Author: Rachel Wright

Rachel Wright is an entrepreneur, Certified JIRA Administrator, and author of the JIRA Strategy Admin Workbook. She started using JIRA in 2011, became a JIRA administrator in 2013, and was certified in 2016. She is the owner and founder of Industry Templates, LLC, which helps companies grow, get organized, and develop their processes.

Built-in Jira Software Reports

Jira comes with many built-in reports to provide insights into progress, release health, time logged, forecasts, and more. Each Jira application type, deployment type and project type contain different reports however. I’ve compiled a list of the report types and their definitions in Jira Software, so you don’t have to!

Tip: Be sure to consider reporting options when choosing between project types.

Sections: Jira Software: Cloud | Company-managed Scrum Project |
Company-managed Kanban Project | Team-managed Scrum Project |
Team-managed Kanban Project | Jira Software: Server and Data Center |
Scrum Project | Kanban Project | Extending Reporting Capabilities

Jira Software: Cloud

Company-managed Scrum Project

Report count: 23
Unique reports: Cycle Time Report, Deployment Frequency Report, and Workload Pie Chart Report

Agile

  • Burndown Chart – Track the total work remaining and project the likelihood of achieving the sprint goal. This helps your team manage its progress and respond accordingly.
  • Burnup Chart – Track the total scope independently from the total work done. This helps your team manage its progress and better understand the effect of scope change.
  • Sprint Report – Understand the work completed or pushed back to the backlog in each sprint. This helps you determine if your team is overcommitting or if there is excessive scope creep.
  • Velocity Chart – Track the amount of work completed from sprint to sprint. This helps you determine your team’s velocity and estimate the work your team can realistically achieve in future sprints.
  • Cumulative Flow Diagram – Shows the statuses of issues over time. This helps you identify potential bottlenecks that need to be investigated.
  • Version Report – Track the projected release date for a version. This helps you monitor whether the version will release on time, so you can take action if work is falling behind.
  • Epic Report – Understand the progress towards completing an epic over time. This helps you manage your team’s progress by tracking the remaining incomplete/unestimated work.
  • Control Chart – Shows the cycle time for your product, version or sprint. This helps you identify whether data from the current process can be used to determine future performance.
  • Epic Burndown – Track the projected number of sprints required to complete the epic (optimized for Scrum). This helps you monitor whether the epic will release on time, so you can take action if work is falling behind.
  • Release Burndown – Track the projected release date for a version (optimized for Scrum). This helps you monitor whether the version will release on time, so you can take action if work is falling behind.

DevOps

  • Cycle Time Report– Understand how much time it takes to ship issues through the deployment pipeline and how to deal with outliers.
  • Deployment Frequency Report – Understand your deployment frequency to understand risk and how often you are shipping value to your customers.

Issue analysis

  • Average Age Report – Shows the average age of unresolved issues for a project or filter. This helps you see whether your backlog is being kept up to date.
  • Created vs. Resolved Issues Report – Maps created issues versus resolved issues over a period of time. This can help you understand whether your overall backlog is growing or shrinking.
  • Pie Chart Report – Shows a pie chart of issues for a project/filter grouped by a specified field. This helps you see the breakdown of a set of issues, at a glance.
  • Recently Created Issues Report – Shows the number of issues created over a period of time for a project/filter, and how many were resolved. This helps you understand if your team is keeping up with incoming work.
  • Resolution Time Report – Shows the length of time taken to resolve a set of issues for a project/filter. This helps you identify trends and incidents that you can investigate further.
  • Single Level Group By Report – Shows issues grouped by a particular field for a filter. This helps you group search results by a field and see the overall status of each group.
  • Time Since Issues Report – For a date field and project/filter, maps the issues against the date that the field was set. This can help you track how many issues were created, updated, etc, over a period of time.

Forecast & management

  • Time Tracking Report – Shows the original and current time estimates for issues in the current project. This can help you determine whether work is on track for those issues.
  • User Workload Report – Shows the time estimates for all unresolved issues assigned to a user across projects. This helps you understand the user’s workload better.
  • Version Workload Report – Shows the time estimates for all unresolved issues assigned to a version, broken down by user and issues. This helps you understand the remaining work for the version.

Other

  • Workload Pie Chart Report – A report showing the issues for a project or filter as a pie chart.

