Users Roles and Groups

Question

Hello, new here. We've a long time subscription but started using Jira seriuosly only recently.

Main rpoblem is that it seems that dcoumentation and forum answers are referring to features no longer avilable. A simple example is about users groups and roles: I can create Groups but I just can assign users to default Roles. Is it possible to create new Roles? Everywhere people is suggesting to user roles instead of groups but how can I do this?

When I go into a Project settings and want to add people I get a role, Tester, which is nowhere available when I ceate a use or edit it to reassign the role.

I need to do this: give access to customers so that they can create new bugs issues (only bugs!) to an existing project and cannot see anything else. They can see the bugs and their follow up but nothing else. How can I achieve this task? thank you very much!

Trudy P Claspill · Answer

Hello Alberto,

Concerning my first question, there are different JIRA products to which you might be subscribed. You would find that information under Settings > Billing.

This overview might help you understand user groups and roles better:

https://support.atlassian.com/jira-service-management-cloud/docs/overview-of-jira-cloud-permissions/

When you create a user, you can assign a user to a Role, but note that is a site-level role rather than a project role. You can assign a user to a Role there that dictates the users general access level for the site, like Basic user or Site Administrator.

Project roles are defined globally for the site, but the permissions assigned to the Project Roles can vary per project. And while all project roles are available to all projects, you don't have to actually use all the roles in every project.

Here is a link to the Atlassian documentation about managing Project Roles in JIRA

https://support.atlassian.com/jira-cloud-administration/docs/manage-project-roles/

Project Roles are available to all Classic projects. You create/delete Project roles at the system level by going to Settings (the gear icon next to your avatar in the upper right) > System > Project Roles.

To set the permissions that are available to the people assigned in those Project Roles, you edit Permission Schemes (available under Settings > Issues > Permissions Schemes). Each Company Managed (classic) project has a permission scheme assigned, so you can grant the Roles different permissions in different projects.

https://support.atlassian.com/jira-core-cloud/docs/manage-permissions/

You assign a Permission Scheme to a Project under that project's Project Settings.

To assign users to a Role in a Project, you go to Project Settings > People.

https://support.atlassian.com/jira-cloud-administration/docs/manage-project-role-membership/

ALBERTO ROSSI · Answer

Thank you for the reply. This is becoming even more complicate...

We have Jira software and Confluence, not sure if this answers your first question. We are using Classic projects even though I understand, maybe wrongly, this distinction is no more.

Leaving aside the question baout having more users and paying more, what it seems I cannot achieve is

"In Projects, you can assign individual Users or Groups to the Roles available in that project."

So, each Project has its own Roles: but how can I edit them? When I create a User I can assign a role, I have basic, trusted and admin. When I go to the People section of the Project there is is also Test. What does the Test roleallow to do? How can I edit it or create new Roles?

This I can't find where it is explained. Thank you!

Trudy P Claspill · Answer

Hello @ALBERTO ROSSI

Welcome to the community.

What products do you have enabled in your JIRA instance: JIRA Core, JIRA Software, and/or JIRA Service Management?

Are you working with Company Managed (classic) projects or Team Managed (next gen) projects?

If you want to grant customers access to a JIRA Software project, that will require you to give each customer a license, which will increase the cost of your subscription.

When interfacing with customers and wanting to limit their access, it is generally better to use the JIRA Service Management product. Then you can have as many customers as you wish, but the licensing is based on how many of your people you need to give access to for the Service Management project. That could be less than the number of customers that would need licenses to access a Software project.

Concerning Users, Groups, and Roles -

In User Management you can assign user to Groups that you create. For instance, you could create a Customer group.

In Projects, you can assign individual Users or Groups to the Roles available in that project.

Both User Groups and Project Roles can be used when allocating project permissions in a Permission Scheme.

The above features are currently available in JIRA Cloud, and apply to Company Managed (classic) projects. Team Managed (next gen) projects handle permissions differently.

I'm actually not sure if you can, or exactly how to, limit a user's or a user group's or a Project Role's members' visibility to only one issue type within a project. That would take more research.