Jira Data Centre to Jira Cloud - How do you deal with boards across multiple projects?

Question

Hi all, in data centre we have multiple projects but since its the same team we create one sprint board that includes both projects and it lives in both projects in the sidebar.

We are looking at moving to cloud and I'm shocked that a board can only live in one location only.

I'm wondering how people deal with this? As I just see our users will just create 1 team project instead and not bother having "projects" as Atlassian sees them. Purely so they can all sit under the same area for standups

Am I understanding this usecase incorrectly? Do people usually not have boards with shared projects?

I know the idea is probably to jump between them, but I doubt our teams will. They'll just move all their items across.

Javier Pozuelo -Exalate- · Answer

Hi @Calvin I'm the community manager at Exalate.

You're not misunderstanding it, this is a common problem when moving from Data Center to Cloud. In Jira Cloud, boards can only reside in one project, even if they include issues from multiple projects. It’s definitely more limiting in terms of navigation and visibility for shared teams.

A common workaround is exactly what you mentioned: teams create a shared "team-managed project" or use a company-managed project as a hub. Some also use filters to create cross-project boards and then bookmark them or share direct links in team spaces or dashboards.

If you're looking for flexibility with syncing issues across multiple projects (or even instances), tools like Exalate might be able to help you

John Funk · Answer

Hi Calvin,

Just a bit of clarification. - Your boards can use a filter that uses multiple projects and all of the work items on those projects will show on the board. However, you are correct in that the board is only associated with a single Location. This means that the board will only show automatically under the list of boards for one project and not the other projects used by the filter.

But you can create a shortcut to the board in each project, or even make it a more universal board by adding it to the product/app selector in the upper left of the top nav bar.