Company-managed Kanban Project

Report count: 15

Agile

  • Cumulative Flow Diagram – Shows the statuses of issues over time. This helps you identify potential bottlenecks that need to be investigated.
  • Control Chart – Shows the cycle time for your product, version or sprint. This helps you identify whether data from the current process can be used to determine future performance.

DevOps

  • Cycle Time Report – Understand how much time it takes to ship issues through the deployment pipeline and how to deal with outliers.
  • Deployment Frequency Report – Understand your deployment frequency to understand risk and how often you are shipping value to your customers.

Issue analysis

  • Average Age Report – Shows the average age of unresolved issues for a project or filter. This helps you see whether your backlog is being kept up to date.
  • Created vs. Resolved – Issues ReportMaps created issues versus resolved issues over a period of time. This can help you understand whether your overall backlog is growing or shrinking.
  • Pie Chart Report – Shows a pie chart of issues for a project/filter grouped by a specified field. This helps you see the breakdown of a set of issues, at a glance.
  • Recently Created Issues Report – Shows the number of issues created over a period of time for a project/filter, and how many were resolved. This helps you understand if your team is keeping up with incoming work.
  • Resolution Time Report – Shows the length of time taken to resolve a set of issues for a project/filter. This helps you identify trends and incidents that you can investigate further.
  • Single Level Group By Report – Shows issues grouped by a particular field for a filter. This helps you group search results by a field and see the overall status of each group.
  • Time Since Issues Report – For a date field and project/filter, maps the issues against the date that the field was set. This can help you track how many issues were created, updated, etc, over a period of time.

Forecast & management

  • Time Tracking Report – Shows the original and current time estimates for issues in the current project. This can help you determine whether work is on track for those issues.
  • User Workload Report – Shows the time estimates for all unresolved issues assigned to a user across projects. This helps you understand the user’s workload better.
  • Version Workload Report – Shows the time estimates for all unresolved issues assigned to a version, broken down by user and issues. This helps you understand the remaining work for the version.

Other

  • Workload Pie Chart Report – A report showing the issues for a project or filter as a pie chart.

Team-managed Scrum Project

Note: Application and project administrators need to enable this feature at: Project Settings > Features.  See screenshot

  • Burnup report – Visualize a sprint’s completed work and compare it with its total scope. Use these insights to track progress toward sprint completion.
  • Sprint burndown chart – Track and manage the total work remaining within a sprint. After the sprint, summarize both team and individual performance.
  • Velocity report – Predict the amount of work your team can commit to in future sprints by seeing and reviewing the amount of value delivered in previous ones.
    • Note: A completed sprint is required
  • Cumulative flow diagram – Shows the statuses of your project’s issues over time. See which columns accumulate more issues, and identify bottlenecks in your workflow.
  • Cycle Time Report – Understand how much time it takes to ship issues through the deployment pipeline and how to deal with outliers.
  • Deployment Frequency Report – Understand your deployment frequency to understand risk and how often you are shipping value to your customers.

Team-managed Kanban Project

Note: Application and project administrators need to enable this feature at: Project Settings > Features.  See screenshot Additionally, some reports require sprints. Enable them on the features page too, if desired.

Same as the team-managed scrum project above.

Jira Software: Server and Data Center

Scrum Project

Same as the company-managed scrum project above without the following reports: Cycle Time Report, Deployment Frequency Report, and Workload Pie Chart Report

Kanban Project

Same as the company-managed kanban project above without the following reports: Cycle Time Report, Deployment Frequency Report, and Workload Pie Chart Report

Extending Reporting Capabilities

Most reports are customizable and if you can’t get to the data you’re after, there are plenty of apps available in the Atlassian Marketplace.

Choosing the right Jira project type

Jira has three application types and each is built for a specific audience and use. The types are: Jira Work Management (JWM), Jira Software (JS), and Jira Service Management (JSM). All three types have the same look and feel but different features. The applications can be used separately or together. For example, your organization might use Jira Work Management and Jira Software but not Jira Service Management.

Additionally, each Jira application type contains different project types. Each has special features not available in other project types. Here are the major differences and how to select the best project type for your team’s needs.

Project Types in Jira Cloud

Jira Work Management

Jira Work Management contains all the main Jira features like projects, issues, workflows, and users. You can think of it as providing the core functions of Jira. In fact, it was previously named “Jira Core”. Atlassian added some new and interesting features before renaming it in April 2021. This application type has business projects, templates, and features.

