Is there kind of a flow chart of how you go about building a project from scratch?

[Dean Damitz]

I've been tasked with managing an existing set of projects and although I've found some documentation for JIRA, I'm trying to understand the pieces & parts to try and figure out how and where to go to make changes.

[Josh Steckler]

Here's some of the basics on the way I work through creating projects from scratch:

1. Start with the workflow. Build out the basic statuses and transitions you want between those statuses.
2. Build the Create screen. Add fields that I need, create new fields and add them as needed. Reuse fields whenever possible.
3. Create any transition screens. When you move issues between statuses, these are the screens that pop up. A necessary one is a closure/resolve screen which asks the user to fill out the Resolution field.
4. Create the Edit and View screens based on the fields that you have added to all the other screens.
5. Create a screen scheme. Assign the right screen to each action (view, edit, create).
6. Go back to the workflow. Assign the transition screens you created to the right transition. Set any validators, conditions or postfunctions needed on those transitions.
7. Repeat steps 2-6 for each distinct workflow. You can also reuse screens in some places, but keep in mind later changes might affect multiple projects if you reuse the schemes.
8. Create the issue type scheme, assigning the right screen scheme to the right issue types.
9. Create the workflow scheme, assigning the right workflow to the right issue types.
10. Create the issue type screen scheme, assigning the right screen scheme to the right issue types.
11. Create a field configuration. Then create a field configuration scheme, assigning the right field configuration to the right issue type. Field configurations can be confusing and are frequently misused. Some of the use cases for having multiple field configurations is to have different help text underneath the fields for different projects, having some fields shown, some hidden, while using the same screens on different issue types/projects. If you reused existing fields, you may need to make sure those fields are "shown" on the field configuration. And it's good practice to hide the fields you're not using, but that's very hard to maintain.
12. Create the notification and permission scheme.
13. Create a project using shared configuration. The project one you pick doesn't matter.
14. Go to the project settings for the new project, change the schemes assigned to the schemes you just created.

There's lots of little details to hit, and the amount of reuse you use can vary. 

If there's a specific feature that you're having questions on, post it :)