Jira doesn’t have a feature literally called “Gantt chart,” but its built-in Timeline view works almost identically, displaying tasks as horizontal bars along a calendar so you can see start dates, end dates, and how work overlaps. You can enable it in any Jira Software project in a few clicks. For more complex needs, Jira’s Plans feature and third-party marketplace apps offer additional Gantt-style capabilities like cross-project views and resource management.
Enable the Timeline View
The Timeline is Jira’s native Gantt-style view. It’s available in both company-managed and team-managed projects, though the steps to enable it differ slightly.
For company-managed projects, click the three-dot menu (More actions) next to your board’s name in the left sidebar, then select Board settings. Choose Timeline from the list and make sure the toggle is turned on.
For team-managed projects, click the three-dot menu next to your project name in the sidebar, then select Space settings. Go to Features, find the Timeline section, and toggle it on.
There’s also a quicker method that works for either type: click the “Add to navigation” (+) icon in your sidebar, select Timeline, then confirm by clicking Add to navigation. The Timeline tab will now appear in your project’s left-hand menu.
Add and Schedule Your Tasks
Once the Timeline is enabled, you’ll see your existing issues (epics and their child issues) laid out as horizontal bars on a calendar. To build out your Gantt chart, you need to give each issue a start date and a due date. Click on any bar in the timeline to open it, then set those dates in the issue detail panel. You can also drag the edges of a bar directly on the timeline to adjust its duration, or drag the entire bar to shift it to a new date range.
If you’re starting from scratch, you can create new issues directly from the Timeline view. Click the “+ Create” row at the bottom of the list, type your issue summary, and it will appear on the chart. Then drag it into position on the calendar. The timeline groups work hierarchically: epics sit at the top level, and you can expand them to see stories, tasks, or bugs nested underneath.
Set Up Dependencies Between Tasks
A Gantt chart isn’t very useful without dependencies showing which tasks must finish before others can start. In the Timeline view, hover over a scheduled bar and you’ll see a small dot appear on either end. Click and drag from that dot to another issue’s bar to create a dependency link. This creates a “blocks” or “is blocked by” relationship between the two issues.
Once dependencies are in place, they appear as lines connecting the bars or as small badges on each end of a bar. Click a badge to see dependency details including the type (incoming or outgoing), the linked issue’s status, its assignee, and the lead time, which is the number of days between the two dependent issues. If the dates conflict (meaning a blocked task is scheduled to start before its blocker finishes), the badge turns red, signaling you need to adjust one of the dates.
You can also filter your timeline to show only issues within a specific dependency chain, which helps when you’re trying to trace a critical path through a complex project.
Use Plans for Cross-Project Gantt Charts
The basic Timeline view is scoped to a single project. If you need to visualize work across multiple projects or teams, Jira’s Plans feature (formerly called Advanced Roadmaps) is the tool for that. Plans is available on Premium and Enterprise tiers of Jira Software Cloud.
Plans pulls data from multiple sources: boards, projects, and JQL filters. You can combine all of that into a single timeline view, making it possible to see how work across different teams connects and overlaps. Beyond the visual timeline, Plans adds several capabilities that the basic Timeline doesn’t offer:
- Capacity planning: You can define each team’s capacity in hours, days, or story points, then see when sprints are overbooked (when the allocated work exceeds what the team can handle in a given period).
- Scenario modeling: Plans acts as a sandbox environment, letting you create “what if” scenarios where you adjust dates, resources, and scope without changing the actual data in Jira. This is useful for exploring alternative paths to a deadline.
- Dependency management view: A dedicated view highlights all dependencies across your plan, making it easier to spot bottlenecks and conflicting schedules at scale.
- Release tracking: You can create single-project or cross-project releases and align multiple teams around shared delivery dates.
To create a plan, go to the Plans section in your top navigation, click “Create plan,” give it a name, and add the boards, projects, or filters you want it to pull from. The timeline populates automatically with issues from those sources.
Third-Party Gantt Chart Apps
If you need traditional project management features that go beyond what Jira’s native tools provide, the Atlassian Marketplace has dedicated Gantt chart plugins. These are worth considering if you need features like critical path analysis, baseline comparisons, resource allocation dashboards, or financial tracking alongside your timeline.
BigGantt is one of the more popular options. It lets you create and organize tasks directly on the chart with drag-and-drop controls, manage dependencies with auto-scheduling (where shifting one task automatically adjusts everything downstream), and overlay sprint data on the Gantt view. It also supports custom columns for strings, numbers, dates, and estimates, giving you more flexibility than the native Timeline. For portfolio-level planning, it adds resource monitoring and a financial dimension to track budgets.
Other well-rated marketplace apps include Structure, TeamBoard, and WBS Gantt-Chart. Each has a slightly different focus, so browse the Marketplace and check the free trial options. Most of these apps charge a monthly fee based on your team size, separate from your Jira subscription.
Which Option Fits Your Needs
The built-in Timeline view works well for single-project planning where you need to visualize task schedules and basic dependencies. It’s included in all Jira Software plans, including the free tier for up to 10 users, so there’s no additional cost.
Plans makes sense when you’re coordinating work across multiple projects or teams, need capacity planning, or want to model different scenarios before committing to a schedule. It requires a Premium or Enterprise subscription.
A marketplace plugin is the right choice if you need a full-featured Gantt chart experience with critical path analysis, baselines, auto-scheduling, resource management, or financial tracking. These come with their own subscription costs but offer the deepest Gantt functionality available inside Jira.