stores a period type.
Visible toSets the visibility for the report. By default, the report is visible to its owner only.

Example

A report with the following settings displays the progress in the Administration team project in May 2014. The ideal burndown is not shown in this example.

SettingValue
ProjectsAdministration
PeriodMay 1 - 31, 2014
Estimation fieldIssue Count

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Calculations

The values that are displayed on the line graph are based on the data type of the value that is used for estimations.

If the report uses the issues count or a field that stores estimations as an integer, the values on the report are calculated as follows:

ValueDescription
Ideal BurndownThe first value at the beginning of the timeline is the the total number of issues or estimation values for the selected period. The line is drawn to the end of the timeline where the number of unresolved issues or unfinished estimations is zero. Each point along the graph represents the number of issues that are expected to remain unresolved each day in order to finish all tasks by the end of the selected period. The ideal burndown is not calculated for non-working days, which are represented by flat lines.
Remaining EffortShows the actual number of unresolved issues or estimation values for unresolved issues for each day.
Ahead of/Behind ScheduleDisplays the difference between the ideal burndown and the remaining effort. If the remaining effort is greater than the ideal burndown, the value is shown as behind schedule. If the ideal burndown is greater than the remaining effort, the value is shown as ahead of schedule.
Overdue EffortDisplays the amount of remaining effort at the end of the sprint.

If the report uses a period-type field for estimations, the values on the report are calculated as follows:

ValueDescription
Ideal BurndownThe first value at the beginning of the timeline is the the total estimation value for the selected period. The line is drawn to the end of the timeline where the unfinished estimation is zero. Each point along the graph represents the amount of estimated time that is expected to be unspent each day in order to finish all tasks by the end of the selected period. The ideal burndown is not calculated for non-working days, which are represented by flat lines.
Remaining EffortShows the actual unspent estimation in the issues that remain in an unresolved state for each day. This value is reduced by the total estimation for each issue that moves to a resolved state on that day.
Ahead of/Behind ScheduleDisplays the difference between the ideal burndown and the remaining effort. If the remaining effort is greater than the ideal burndown, the value is shown as behind schedule. If the ideal burndown is greater than the remaining effort, the value is shown as ahead of schedule.
Spent TimeShows the cumulative amount of time spent for each day. This line is only visible when the amount of time spent working on each issue is recorded in work items.

The burndown chart only calculates spent time that is added as work items to the issues that are shown on the report. Parent issues with spent time that is calculated based on the total amount of spent time added to their subtasks do not show spent time on the burndown. If you want to show spent time on a burndown chart for parent tasks, you need to add your work items to these issues instead of using time tracking for subtasks.

You can add work items to both parent tasks and subtasks, but the spent time calculation for parent tasks is inflated.

Overdue EffortDisplays the amount of remaining effort at the end of the sprint.
Last modified: 2 February 2017