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Getting started

Workline works on the work items Jira Cloud already holds. Install it and open the plan: it is there at once, from the estimates, dates and sprints your work items have, with nothing to set up first. Jira’s own time tracking settings give the hours a day and the days a week until you set Workline’s own.

Workline looks ahead. Beyond the estimates, a manager can book time that has no estimate behind it, add a placeholder for a hire, and move work from someone over capacity to someone with room. Jira changes only when you press Move (the work item’s assignee and, if you give one, its due date) or Apply on a plan of unscheduled work (its start and due dates), as you.

The plan can count in story points, add the weeks behind you, and show a row per role, epic or space.

Where to find it

  • The plan across your spaces: Apps › Workline. Choose the spaces, a saved filter or a JQL search, then Show plan. One row per person, one column per week.
  • A space’s own plan: the Workline tab in the space, for the people with work in that space.
  • The gadget for a Jira dashboard: Add gadget, then pick Workline. It shows each person’s next four weeks, over capacity first. Edit picks the spaces, a saved filter or a JQL search, and a team if you like. Each person sees only the work items they may browse, and Open in Workline goes to the plan on the same scope.
  • Book time and Placeholder above the plan, and Move in the menu (⋯) of a work item under a person. See Book time, Placeholders and Move work. Press a person’s Unscheduled hours to plan unscheduled work.
  • Workline settings under Jira settings › Apps › Workline settings, for Jira admins. See Settings.

First steps for a Jira admin

  1. Open Apps › Workline and look at the plan. Read The plan if a figure needs explaining.
  2. Open Workline settings and check the working week. By default it is Jira’s time tracking: hours a day and days a week. Change it there, or set Workline’s own. See Working hours and holidays.
  3. Add the holidays everyone shares, each part-time person’s own hours, and any time off.
  4. Offer the Jira groups that are teams, so the plan can show one team at a time. See Teams.
  5. Under Bookings, choose who can book time and add placeholders: everyone who can open Workline, which is the default, or chosen groups. See Settings.

What the plan needs from your work items

Only open work items with an estimate are planned. Give a work item a remaining estimate (or an original one), an assignee, and dates or a sprint, and it lands in the weeks it falls in. A work item with an estimate and no dates and no sprint is shown as Unscheduled, never guessed into a week.

What it asks of Jira

It reads work items, people and groups as the person using it. It keeps its settings, the bookings and placeholders, account ids, each person’s remembered scope and a ten-minute cache of a plan without names. See What is stored.