Project Planning for Jira

2.1 Install the app

Project Planning for Jira installs in seconds from the Atlassian Marketplace. You need to be a Jira site admin to install apps for your site.

1. Sign in to your Jira Cloud site as an admin.
2. Open Apps → Explore more apps, or visit the listing on marketplace.atlassian.com.
3. Search for Project Planning for Jira and click Get it now.
4. Confirm the requested permissions and approve the install.

2.2 Open the dashboard

Once installed, the app appears in Jira's top navigation:

1. Click Apps in the Jira top bar.
2. Select Project Planning for Jira.
3. The dashboard opens in your normal Jira chrome — no new tab, no new window.

The first time you open the dashboard, the app provisions a small amount of storage in your Jira region (preferences, saved filters). No data leaves Atlassian's infrastructure during this step.

2.3 A 5-minute tour

The app has four primary surfaces. Switch between them with the left-hand navigation or with keyboard shortcuts 1–4.

• My Work — every task assigned to you across every project, in one filterable list.
• Calendar — drag tasks onto your week. Day-off aware, work-hour aware, capacity aware.
• Projects — Phases → Deliverables → Tasks. Each PM task can link to a real Jira issue.
• Settings — theme, default view, work hours, field mappings, and privacy controls.

3.1 What you see

• Issue key, summary, status, priority, due date — the columns most teams need every day.
• Project context — project name, key, and avatar so cross-project work doesn't blur together.
• Sprint context — for issues on a Jira Software board, the current sprint is visible inline.
• Updated time — relative timestamps (2 hours ago) so you can see what changed without scanning dates.

3.2 Filtering and sorting

Filters are non-destructive — they shape the view, never the underlying data.

• Status — multi-select from your Jira status set (To Do, In Progress, Done, etc.).
• Project — limit the list to one or more projects.
• Priority — Highest, High, Medium, Low, Lowest.
• Due date — overdue, this week, next week, no due date.
• Search — free-text search across summary, description, and issue key. Press / to focus the search box.

Sort by updated time, due date, priority, or summary. The sort indicator shows direction; click again to reverse.

3.3 Inline editing

Most fields are editable without leaving the row:

• Click the status pill to transition the issue (only valid transitions are offered).
• Click the priority chip to change priority.
• Click the due date to reschedule.
• Click the assignee avatar to reassign.

Changes write through to Jira immediately. If a write fails (permissions, validation), the row reverts and the failure reason is shown in a toast.

3.4 Bulk actions

Select multiple tasks with x on each row, or Ctrl+A / Cmd+A to select all visible. Once selected, the action bar offers:

• Transition — move all selected tasks to the same status (only transitions valid for every selected task are shown).
• Reassign — set assignee on all selected.
• Set priority — apply one priority to all selected.

Bulk operations run sequentially with a progress indicator. Failures are reported per-task — successful writes are not rolled back.

4.1 Layout

• Week view (w) — seven columns, hour rows. Default for daily planning.
• Month view (m) — high-level read of the next four weeks. Useful for spotting overloaded days.
• Today (t) — jumps the viewport to the current day at any time.

4.2 Scheduling a task

1. Drag a task from the unscheduled tray onto a calendar slot.
2. The block snaps to the slot duration you configured in Settings (default 30 minutes).
3. Resize the block by dragging its bottom edge to extend or shorten the time allocation.
4. Drag the block to another slot to reschedule.
5. Click the block to mark the underlying Jira issue as in progress, complete, or to add a comment without leaving the calendar.

4.3 Day-off and work-hour awareness

The calendar respects the working pattern you set in Settings → Work hours:

• Days off — weekends and any custom days off are visually muted; tasks won't auto-suggest these.
• Work-hour band — your configured working hours (e.g. 09:00–18:00) are highlighted; outside the band is dimmed.
• Capacity indicator — each day shows the total scheduled hours and warns if you exceed your daily target.

4.4 Removing a task from the calendar

Drag the block off the calendar back into the unscheduled tray, or right-click → Unschedule. The Jira issue itself is not modified — only your private schedule is changed.

5.1 The hierarchy

Every plan in the app uses the same three-level structure:

5.2 Linking deliverables to Jira

Each deliverable in your plan can be linked to one Jira issue (typically a Jira epic or story):

• Click Link Jira issue on a deliverable and search by key or summary.
• The linked issue's status, assignee, and due date sync into the plan view automatically.
• Update the linked issue from inside the plan view — changes flow back to Jira.

5.3 Progress and milestones

• Each phase shows a percent-complete bar based on the share of completed tasks within it.
• Milestones can be flagged on phases that hit a contractual or external deadline; overdue milestones are highlighted at the top of the plan.
• The plan timeline shows phase boundaries on a calendar so you can spot dependencies at a glance.

5.4 Recommendations

When a plan has been active for a few days, the app surfaces simple, rule-based recommendations: phases at risk of slipping, deliverables with no linked Jira work, tasks blocked by an overdue dependency. These are computed entirely from your plan and the linked Jira data — no external services are involved.

6.1 Preferences

• Theme — Light, Dark, or follow the Jira theme.
• Default view — which page (My Work, Calendar, Projects) opens first.
• Date and number formatting — automatically follows the locale set on your Atlassian account.

6.2 Work hours

• Work days — toggle each day of the week.
• Working hours — start and end time per work day.
• Daily capacity — the total hours of scheduled work that triggers the over-capacity warning.
• Days off — pick specific dates that should be excluded from scheduling regardless of your weekly pattern.

6.3 Field mapping

If your Jira projects use custom fields for priority, story points, or due-date equivalents, map them here. The app reads these mappings to populate columns and the calendar correctly across heterogeneous projects.

6.4 Privacy

The Privacy tab gives you full GDPR controls without contacting support:

• Export my data — downloads a JSON file containing every preference, schedule, and plan stored against your account.
• Delete my data — removes all of your app data from storage. Confirmation requires typing a short token to prevent accidental deletion. Your Jira issues are not affected.

7.1 Global

7.2 Navigation

7.3 Tasks

7.4 Calendar

7.5 Projects