All-in-one Jira configuration elements diagram

[#1]

Hi everyone,

When I first started my journey with Jira, I remember feeling a bit overwhelmed. Jumping into the Jira world means trying to quickly understand a lot of different parts if you want to make administering it as smooth and effective as possible.

I know there are already many diagrams out there showing how different Jira configuration elements connect, but I haven’t seen one that combines (almost) everything in a single view.

So, I created a diagram that shows how elements like fields, issue types, priorities, and more link to their corresponding schemas --> and how those schemas then tie back to projects.

I’d love to hear your thoughts and suggestions. Hopefully, this helps someone who’s just starting out (or even experienced admins who want a quick refresher).

😊

edit: version 2.0 - added new elements suggested by @Josh McManus

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following image was made using draw.io:

view full diagram here.

[Gary Spross]

Really nice diagram!

I want to recreate it as a Whiteboard to store in my Confluence space. I can then point people to the diagram when they request an "easy" change. : )

[Josh McManus]

This is great! Learning this structure organically was definitely a challenge in my early days, and this diagram would have been very helpful. I'll certainly be leveraging it to train new admins in the future. Thanks!

One thing I noticed that might be a helpful addition: transitions can leverage fields in Conditions, Validators, and Post-Functions.

Oh and one more addition: Contexts would be useful to describe (which is a link between Fields and Projects) that allows you to set special field values and defaults per project. Also IIRC Field Configurations also allow you to make different Field Descriptions for different Configurations.

It would probably be valuable to include Versions/Releases in the Project container (man I wish Atlassian would stick to a term here).

Scrum/Kanban boards are (for now) the last thing that I can think of that might be good to show here, simply because users often misunderstand them. Atlassian didn't help that by making them live in Project locations (or by recently adding all of the Project tabs at the top) but Boards really have very little to do with Projects.

[Jonas Pencke]

Hey,

I’d say this is especially valuable for experienced admins who need to explain how the Jira world works to less experienced users or new admins :).

I really believe this is a helpful resource that deserves a place in every Jira introduction or knowledge space. It could also be of great interest to others, if you allow your image to be reused.

BR,

Jonas

[Benjamin Črnjak]

@Jonas Pencke first of all, thank you.

that's exactly why I made this graph, so everyone could use it where they need it to explain Jira configuration to users or new admins.

regards,

Benjamin

[Benjamin Črnjak]

@Josh McManus thank you for insightful input. Before publishing this I made really a lot of changes, but sometimes, some things just stay out of our sight.

I'll do my best to add your suggestions and update this graph accordingly. :)

Regards,

Benjamin

[Tomislav Tobijas]

Very nice, kolega! 😄

This will definitely come in handy — especially for those ‘But I just need one more status…’ cases that Gary mentioned. Scale that across multiple projects and you’ve got yourself quite a headache 😅