What can Space (Formerly project) Admins do?

[Robert Hean]

The first time I became a Project (now Space) admin it felt great! I had all the power to do whatever I wanted to shape Jira to support my team.  Except, I didn’t… I couldn’t change workflows… or permissions… or make fields… basically all of the stuff that I associate with being an admin.

So, what CAN Space (formerly project) admins actually do? Here, we’ll take a look at what Company-Manage Space Admins can actually do in Jira. (Note - I don’t break down everything space admins can do, just what I think are the most important / useful - let me know what I missed in the comments!).

Access

 

One of the MOST visible things a Space admin can do is control access to a space. Notice that I didn’t say “permissions” in a space, but “access”. Before we dig too deeply we need to understand a concept called a “role”. A role is basically a collection of permissions.  Permissions are the individual pieces of access that let us do this - “Browse Project” lets us view the project (there are a LOT of these!). 

Roles make permissions easier to manage by allowing us to assign a role to someone instead of picking each permission they need. For example, there is a “Space Admin” role that combines various permissions. There is another one called “Developer” that contains different permissions. Roles are defined by Jira Admins (as are many of the other things we think of on the “admin” side of the house).

Space admins have the ability to assign roles to someone (but we cannot directly apply permissions). This means we can assign any given user or group the “Developer” role. We can also see what permissions are contained in that role, so we can validate what we want someone to have.

This means space admins can control who has access to their space, and, to a limited extent, what permissions those people get.

Features

 

Space admins are also responsible for determining what features are live in their space. These features give us the flexibility to tailor the space to our use. For example we may not need to use sprints, so we can turn that off. Or maybe we really need incident management. Regardless of the specifics, we have direct control over the features that are live.

Automations

Another major area of space admin responsibility is managing space automations. Space admins are able to view automations that could impact their space (including “global” automations which can impact multiple spaces), and make automations that work in their space (and ONLY in their space).

Components & Versions

 

Components allow us to categorize work items. If this sounds similar to labels, you’re right! The difference is that components can only be created by space admins. This gives you more control over which ones exist. Components can also be used to auto-assign work items, giving you another tool for managing who gets which work item.

Space admins can also add Versions to a space. These allow teams to track major deployments, milestones, etc. Once added, they’re available to the team to use.

Customer-Facing (Jira Service Management Only)

 

Space admins in JSM projects have the ability to manage request types. This includes adding/removing fields (but only fields accessible on the work type! They can’t make net-new fields), as well as attaching forms.

Space admins can also configure their portal with things like formatting, layouts and portal groups. Additionally, they can adjust and configure customer-facing notifications (but not internal notifications).

Agent-Facing (Jira Service Management Only)

 

Space admins manage queues (lists of work items for agents), as well as SLA’s. These are both powerful features to supporting agents and helping them focus on the work that is most impactful in any given moment.

A general reminder…

This is also a good time to remind everyone that a space admin (or any admin, really) is a proactive role. We should not just be sitting back and waiting for people to come to us with requests - we should be actively exploring, engaging and modifying to make things work better for our teams.

This means we’re constantly asking what could be automated, auditing access, evaluating features and helping manage things. Our access gives us special powers - we should be using them.

[Trudy Claspill]

Nice article @Robert Hean 

On the topic of access to Automation Rules, note that is a configurable option at the Jira Application level. I think it is turned on by default, but it could be turned off, or it could be set to allow Space Admins only from certain user groups to have access to Automations.