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View and understand the burndown chart
This page applies to company-managed projects only.
Learn more about the difference between company-managed and team-managed projects.
A Burndown Chart shows the actual and estimated amount of work to be done in a sprint. The horizontal x-axis in a Burndown Chart indicates time, and the vertical y-axis indicates cards (issues).
Use a Burndown Chart to track the total work remaining, and to project the likelihood of achieving the sprint goal. By tracking the remaining work throughout the iteration, a team can manage its progress, and respond to trends accordingly. For example, if the Burndown Chart shows that the team may not likely reach the sprint goal, then the team can take the necessary actions to stay on track.
Before you begin
The Burndown Chart only applies to Scrum boards.
Story Points on subtasks are not included in the Burndown Chart. (Only Story Points on parent tasks are included.)
Viewing the Burndown Chart
Click Projects in the navigation bar and select the relevant project
Click Reports, then select Burndown Chart.
To choose a different sprint, click the sprint drop-down.
To choose a different estimate statistic, click the estimation statistic drop-down. This change will be saved for you, for when you next visit this chart.
Click How to read this chart at the top of the report to view a short description of the report.
Understanding the Burndown Chart
Before you start using the Burndown Chart, you should get to know how it works. The following information will help you understand the key functionalities of the Burndown Chart:
The Burndown Chart is board-specific – that is, it will only include issues that match your board's saved filter.
The vertical axis represents the estimation statistic that you have configured for your board.
The Burndown Chart is based on your board's column mapping. An issue is considered to be 'To Do' when it is in a status that has been mapped to the left-most column of your board. Similarly, an issue is considered to be 'Done' when it is in a status that has been mapped to the right-most column of your board. See Configuring columns for more information.
If the grey 'Guideline' line does not show, the sprint may have been started before any issues were assigned to it, as described in this KB article.
When using the Burndown Chart, note that subtask behavior can vary, depending on whether or not remaining estimate and time spent is enabled for your board.
Subtask behavior when remaining estimate and time spent is enabled | Subtask behavior when remaining estimate and time spent is disabled |
|---|---|
If you add a subtask to an issue that's already in an active sprint, the subtask is treated as scope change. The scope change is also indicated in the Burndown Chart. | If you add a subtask to an issue that's already in an active sprint, the subtask is also treated as scope change. However, scope change is not indicated in the Burndown Chart for the subtask. |
Time estimates of subtasks are rolled up to the parent task. This means that the parent task will have the total sum of all remaining estimates of the subtasks. | Time estimates are tracked individually across the subtasks and the parent task itself. |
Need help? If you can't find the answer you need in our documentation, we have other resources available to help you. See Getting help.
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