Importing an already running project in Portfolio for JIRA

[Kamil Beer [Onlio]]

Some teams that already have projects running and would like to try using Portfolio have a problem with the Portfolio mechanic - that you have to create a plan from a "clean slate" - even when you import all issues you work with from JIRA to Portfolio.

By this, I mean that all the issues that are already assigned to people would all be re-planned for different people, for different times etc. Some people would get their work taken right from their tables, mid-work. PMs that are in this situation many times ask about importing assignees and I have to tell them that they just can't.

I imagine their perspective as that they would want the issues people are already working on at the start of the plan. Maybe this could be done by temporarily adding these issues into epics with top priority, but that seems a bit short-sighted.

Is this the way Portfolio is supposed to work? Is there any workaround except for starting from a "clean slate"?

Thanks for all replies!

[Kamil Beer [Onlio]]

Hey @Martin Suntinger,

thanks a lot for the answer, I'll explore the Live plans. If I have any questions, I'll just reply here.

Best regards,

KB

[Martin Suntinger]

Hi @Kamil Beer, I would suggest to directly try out the new live plans. They have a much more direct connection to the data in JIRA, and we recently added a capability to use the issue assignee for scheduling in Portfolio dynamically (up to a configurable hierarchy level). If you connect live plans to an agile board, they also pick up things like the active sprint and what is assigned to it, so those issues would be scheduled accordingly at the very beginning. (re assignees, see also the relevant section here in this blog: http://blogs.atlassian.com/2016/03/10-user-suggestions-addressed-in-portfolio-for-jira/). 

Live plans are available in Server as a labs feature as part of Portfolio 1.12.x (the assignee handling came with 1.12.3), you'll just have to give the relevant user groups labs access in the Portfolio permissions then they'll see the new type of plan in the Portfolio plan creation dialog. We're still working on bringing all previous capabilities back into live plans, but generally the earlier you can get onto the new integration, the better as we'll eventually make it the new default. 

If live plans are not yet ready for you at this point, I think in standard plans the only option would be juggle with things like he sequence of running the issue import, i.e., building a filter with issues that have assignees first, import those, and then import the others second if that is a criteria, but you'll still have to re-adjust the member assignments in Portfolio, so I don't think you'll get the convenience we're hoping to achieve with the new live plans. Hope this helps, feel free to send me follow-up questions! (just make sure you @-mention me so I see a notification). 

Best, Martin 

Principal Product Manager, Portfolio for JIRA