Plugio Suite Documentation

Plugio Suite — Dashboard Builder, Charts & Reports for Jira is a full-page dashboard builder. Instead of configuring one gadget at a time, you compose complete dashboards from a library of twelve widgets — KPI numbers, gauges, batteries, progress bars, pies, bar and line charts, treemaps, pivot tables, issue lists and live-value text blocks — on a free drag-and-drop canvas.

Everything on a dashboard reads from one shared set of filters: pick the scope (projects, JQL or a sprint), pick the time window, add any field filters — and every widget follows. Widgets can still narrow their own data with per-widget conditions when they need to.

Finished dashboards can be shared with everyone on your site and placed on native Jira dashboards through the bundled Plugio Suite Dashboard gadget.

Getting Started

Opening Plugio Suite

1. 1 Install Plugio Suite from the Atlassian Marketplace.
2. 2 In Jira, open the Apps menu in the top navigation and choose Plugio Suite. The app opens as a full page.
3. 3 You land on My dashboards — every dashboard you own, plus dashboards others have shared with the site.

The My dashboards screen

• New dashboard creates a dashboard and opens it in the builder.
• The search box filters the list by title as you type.
• Each card shows the dashboard's mode as a leading icon — a calendar for date-based, a board for sprint-based — plus a Private/Shared badge.
• Hovering a card reveals Edit, Duplicate and Delete. Duplicate copies the whole configuration — a quick way to fork a variant of an existing dashboard.

Your first dashboard in five steps

1. 1 Click New dashboard.
2. 2 Set the Scope — the dashboard asks for it before loading any data. Pick one or more projects (or JQL, or a sprint board).
3. 3 Pick a time window in the filter bar, e.g. Last 30 days.
4. 4 Click + Widget and add widgets from the picker. Drag them into place, resize them by their edges.
5. 5 Click Save. Flip the dashboard to Shared in Settings when it's ready for the team.

The Builder

Toolbar

The canvas

• The canvas is a fluid 24-column grid. Widgets snap to grid cells while you drag or resize them; a ghost outline previews the drop position.
• Drag a widget by its header (or any non-interactive area) to move it. Resize from the edges and corners.
• Each widget type has a minimum size below which it can't be shrunk — a treemap can't collapse into an unreadable 1×1 tile. There is no maximum: widgets can be as large as you like, and the canvas grows downward without limit.
• Hovering a widget reveals its actions: ⚙ Settings opens the configuration panel, ✕ Remove deletes the widget.

The configuration panel

• The panel opens on the right and shows only tabs relevant to the selected widget (for example Data · Format · Colors for a Number, Layout · Values · Format for a Pivot Table).
• Every change applies live — the real widget on the canvas is the preview. The builder scrolls the widget into view next to the panel automatically.
• While the panel is open, clicking another widget switches the panel to it.
• Done keeps the changes; Cancel (or Esc) restores the widget to the state it had when the panel opened.

Scope & Filters

The filter bar defines what data the whole dashboard reads. It has three layers, applied together (logical AND):

• Scope — which issues exist for this dashboard (projects, JQL, or a sprint board).
• Time window — when: a period for date-based dashboards, one sprint for sprint-based dashboards.
• Field filters — any number of attribute filters (status, assignee, labels, custom fields…) layered on top.

Dashboard scope

Click the scope chip to open the Scope dialog. The first choice is the dashboard's mode:

In date-based mode, the JQL option accepts any query — Atlassian's official JQL editor with autocomplete is embedded, so cross-project scopes like project in (ENG, OPS) AND type != Sub-task work as expected. Switching between Projects and JQL keeps both values, so you can experiment without losing input.

Time window (period picker)

The period chip windows the dashboard in time. Pick a granularity — Day, Week, Month, Quarter, Year — and a preset for it, or a custom date range:

• The window is anchored to the Created date for KPI widgets and lists.
• Charts with a time axis bind the window to their own date field. A line chart plotting Resolved over time shows issues resolved in the window — throughput — regardless of when they were created.
• The granularity also drives chart bucketing: with Last 8 weeks selected, time-axis charts bucket by week automatically (the Auto bucket setting).
• The chosen period is the previous-period baseline too: a Number comparing against the previous period compares This month to last month, Last 7 days to the 7 days before, and so on.

Sprint mode

A sprint-based dashboard is bound to one scrum board and always shows exactly one sprint:

• The default selection is the Active sprint — the dashboard rolls over to the new sprint automatically when one starts. You can also pin a specific sprint.
• The period picker is replaced by a sprint chip. Viewers can flip to past sprints to review history; Reset returns to your default.
• Every widget is restricted to the sprint's issues — including widgets that aren't date-driven.
• "Previous period" comparisons (e.g. on a Number widget) read the previous sprint.
• Time-axis charts use the sprint's start and end dates as their window, with daily buckets.