This project type is best for teams like marketing, finance, legal, sales, human resources, and more. Its commonly used for managing projects, processes, and tasks.

Jira Work Management is only available in Cloud and there are two plans: free and standard. Jira Work Management is included with every Jira Cloud license. In Jira Server, the application is still called Jira Core. In Jira Data Center, there’s no such application.

Business Project Features

Business projects in Jira Cloud have some additional views that aren’t available in other project types. The features noted below are fairly new and will continue to be improved over time.

List View

The list feature displays parent and child issues in a expandable list format. It’s similar to the format presented after searching or viewing filter results but there’s no JQL query to construct. Instead, all issues in the project are displayed and there’s an easy menu to filter issues by assignee, component, issue type, labels, priority, reporter, and status. You can also filter by issues “due this week”. This feature is a quick and easy way to view issues in a project without needing any query skills.

The best part of this view is that parent issues can be expanded or collapsed to show or hide child issues. This hierarchy capability is highly desired but missing in other areas of Jira. In the example screenshot, the task PMO-1 is expanded to show it has four sub-tasks.

List view in a Jira Cloud business project

Good to Know

The epic issue type does not display as part of the hierarchy in list view. I suspect that this is because epics are a software project concept, not a business project concept. Jira Cloud has many business templates, but none of them include the epic issue type by default. I manually added it to the sample project in the screenshot above because I like how epics help categorize work. To see an expandable view of epics and parent issues (but not child issues) use the roadmap feature in a software-type project.

Calendar VIEW

Jira Issues Calendar

Until now, the only way to view issues in calendar format was by adding the “Jira Issues Calendar” macro to a dashboard. The functionality is basic. Issues are displayed based on a Jira project (or JQL filter) and a single date field. The total number of issues associated with a specific day are summed.

In the screenshot, there’s one issue due on October 27 and one due on October 30. The colored boxes represent different workflow statuses. In Jira, hover over the colored boxes to see issue details or click the box to view individual issue details. Fix versions can also be displayed. Finally, you can also export the data to iCal format.

The new calendar view in Jira Cloud business projects is not part of a dashboard and includes some useful additions. The display accommodates start and end dates, assuming you utilize the standard Jira “start date” and “due date” fields. This view also shows the issue type, key, summary, and assignee. The filtering capabilities work the same as described in the “list” view.

Again, notice that parent and child issues are displayed but not epics.

Timeline VIEW

The timeline view is similar to the roadmap view in a software-type project. This display includes a Gantt-type chart where issues duration is represented by colored bars. Start dates, end dates, and assignees are displayed. Dependencies are created using the standard linked issues feature and indicated using curved red lines. (Not pictured.) The same filtering abilities in the other views are present as well.

Forms

The final new feature for business projects in Jira Cloud is forms. Use a form to collect additional information without adding new Jira issue types or custom fields. Currently, you can create one simple form per Jira business project. The form has a unique URL that can be shared with any licensed Jira user. A Jira issue is automatically created after any form submission.

Form configuration
Example form
Submission message
Submission result

Since the “forms” link in the project’s left sidebar menu is plural, I’m hoping that multiple forms are supported in the future.

Read more

License Differences

Jira Work Management users are not able to use agile or software development features in software projects or support features in service management projects. Access to business projects is available to all types of licensed Jira users. Read more

A JWM user license is less expensive than a JS user license. When choosing between application and project types, it’s important to compare pricing, project access, and feature differences.

See Atlassian’s JWM product page and the table on the pricing page for additional feature information.

Jira Software

The next application type is Jira Software. This type is designed for development teams. Although any software development methodology is supported (including Agile, waterfall, or even no methodology or framework) this project type caters to teams using Scrum or Kanban.

Jira Software is available in Cloud, Server, and Data Center. In Cloud, there are four plans: free, standard, premium, and enterprise.

Software Project Features

Jira Software includes the following additional development-specific features:

  • Project templates for Scrum, Kanban, and bug tracking
  • Scrum boards for teams that plan in chunks of work called “sprints”
  • Kanban boards, for teams with less structured delivery schedules
  • Sprints to manage iterations or scheduled work
  • Sprint capacity planning (in Jira Cloud Premium and Enterprise) to avoid over or under resource utilization
  • Story points for relative effort estimation (time-based estimation is also available)
  • Backlog functionality to help teams prioritize future work
  • Release tracking functionality to manage deployments
  • Fix versions to schedule work and affected versions to manage code changes
  • Release tracks (in Jira Cloud Premium and Enterprise) to manage when and how software changes are released
  • Roadmaps to view work in a Gantt-type format
  • Additional built-in reports to track burndown and burnup, velocity, epics, releases, and more
  • Integration with code and deployment tools like Bamboo, Bitbucket, and Opsgenie
  • And more

License Differences

Only Jira Software users can leverage development specific features.

