How to Add Approval Path Dashboard Gadget
Overview
The Approval Path dashboard gadget brings the approvals list onto a Jira dashboard. Add it once, configure which approvals it shows and how they are displayed, and everyone with access to the dashboard gets a ready-made, read-only view.
The gadget author defines the configuration. The data itself is calculated for each person viewing the dashboard, so the same gadget shows each viewer only the approvals they are entitled to see.
The gadget can list individual approvals, or aggregate them into charts, pivot tables, and KPI tiles to answer questions such as how long approvals take and where they are held up.
Approvers get an action button on the rows waiting on them, which opens the approval window on the work item with nothing to search for first.
Before you start
To add and configure the gadget you need permission to edit the dashboard you are adding it to. You must be a dashboard Editor. This is standard Jira dashboard behaviour, not an Approval Path permission.
To view the gadget, a person needs access to the dashboard. No Approval Path permission is needed to see the gadget itself, but what they see inside it depends on their entitlement.
How to add a dashboard gadget in your instance
Open the dashboard and select Add a gadget.
Find Approval Path and add it.
Choose whether to start from a template or from scratch, then configure the gadget and save.
Choose a starting point
The gadget offers two ways to begin.
Start from a template opens a ready-made gadget. Each template arrives with its display type already chosen, so some open as a pie chart, some as a line chart, and so on. Everything stays editable afterwards, including the type itself, so a template is a starting point rather than a fixed choice.
Start from scratch opens an empty configuration. Choose this when you already know what you want to build.
Start from a template
Templates: My work
These describe your own approvals, and show each viewer their own data.
Template |
What it shows |
|---|---|
Approvals awaiting my decision |
Your work queue: everything waiting on you, soonest decision deadline first |
Awaiting my decision, by approval |
One row per approval, with the work items waiting on you |
My approvals by status |
Approvals you are involved in, split across in progress, approved, and rejected |
Approvals I decided this month |
Approvals you decided this month, against the month before |
Created vs resolved |
Whether the queue is growing: approvals created against approvals resolved over time |
Templates: Process overview
These describe how approvals are running rather than what you personally owe.
Template |
What it shows |
|---|---|
Open approvals |
How many approvals are still open in your scope |
Approvals by definition |
Approval volume per definition, to point at the busiest processes |
Approval outcomes by definition |
Approved against rejected per definition, to point at a high rejection share |
Load by approver |
Approvals currently awaiting each approver, to point at bottlenecks |
Cycle time by definition |
Median time from creation to resolution per definition, to point at the slowest processes |
Created vs resolved |
The same template offered under My work |
Load by approver needs admin rights. It groups by Approver, which is admin only, so it renders as an empty result for anyone who is not an admin.
Every template still respects each viewer's entitlement. A Process overview template on a shared dashboard shows a non-admin only their own approvals, so the picture it gives them is narrower than the name suggests.
Start from scratch: Understand the edit view
Whichever starting point you choose, you land in the edit view. It is split into three areas.
1. Gadget type and Chart by
Two dropdowns sit at the top.
Gadget type is one of six.
Type |
Use it to |
|---|---|
Table |
List individual approvals, with columns, sorting, paging, and export
|
Aggregated table |
Cross-tabulate approvals by one or two dimensions, or list the work items behind each cell
|
Pie chart |
Show how a total splits across categories
|
Bar chart |
Compare categories, optionally broken down by a second dimension
|
Line chart |
Show a measure over time
|
KPI stat tile |
Show a single number, compared against a previous period or a target
|
Chart by is the dimension an aggregated type is broken down by. It is required on every type except the plain table, and until you choose one the preview stays empty and Save is disabled.
Changing the gadget type keeps the parts of your configuration that still apply and clears the parts that conflict, so you can switch presentation without rebuilding the gadget.
2. Live preview
The preview updates as you configure. On a narrow dashboard it sits between the dropdowns and the tabs; on a wider one it moves beside the configuration. Your work is kept as a draft if the page reloads before you save.
The preview shows the data you are entitled to see. It is indicative only. A viewer with different permissions will see a different set of rows in the saved gadget.
3. Configuration tabs
The tabs you see depend on the gadget type.
A table needs columns and paging; a bar chart needs a measure and a breakdown instead. Only the tabs that apply to your type appear, so do not expect the same set every time.
Whatever the combination, each tab answers one question.
Tab |
Answers |
|---|---|
Source |
Which approvals does this gadget draw from? |
Calculations |
What is being measured? It sets what the gadget measures and how those values are summarised. |
Group by |
How is it broken down a second time? |
Format |
How does it look? |
Value list |
How does the list beside the chart look? |
Display |
Paging, sorting, refresh, and export |
Source and Display appear on every type. The rest appear only where they apply. A bar chart, for example, offers all six.
The Source tab defines which approvals the gadget draws from. It reuses the same filters as the Approval Path approvals list, so anything you can filter on there, you can filter on here.