Field filters

Click + Filter to add a filter on any field — system or custom. The field list comes from your Jira site's live field catalogue, so custom selects, user pickers, dates, numbers and text fields all work. Each filter is a chip; clicking it opens its editor.

Operators by field type

Cascading (parent → child) selects

Cascading select fields get a special two-level picker whose options are distilled from the dashboard's own data, with live issue counts per value. Selecting a parent means "this parent, any child"; selecting a child matches the exact pair.

Fixed vs Editable — filters for viewers

Every filter has a visibility mode, shown as a small mark on the chip's left edge:

Clear at the end of the bar removes all field filters at once.

Data Concepts

All data-driven widgets share the same building blocks. Learn them once — they behave identically everywhere.

Values (metrics)

A value is defined as a readable phrase: “Sum of Story Points where status = Done”.

Derived durations

Beside stored fields, the source list offers three computed durations, each measured between two dates on the issue:

Formulas

Number, Text and Pivot Table widgets accept formula rows alongside plain values. A formula references other rows by their label in curly braces and supports arithmetic:

• Clickable chips under the formula input insert references — no need to type labels.
• Renaming a value automatically rewrites its references inside every formula (and inside Text widget bodies), so renames never break anything.
• Division by zero or a missing operand renders as “—”, never as a wrong number.

Display formats

Each displayed value carries a format, chosen inline in its editor:

Derived durations and Jira's time-tracking fields (Original Estimate, Time Spent, Remaining) format as durations by default. How many hours a displayed “day” contains is a dashboard setting (calendar 24h vs 8h workday).

Color bands (thresholds)

Number, Gauge, Battery and Progress Bar color their value through a free list of bands — each band is an end value and a color; a band starts where the previous one ends.

• Order the colors any way you like — green→red for “low is good”, red→green for completion. The direction comes from your color order, not a switch.
• Past the last stop the widget falls back to a neutral color, so out-of-range values are visible as such.
• With no bands defined, Gauge/Battery/Progress use the first color of the dashboard palette; a Number keeps the default text color.

How widgets read data

• All widgets on a dashboard share one base query — adding more widgets does not multiply API calls. Only values with their own where condition run a narrow extra query.
• The base fetch is capped at 2,000 issues. Beyond that, affected widgets show an orange warning icon in their title and a banner explains how to narrow the scope. Numbers may be partial until you narrow the scope or the filters.
• Zero is a value: a Number/Gauge/Battery over an empty result shows 0 (a real measurement). Series widgets (charts, lists) show a “no matching issues” state instead of an empty axis.
• If one widget fails or is misconfigured, only that tile shows an error card — the rest of the dashboard keeps working.

Widgets

Twelve widget types, grouped by what they answer. Each widget's configuration lives in tabs shown in its side panel — the tables below walk through every setting.

Number

One number — a metric or a formula over several, with previous-period comparison. The classic KPI tile: issue counts, story point sums, average cycle time, SLA percentages.

Data tab

Format tab

Colors tab

Absolute-value color bands — the hero digits take the color of the band the value falls in; past the last stop the default text color returns.

Gauge

A radial value against a target, with color bands. Best for “how close are we” questions where the current level should be readable in half a second — SLA compliance, sprint completion, open-bug pressure.

Data tab

Format tab

Color Bands tab

Free band list. Band end values follow the display mode — percent of target when the gauge shows percent, gauge units otherwise — so the numbers you type are the numbers viewers read on the dial.

Battery

A single value filling toward a target. The same data model as the Gauge — value, Fixed or Dynamic target, color bands — rendered as a linear fill. Use it where a dial is too heavy: compact rows of team KPIs, capacity used, quota consumed.

Data tab

Identical to the Gauge: Value, Target (Fixed | Dynamic), Minimum.

Format tab

Color Bands tab

Same free band list as the Gauge.

Progress Bar

Completion per group, as filled bars against a target. One measure split into rows by a field — % done per epic, per assignee, per component. Not a bar chart: every row runs on the same 0–100 track, so rows are comparable as progress, not as raw size.

Data tab

Format tab

Color Bands tab

Bands are always in percent — rows carry different targets, so completion is the only scale comparable across rows.

Pie / Donut

Share of a whole — pie, donut or half donut. One measure split by one field: issues by type, story points by team, tickets by priority.

Data tab

Format tab

Slices are always ordered largest-first, clockwise from 12 — a reading convention, not a setting.

Bar

Compare a measure across categories or time. The workhorse: issues by status, story points by assignee, created per month.

Data tab

With a date X axis other than Created, the widget binds the dashboard window to that field — X = Resolved gives true throughput.

Format tab

Grouped / Stacked Bar

Bars split by a second field — stacked, side by side, or 100%. Two dimensions in one chart: created per month by status, workload per assignee by issue type.