See Atlassian’s JS product page and the table on the pricing page for additional feature information.

Learn more about the software development life cycle (SDLC) and using Atlassian applications to plan, develop, test, and release software with my Planning and Releasing Software with Jira course. (Coming soon!)

Jira Service Management

The final application type helps support teams of all types manage their requests.  Atlassian created JSM in 2013 after noticing that 40% of customers had adapted Jira to handle service requests.

JSM is for tracking changes to systems, processes, or applications, resolving incidents and problems like an outage or security breach, fulfilling service requests like a password reset, new hardware, or issuing a mobile device, managing approvals of all kinds, and helping internal or external customers with whatever they need.

Business teams can take advantage of JSM features too. For example,
the HR team can collect benefits questions and reimbursement requests, the facilities team can receive requests for new desks and chairs, and the legal team can process contract review requests.

Sometimes teams have more than one project like a service-type project to support their “customers” and another business-type project to manage all their internal “to do” items. For example, the finance team can have a service project that every employee has access to. This project is used to collect employee reimbursement and purchase requests. They can also have a business project that only finance team members have access to. This project is used for tracking team tasks like maintaining reports and adding new employees to the payroll system.

As always, keep the long term health of the application in mind by not creating more Jira projects, settings, and schemes than you truly need.

JSM is available in Cloud, Server, and Data Center. In Cloud, there are four plans: free, standard, premium, and enterprise. Jira Service Management was previously called Jira Service Desk.

Service Project Features

While you can certainly use other Jira application types for support, Jira Service Management takes support to the next level.

JSM includes the following additional support-specific features:

  • Project templates for ITSM, customer service, and other support type teams (in Jira Cloud)
  • Dedicated queues to organize and categorize requests (in addition to standard JQL filtering capabilities)
  • Request categories for segmenting service requests, changes, problems, and incidents (found in the Jira Cloud “IT service management” project template)
  • Service Level Agreements (SLAs) to define goals and measure metrics like response or completion time
  • A simple customer portal (aka “help center”) featuring a streamlined interface and slightly customizable display
  • Integration with Confluence as a self-service knowledge base
  • Asset and configuration management (in Jira Cloud Premium and Enterprise)
  • Built-in reports for tracking agent workload, customer feedback, and requests deflected by self-help articles
  • Better support for creating issues via email (and from non Jira users)
  • An embeddable widget (in JSM Cloud) to create issues from other web pages or applications
  • Customizable notifications for customers
  • Permission schemes allowing customer access
  • A simple customer survey to collect customer feedback (CSAT)
  • Integration with monitoring, alert, and notification tools like
    Opsgenie
  • The ability to automatically create issues in software projects from events in service projects without impacting automation rule execution limits
  • And more

License Differences

The licensing model is different in this application type. Jira Service Management has two additional types of users: agents and customers.

An agent is anyone providing support, managing the support team, or monitoring support team effectiveness. The agent is the technician who solves a problem or provides the requested help. An agent does all their work in Jira and requires a JSM license to use service features.

A customer is anyone who requests support. Customers can include internal users, external users, employees, vendors, contractors, and anyone else who needs help. Customers file support requests and view progress in a simplified interface called the customer portal or help center. Customers generally don’t access the area of Jira that agents use to fulfill requests.

See Atlassian’s JSM product page and the table on the pricing page for additional feature information.

Learn more about JSM users, features, and configuring support projects with my Jira Service Management: Administration course.

Bonus: Product Discovery

While I was taking screenshots, I noticed a new type on the projects page in Jira Cloud. The new type is called “project discovery” and it’s intended for product managers. Learn more about this new type and sign up for early access at: https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/product-discovery

How to Choose a Project Type

As you can see, there’s a lot to consider when selecting a Jira application type and project type. While it’s easy to switch between Jira project types in Server and Data Center, it’s a more involved process in Cloud.

