Jira for external customers

Jira PLCP Team

Hi,

We have an internal Jira server used by internal employees of our company.

Now we want a solution such that external customers can interact with us on different internal projects but we don't want to give access to internal Jira server.

The requirement is that external customers should be able to view/update some of the projects/issue and not all. 

Another requirement is that there should be links between issues of different projects.

What could be the best solution in this scenerio?

One option is to create a completly different server for external customers but then question arises how SOME the internal projects and issues can be shared? Replicating same information is not an option.

I believe this problem is very generic and other people also face similar situation.

Is there a standard solution for this scenerio by Atlassian?

Can some of the data (projects/issues) can be projected some how to a different instance and both are synced?

Help is appreciated!

 

Regards,

Zeeshan

 

 

 

Nic Brough -Adaptavist-

There's a block in the middle of your question to expand on to provide a couple of possible answers.

>Now we want a solution such that external customers can interact with us on different internal projects but we don't want to give access to internal Jira server.

These answers requre users to have some access to your server.

>The requirement is that external customers should be able to view/update some of the projects/issue and not all. 

Option 1: JIRA can easily be set up to restrict users to a limited range of projects (even just one).

Option 2: A second option for customers is to use Service Desk, which gives them a way to talk to you without having any access to the internals of your system.  They still need some access, but they won't need it for your projects

>Another requirement is that there should be links between issues of different projects.

A slight quirk if you go for option 1 - users will not see links that land on issues they cannot see.  So you might find a developer saying "this issue has six links to other projects" and a csutomer seeing only two of them.

Option 3 is something you suggest, and something I've done several times - have two JIRA systems, with a synchronisation.  I used to have to do these by hand, but nowadays, I usually just reach for K15t's Backbone for most cases (and Exalate in the others)