Data tab

Everything the Bar has, plus:

Format tab

Line

A trend over time, optionally split into series. Created-vs-resolved trends, priority mix over time, average cycle time per week.

Data tab

Format tab

Treemap

A nested hierarchy sized by a metric, colored by branch or by heat. Where is the work concentrated: Project → Epic → Status, sized by issue count, colored by average age.

Data tab

Format tab

Pivot Table

Rows × columns × measures — exact numbers with totals. The precision instrument: story points by assignee and month, counts by component × priority, late-delivery rates per team.

Layout tab

Values tab

An ordered list of measures — each renders as one value column (drag to reorder = reorder columns). Two kinds of rows:

• Value rows — the standard metric phrase (Count / Sum / Average / Min / Max of a field or derived duration), plus an optional if-condition: count only issues where one field compares to another — Resolved after Due date, Time Spent > Original Estimate, things plain JQL cannot express.
• Formula rows — reference other measures by label: {Late} / {Count} * 100.

• The eye hides a measure's column while keeping it computed — perfect for formula operands that shouldn't clutter the table.
• Labels auto-derive from the definition and stay short (they're column headers); rename them inline, and formulas rewrite themselves.

Format tab

Large tables scroll inside the tile with sticky headers and sticky dimension columns.

List

A ranked issue list — top N by any field. Not a query result page: a deliberate short slice. The 10 oldest open bugs, the 5 highest-priority tickets, the most recently resolved work.

Data tab

Format tab

Clicking a row opens the issue in Jira.

Text

A markdown note — with live values woven into the text. Section headings, explanations, and one-line summaries that update with the data.

Content tab

Conditional text

Text can change with the data:

• Operators: > >= < <= = !=; conditions can nest.
• Compare values against each other, against plain numbers, or against durations like 5d, 4h 30m.
• Broken syntax stays visible as plain text — a typo never blanks the widget.

A heading-only Text widget costs zero API calls, and the widget renders without the standard header chrome — the content is the heading.

Dashboard Settings

The toolbar's Settings gear opens dashboard-level options — one choice that every widget follows:

Sharing & Viewing

Set a dashboard to Shared and anyone on the site can open it (and the gadget can display it). What viewers get:

• Read-only layout — only the owner can edit widgets, layout or saved filters.
• Their own data visibility — all queries run with the viewer's Jira permissions. A viewer without access to a project simply doesn't see its issues.
• Live controls for what you chose to expose: the period (or sprint) picker and every Editable field filter are functional. Viewer changes are ephemeral — Reset returns to the author's defaults, and nothing is saved back.
• Scope transparency: a locked chip names the dashboard's bound (e.g. “PLG, WEB”); its popover lists everything the owner fixed.

Adding a Dashboard to a Jira Dashboard (Gadget)

Plugio Suite ships a companion gadget — Plugio Suite Dashboard — that renders a saved Suite dashboard inside a native Jira dashboard, so the team meets your dashboard where they already look every morning.

1. 1 Open (or create) a native Jira dashboard and click Add gadget.
2. 2 Search for “Plugio Suite Dashboard” and add it.
3. 3 In the gadget's edit mode, pick one of your saved dashboards from the dropdown — a live preview renders below so you see exactly what you're placing.
4. 4 Click Save.

• The gadget renders the dashboard read-only, with the same viewer experience as the full page: editable filters and the period/sprint picker work, layout editing doesn't.
• Authoring always happens in the full-page app — changes you save there appear in the gadget automatically.
• To share via the gadget, the dashboard itself must be Shared — a private dashboard stays visible to its owner only.

Troubleshooting

“Choose a scope” — the canvas is empty

Every dashboard needs a bounding scope (projects, JQL or a board) before it fetches data. Open the scope chip and set one.

Orange warning icon in a widget title

The dashboard's scope matched more than 2,000 issues, so results were truncated and numbers may be partial. Narrow the scope (fewer projects, shorter window, tighter filters) until the warning disappears.

A widget shows “configure” instead of data

The widget is missing a required setting (e.g. a Progress Bar without a Group by field). Open its ⚙ settings — the panel highlights what's needed.

A widget warns about a missing field

The widget references a field that doesn't exist on this site (common when a dashboard was built against another instance, or a custom field was deleted). Re-pick the field in the widget's settings. The rest of the dashboard is unaffected.

“No sprints” on a sprint-based dashboard

The bound board has no sprints (or no active sprint and no pinned one). Pick a sprint in the sprint chip, or bind a different board in the Scope dialog.

Numbers differ from a Jira filter I ran

Remember the layered filters: scope and time window and field filters and the widget's own where condition all apply together. The most common surprise is the time window — set the period to All time to compare against an unwindowed JQL result.

A viewer sees different numbers than I do

By design: queries run with the viewer's own Jira permissions. If they can't see a project, its issues aren't in their numbers.

Support

Questions, feedback or a feature request? We answer fast.

Email: [email protected]