Potential reasons to choose a business project type:

  • Easier to use and navigate for less technical Jira users
  • Cheaper user license fees
  • All issue types can leverage the same workflow
  • The new list, calendar, and timeline views are easy to use and don’t require JQL
  • The forms feature is an interesting addition
  • The timeline feature provides a sufficient visual view

Potential reasons to choose a software project:

  • The primary users write, release, and deploy code, and/or use development tools like Bamboo or Bitbucket
  • Backlog, sprint, and/or Scrum board functionality is needed to prioritize and schedule work
  • Epics are used to categorize work
  • Multiple workflows are needed to manage different processes
    • Example: A bug’s workflow includes a verification step, a change request’s workflow includes an approval step, a task’s workflow includes neither.
  • Software users can access both software and business projects
  • The roadmaps feature is preferred over the timeline feature
  • There’s a desire to track metrics like burndown, burnup, and velocity

Potential reasons to choose a service management project:

  • The primary users provide service and support for products or applications, to other teams, or to internal or external customers
  • Requestors don’t have Jira licenses
  • Requestors are less technical users
  • There are deadlines (SLAs) to meet for specific requestors or certain types of requests
  • The team uses monitoring, alert, or ChatOps tools
    • Note: Other project types can integrate with Slack and Microsoft teams as well

Can you think of other reasons to choose a specific project type? Please add your thoughts in the comments section below.

Related Articles

For related information on the different types of Jira and changes over the years, please see:

Evolution of Jira Design
Project Administration Links in Jira Software and Jira Service Management
Jira Server vs Jira Cloud Interface Comparison
Jira Cloud Navigation Comparison

Giving the Go-Ahead: Approvals in Jira Service Management

Jira Service Management (JSM) includes a variety of features beyond what is available in Jira Software or Jira Work Management. One of the most powerful features is the ability to require an approval on any request. You can even require that a request be approved before an issue shows up in the service team’s queue. 

Approvals are useful for traditional ITSM processes – think of change management – but are also one of the key features that makes JSM a great solution for non-tech teams. Consider how many HR or Finance processes need to be approved before they can be carried out. Understanding (and being able to demonstrate) how approvals work helps promote Jira adoption by other service teams across the organization.

In my new Jira Service Management: Administration course, you’ll learn all about how to set up approval. You’ll learn:

  • What types of requests typically require an approval
  • How approval requirements impact your Jira workflow
  • How to control who can approve a request
  • How to set up multiple layers of approvals
  • Licensing requirements for approvers in Jira
  • How to notify approvers that there is a request they need to act on
  • What happens to requests that don’t get approved

And who are these “approvers” anyway? We’ll also look at the various ways to define who can approve a request (by request type, change advisory board (CAB) membership, user input etc.)

Adding approval to a JSM workflow

After examining scenarios that typically require an approval, we’ll go through the set up process step by step – from adding the appropriate transitions to your workflow, to customizing your approver notification email message. Then we’ll dig into some of the more advanced features – like forcing an approval or allowing agents to cancel the request. Finally, we’ll use JQL to search for requests that are pending an approval.

The course is designed with precise explanations and real world examples. I also include quizzes and challenges (with solutions) that you can try in your own Jira instance to cement your learning. Once you understand how approvals work in Jira, you’ll have a firm foundation for implementing JSM for any service team in your organization.

Take the course on LinkedIn now.

Not a LinkedIn Learning member yet? Start your 30 day LinkedIn Learning free trial! Access to my courses and others is included with your Premium subscription!

Rachel Wright’s Jira Courses on LinkedIn

New Course in JSM Administration

It’s always been true that nothing wins hearts and minds like good service. Providing good service is more important now than ever before. Customers expect support to be fast, accurate and easy to access. Service teams are required to develop efficient ways to serve internal and external customers, regardless of location. Many teams are now looking to Jira Service Management (JSM) as a solution.

My new Jira Service Management: Administration course will help you understand the unique features that JSM adds to Jira, how JSM can be used for ITSM processes, and how JSM differs between Jira Cloud and Jira Server/Data Center deployments. Most importantly, the class will show how you can configure and administer JSM to provide the best possible service to your customers. 

Jira Service Management: Administration course

Whether you’re completely new to Jira, or an experienced project or application administrator, you’ll be able to configure JSM so customers can create requests, support agents can provide the help needed, and leadership can measure effectiveness.

