Atlassian Projects are now native in Jira

[#1]

Hi everyone 👋

Some good news for our Projects app customers: as part of the Jira 2026 Summer Release, Atlassian Projects is now natively integrated into Jira. Connect your work items to real projects and see status, owners, and progress right where you work.

Your team's work lives in Jira, but the bigger questions have tended to live elsewhere. What are our key projects? Which work ties to which project? Are we on track? Atlassian Projects brings that context directly into Jira - a single, native connection between the work your team does every day and the projects that work supports.

How it works

1. Connect any work to a Project.

A new Project field on Jira work items lets you connect any work item to an Atlassian Project, regardless of work item type or which space it lives in. You can connect multiple work items to the same Project, and child work items automatically inherit the Project from their parent, so you’re not tagging everything by hand.

This is a meaningful change from the old Connect app setup, which only allowed a single epic per Project. Now, a Project can represent the full picture of work happening across your teams.

2. See project context where you’re working.

Hover over the Project field on any work item to get a preview card showing the project’s status, dates, owner, key contributors, and summary. If you need more detail, open the glance panel for a fuller view without leaving your work item - no more context-switching to figure out what a project is about, who owns it, or whether it’s on track.

3. Group and filter by Project.

In List or Board view, you can group all work items by Project. This is especially useful for team leads and managers who need to see how effort is distributed across projects, which items are in progress, and where things might be stacking up. It turns your view into a portfolio-level snapshot of what your team is working on.

The Project field also supports inline editing, so you can update project associations without opening each work item individually.

4. Filter and query with JQL.

The Project field works with JQL, which means you can build saved filters, custom views, and dashboards around specific work. If your team already relies on JQL for how they organize and triage work, the Project field fits right into that workflow.

How to get started

Before getting started: Admins will need to add the Atlassian Project field to work items in your Jira configuration. Once the field is enabled, team members can follow the steps below:

1. Open a Jira work item
2. Find the Project field in the detail view
3. Search for (or create) the Atlassian Project you want to connect it to

From the Projects app, you can also connect Jira work items directly, and changes stay in sync across both.

For admins: Before the Atlassian Project field can appear on a work item, it must first be added to the space. This is a one-time setup per space. Projects is org-scoped.

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Connect your Jira work to a Project and get a clear, shared view of how your most important work is tracking. Learn more here:

• Get started with Projects
• Use the Atlassian Project field in Jira
• Jira Summer Release 2026
• Launch notes

As always, if you have questions, feedback, or suggestions on how we can make Projects (and Goals!) better, drop a comment below.

Frequently asked questions

How is this different from Jira spaces?

Jira spaces are containers where teams organize and do the work. Atlassian Projects is a cross-product layer for initiatives with clear start/end dates, owners, goals, and status.

Spaces are for execution. Projects are for visibility.

Can I connect work items from different spaces to the same project?

Yes. You can connect work items of any type, from any space, to a single Atlassian Project.

What happened to the old Projects Connect app?

This native integration replaces the previous Connect-based setup. It’s simpler, doesn’t require a separate install, and works consistently across spaces.

[Paul Mazzuca]

Fantastic update! Would we expect the old integrated App to automatically be removed from existing screens or does an Admin need to take action to remove it in favor of the new field?

[Joseph Chung Yin]

Can't wait to test it out in our env.  Sounds very promising... Will post my findings/feedbacks in a week.

Best, Joseph

[Anika Rani]

@Paul Mazzuca great question! You don't need to take any manual action to remove the old integration, its taken care of on our end. You will need to add the new field to your work item configuration as mentioned in the post above. Let us know if you have any issues!

[Gabriel Lences]

Are there any plans to include automation actions / triggers for Projects & Goals? For now, it's somewhat half-usable without these being baked in to the automation engine. 

[Charlie Marriott]

Hi @Gabriel Lences thanks for the question!

We've recently shipped the MVP triggers for Goals and Projects and plan to continue adding further triggers, and the first sets of actions over the coming months.