Filter |
Purpose |
|---|---|
Only approvals awaiting the viewing user's decision |
A toggle above the filters. Turn it on and each viewer sees only the approvals waiting on them, which turns one shared gadget into a personal to-do queue. It resolves to whoever is looking at the dashboard, not to you as the author. |
Approval name |
Match approvals by name |
Definition |
Restrict to one or more approval definitions |
Status |
Restrict by approval status |
Priority |
Restrict by the approval's priority, as set on the approval definition. (This is not the work item's priority.) |
Space |
Restrict to one or more spaces. |
JQL |
Narrow the underlying work items with a JQL query |
More filters |
Additional list filters |
Format is contextual to the selected type. For the table type, it controls the columns.
Option |
What it does |
|---|---|
Columns |
Choose which columns are shown, and add or remove columns |
Column label |
Override the displayed name of any column. Useful for matching internal or regulatory vocabulary |
Date format |
Set how date columns are displayed, for example |
Adds a second breakdown on top of Chart by. It appears on bar charts, line charts, and aggregated tables, and it is optional: leave it empty and the gadget breaks down by Chart by alone.
Option |
What it does |
|---|---|
Group by (optional) |
The second dimension. The same list as Chart by, minus the combinations that are blocked. |
Stacking |
How the series are laid out, including 100% stacked, which shows each bar as a share rather than a count |
Series ordering |
The order the series are drawn in, for example Big to small |
Colors |
A color per series. You can customize colors. |
Option |
What it does |
|---|---|
Results per page |
How many rows a page of the table shows. Choose 5, 10, 15, 20, 50, or 100. |
Default sort |
The column and direction the table sorts by when it loads. Viewers can still sort ad hoc on top of this. |
Auto-refresh interval |
How often the gadget reloads its data. Choose off, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 30 minutes, or 1 hour. |
Below these are two toggles:
Toggle |
What it does |
|---|---|
Detailed mode enabled |
Whether viewers are allowed to switch to detailed mode when the gadget is maximized. Off means list mode only. |
Export enabled |
Whether viewers get an export action. |
Controls the list shown beside a chart. It is configured independently of the chart itself.
Option |
What it does |
|---|---|
Heading |
Your own title for the list |
Count label |
The wording used for the count next to each entry |
Percent label |
The wording used for the percentage next to each entry |
Show number column (toggle) |
Line the values up in their own column |
Show total row (toggle) |
Add a total at the bottom of the list |
Limit rows (0 = show all) |
Cap how many rows appear. Enter 0 to show every row rather than none. |
Number format |
How values are written. Auto is the default. |
What is saved
Configuration is stored per gadget instance: gadget name, type, source filters, format (columns, renamed labels, order, custom fields, date format), and display options. Two copies of the gadget on the same dashboard are configured independently.
What each viewer sees
This is the most important thing to understand before you share a dashboard.
The gadget never shows a viewer approvals they are not entitled to see, regardless of how the author configured it.
Viewer |
Sees |
|---|---|
Global admin |
All approvals in the instance |
Basic user |
Only their own approvals, the same set as their personal view |
Space admin |
Only their own approvals, the same set as their personal view |
Space administrators are treated as basic users.
Everyone except global admins sees only their own approvals. This includes space administrators, who have wider rights elsewhere in Approval Path but not here.
Plan around this when you build a shared dashboard. A gadget filtered to one space does not become that space's shared queue, because each viewer still sees only the approvals they are personally involved in. If someone needs to review approvals that are not their own, they need global admin rights.
You can place the gadget on a widely shared dashboard without worrying about exposure. Each viewer's entitlement is applied before any data reaches their browser, so nobody receives approvals they are not allowed to see.
For approvers and requesters
Viewers see a finished table. There are no configuration controls, no filter fields, and nothing to set up.
What you can do
Action |
Availability |
|---|---|
Sort |
Click any column header. This is ad hoc and sits on top of the configured default sort. |
Reorder columns |
Drag and drop a column header. |
Refresh |
Reload the values on demand, without waiting for auto-refresh |
Open the work item |
Jump to the Jira work item the approval belongs to |
Open the approval |
Jump to the approval itself |
Vote |
Approve, reject, or abstain, but only on steps where you are an approver. |
Switch to detailed mode |
Only if detailed mode is enabled in the configuration and the gadget is maximized |
Export |
Only if export is enabled in the configuration |
Edit configuration |
Only if you can edit the dashboard |
Voting from the dashboard
An action button appears on rows where you are an approver. Nobody else sees it, so if a row has no button you are not an approver on that approval's current step.
Selecting it opens the work item in a new tab with the Approval Path approval window ready, and you make the decision there. Your dashboard stays open in the original tab, so you can work through several approvals in a row.
If the step requires a comment, the decision does not go through on the first attempt. A warning appears asking you to add one. Write the comment, confirm again, and the decision is recorded.
The decision is recorded as you, the person viewing. It is never recorded as the gadget author.
What you cannot do
The gadget deliberately exposes only navigation and voting. State-changing and destructive approval actions are not surfaced on a dashboard. Use the full Approval Path views for those.
Export
When export is enabled on a table gadget, the export produces a CSV containing exactly what you see: your filtered and entitled set of approvals, with the columns and sort currently applied. It never contains the author's full set, and never rows outside your entitlement.
Chart, KPI, and aggregated table types cannot be exported. To get the underlying data, click through from the chart to the Approvals list and export from there.