What You’ll Learn in Jira Service Management: Administration

  • The difference between an issue and a request
  • How to use the features of the customer portal
  • How to configure an effective, user-friendly request screen
  • Additional user types specific to JSM
  • Ways that service project workflows differ from other workflows
  • How to set up approvals
  • ITSM issue types in JSM
  • Configuring SLAs to measure service team performance
  • How to organize service queues
  • How to reduce request tickets with a Confluence knowledge base
  • Ways to reduce work with automation
  • How to use JSM reports and measure customer satisfaction

As always, the course will include in-depth explanations, demonstrations, challenges to build/configure in your own JSM instance and quizzes to help you remember what you’ve learned.

Whether your focused on empowering your IT service team, or wanting to expand JSM to other teams in your organization (JSM is great for HR, Legal, and Facilities teams), this course will show you how to leverage JSM’s features so teams can provide exceptional service and support.

Take the course on LinkedIn now.

Not a LinkedIn Learning member yet? Start your 30 day LinkedIn Learning free trial! Access to my courses and others is included with your Premium subscription!

Rachel Wright’s Jira Courses on LinkedIn

Coming Soon – Jira Service Management: Administration

My new Jira Service Management: Administration course is now available! Take the course on LinkedIn now.

Not a LinkedIn Learning member yet? Start your 30 day LinkedIn Learning free trial! Access to my courses and others is included with your Premium subscription!

About the Course

Jira Service Management (JSM) is built on Jira and extends it so your organization can effectively manage incidents, problems, changes, and service requests.  Jira Service Management takes support to the next level with queues, SLAs, a simple interface for your customers, and integration with Confluence as a knowledgebase.

In this course, you’ll learn how to set up and administer Jira Service Management so customers can create requests, support agents can provide the help users need, and leadership can measure effectiveness.

In this administration course, you’ll learn:

  • How JSM extends Jira with support-specific features
  • The additional types of users and responsibilities
  • Using JSM for incident management, change management, problems, service requests, and support
  • How to configure request types, permissions, and notifications
  • How to configure the customer portal and connect to a Confluence knowledgebase for self-service
  • How to create, manage, and troubleshoot service level agreements (SLAs)
  • Using automation to reduce manual work and repetitive tasks
  • How to leverage reporting to gauge effectiveness and measure customer satisfaction

“Considering application health, the user experience, and finding a balance between them is the difference between a good administrator and a great one.”
– Rachel Wright

The Jira Nomad

Chris Lutz and Rachel Wright relaxing on their RV travel adventure

I’m so fortunate to be able to combine my two passions: travel and Jira administration. In 2015, Chris and I started a full-time travel adventure and we haven’t stopped yet. Working on the road is easier and more rewarding than you’d think! If you’re dreaming of a lifestyle change, don’t let work, kids, pets, or anything else deter you from trying it.

Join me and fellow Jira administrator, Łukasz Przybyłowicz from JiraForThePeople.com, as we discuss learning Jira the hard way, life on the road as a digital nomad, and staying out of the “Jira swamp”.

Jira admins Łukasz Przybyłowicz and Rachel Wright

Balancing Chaos and Order

In the video, Łukasz shares his interesting perspective on my life of chaos and order. Łukasz says the Jira content, templates, and worksheets I produce provide order and organization and the constant travel supplies the chaos! (Yep – every time a tire explodes or we have to evacuate to avoid a hurricane there is disorder.) But Jira consulting and travel help balance the “known” and “unknown” aspects of our nomadic lifestyle.

I’ve never considered moving from place to place to be much of a risk, but change is often scary at first. Ultimately for us, the good experiences far outweigh the bad, and life on the road is nothing short of fantastic. Chris and I highly recommend it and encourage you to follow your dreams, no matter where they take you.

Good luck with your Jira journey and I’ll see you online…or on the road!

Advanced Jira Administration: Getting into the Scheme of Things

A practical example for a development project

Let’s say you create specific Jira issue types because you want to collect a different data set for each type, and because want the different issue types to use different workflows. So what do you do next? How do you tell Jira what information to collect for each issue type? Should you create screens or a field configuration scheme first? What’s the difference between an issue type scheme and an issue type screen scheme? How do you associate an issue type with a workflow?