It would be great to hear more about the shape of automation you're after and the use cases you're looking to support - we can factor these into what we build next.

Thanks again!

Charlie

[Gabriel Lences]

Thanks for the info :) 

I don't have any particular automation in mind right now, but since Goals & Projects have not been around for that long, I guess most of the companies used regular work items for these use cases, as goals and projects are in a way, just a bit tad higher in the overall hierarchy of just classic work items :) 

I'd expect the trigger and actions to be similiar to work item triggers and actions (e.g. if a project / goal field is updated / then .... ; if something happens , then update a goal / project field, statuses as well, etc.) Right now, due to logic and the behaviour of the various elements for Goals & Projects being completely separated from the rest of the work items, it feels a bit off. 

If I wanted to due some automated processes around work higher in the hierarchy than epics as of today, I'd rather use the classic "work items" since they provide more flexibility, which is a shame because Goals & Projects really do have a lot of potential. I guess maybe when building stuff for Goals & Projects, don't reeinvent the wheel and try to take inspiration from classic work items to bring these two world more inline with each other :)

[milan_sturcel]

Are there any plans for expanding the functionality of the Goals and Projects itself?
Current implementation of Lessons and Risks looks like MVP. Usually risks evolve during lifecycle of a Project. Current implementations has Risks as kind of comments with different flag. There seems to be no lifecycle tracking.

For the integration - is there plan for Bulk operations support?

Some projects may grow/shrink which may require merging/splitting the project(s) itself. Then EPICs need to move in bulk between the projects.
(this could be considered in general - including bulk update of Risks/Lessons)

[__ Jimi Wikman]

I made this video a few weeks back, where I look at Goals and Projects.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_19ylopIJ4

From my perspective, Goals is a far more developed feature than Projects are. In fact, I use Goals instead of Projects because of the lack of functionality for Projects.

With this change, are we going to see Projects getting updates to the design and features to fit actual project management, or is the plan to keep it as a broadcasting feature as it stands today?

[Maximiliano Javier Julio]

It's great that a Project can now group work items of any type and from any space, not just an epic, as was the case in the old Connect app.

Specific question: Does the Project field also work with JSM request types, or is it currently limited to Jira Software work items?

I'm trying to map recurring incidents to continuous improvement projects and want to know if I can do this natively or if I still need a workaround.

[Anika Rani]

@Maximiliano Javier Julio currently the new Projects field is only available in Jira Software projects. Having said that, we are considering when to support the new native field in other apps such as JPD (to replace the current field). With feedback like yours we can also start to consider JSM, but its not planned for now. Your use case sounds like a very valuable one, so thank you for sharing and we will keep track of this internally. 

[Paul Mazzuca]

The new Project field is a nice update and much more intuitive. What remains unclear is the relationship between a Goal and Project if both are linked to a Jira Work Item?

Specifically, if a Jira Work item is linked to both a Goal and Project, should the Project then be linked to the Goal automatically?

[Rune Rasmussen]

Will there be some cleanup or consolidation efforts of the seemingly duplicate fields?

I see "Atlassian project", "Atlassian project status", "Project", and "Atlassian Project".

[Anika Rani]

@milan_sturcel thanks for your questions and I'm glad to say that both of those requests are on our teams roadmap to improve and support. I can't share specific timeframes at the moment, but acknowledge that we understand both are incredibly important to the consistent use of Goals and Projects. We have explored a more comprehensive Risks capability, with full risk lifecycle management. Please stay watching this community space for updates on when these are shipped. 

[Anika Rani]

@Paul Mazzuca there is anything explicit to mention in terms of the behaviour or relationship of a Goal, Project or Jira Work Item if all are linked to each other. These three objects form part of the work hierarchy and how strategy is connecting to execution.

Your question around automatic linking based on existing links, is a great one. We have recently done some explorations on how to make creation and management of Goals and Projects easier, based on smart suggested links and possibly auto creation of links. Please continue to follow this community for updates on how we evolve our experiences to support this.