Understanding Jira schemes and how they interact with each other is one of the most important, and most challenging parts of Jira administration. My new Advanced Jira Administration course will help you understand:

  • The nine different Jira schemes and what each one does
  • Where to find the schemes used by a given project
  • The hierarchal relationship between screen schemes and issue type screen schemes
  • The correct order for creating screens, screen schemes and issue type screen schemes
  • How to remove a screen, screen scheme or issue type screen scheme
  • How to share schemes across multiple projects
  • When and how to create custom schemes
  • And much more
The course contains challenges, quizzes, downloadable handouts, and personal stories.

In this course, we’ll discuss real-life Jira scheme examples, areas where it’s easy to go wrong, and best practices for creating and managing schemes. The course includes clear explanations, demonstrations, and challenges (with solutions!) to try in your Jira application.

Once you understand Jira schemes you’ll have the keys to unlock Jira efficiency and scaleability.

Rachel Wright’s Jira Courses on LinkedIn

Not a LinkedIn Learning member yet? Start your 30 day LinkedIn Learning free trial! Access to my courses and others is included with your Premium subscription!

New Course – Jira: Advanced Administration

Jira: Advanced Administration with Rachel Wright
Take “Jira: Advanced Administration” with Rachel Wright

Life is short. Jira is complex. There simply isn’t time to make all of the mistakes and learn everything you need to know by trial and error. I’ve compiled over eight years of lessons learned in my Jira Basic and Advanced Administration courses. The advanced course is available now on LinkedIn! It will help you navigate the complexities of Jira and find the right balance between user support and application functionality. Take this course to correctly configure your application and make sure it stays clean, manageable, and flexible.

Course Structure

The Jira: Advanced Administration course picks up where the Jira: Basic Administration course leaves off. The advanced course is designed to help you understand and internalize Jira concepts by including:

  • Real world examples of what to do, and what not to do taken from my personal experience
  • Explanations of the latest Jira jargon (ie. Company-managed projects vs team-managed projects)
  • Tips and best practices
  • Demonstrations
  • Challenges that you can try in your own Jira application
  • Quizzes to ensure understanding and build your confidence
  • Handouts
  • And more

While the examples used in the course are from Jira Software, the lessons can also be applied to Jira Service Management and Jira Work Management projects. All deployment types (Cloud, Server, and Data Center) are included.

Course Content

The course takes a deep dive into topics such as configuring global permissions, understanding scheme hierarchy, creating custom schemes and custom workflows, managing project settings, working with groups and roles, and controlling access to information.  

Your job as a Jira administrator is to give your teams the functionality they need and ensure the long term health of your Jira application. We’ll discuss when and how to make customizations and how to choose from the thousands of available Jira apps and extensions.

Finally, we’ll also look at advanced Jira features such as creating issues from email and issue collectors, importing data into your Jira instance, and streamlining process with automation.

Knowing the best way to solve a problem and how it will impact your application in the future is the difference between a good Jira administrator and a great one. If you’re a newly minted Administrator, an experienced JA looking for guidance on taming an overgrown Jira instance, or a determined perfectionist who’s trying to set things up right the first time – then this course is for you!

Rachel Wright’s Jira Courses on LinkedIn

Not a LinkedIn Learning member yet? Start your 30 day LinkedIn Learning free trial! Access to my courses and others is included with your Premium subscription!

Coming Soon – Jira: Advanced Administration

My new Jira: Advanced Administration course is now available! Take the course on LinkedIn now.

Not a LinkedIn Learning member yet? Start your 30 day LinkedIn Learning free trial! Access to my courses and others is included with your Premium subscription!

About the Course

Jira is the industry standard for tracking work, tasks, and strategic company initiatives.  The software is infinitely flexible and customizable, which is both a blessing and a curse.  The goal of the Jira administrator should be to configure application settings to support the needs of the organization and ensure the health of the application in the future.  This requires an intimate understanding of Jira’s capabilities, global options, and scheme configuration.

In this advanced Jira administration course, you’ll learn:

  • The most important configuration options like general settings and global permissions
  • How schemes work together to power Jira projects
  • How to create custom projects, issue types, workflows, screens, and custom fields
  • How to manage project-specific settings like components and versions
  • Working with groups and roles for easy user management
  • How to restrict access and share information with permission, issue security, and notification schemes
  • Ways to extend Jira with apps, connections, and integrations
  • Advanced features like importing data, creating issues from email, adding custom events, and automation
  • And more

“Knowing the best way to solve a problem and how it will impact your application in the future is the difference between a good administrator and a great one.”
– Rachel Wright