11 Q&A to track changes in Jira projects

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How do you know what is happening in your Jira project? What happened yesterday or a month/year ago? Tracking changes in Jira projects help to audit your teamwork, keep all essential records, and not lose any data. Here you will find FAQ about project changes in Jira with answers that include built-in options and Issue History for Jira app.

1. How to see configuration changes to Jira projects?

Check the Jira audit log. All information about global configuration and administration, security, permissions, user management, local configuration and administration, and end-user activity, you can find in the Jira audit log. It provides an overview of such events as Project created, Project deleted, Project updated, Project archived, Project restored, etc. Check out the list here: Audit log events in Jira

*You must possess the Jira Administrator global permission or be a Jira System admin. You won't be able to obtain it if all of your Jira Cloud products are on the Free plan.

2. How to monitor all issue changes in Jira project?

Try Issue History for Jira. It is a customizable report with all issue changes recorded in one place. The app helps to track updates for all standard and custom fields, each presented in a separate column. You can choose what fields to include. 

Here is an example with due date changes:

3. Who deleted issues in my Jira project?

Issue History for Jira can also help if you need to track or restore deleted issues in Jira. As out-of-the-box features don’t store deleted issues and when you delete any task, there is no way to see who did it and when. With Issue History for Jira installed, you will be available to get that information and restore the task if you need it.

*Please, notice that storing process starts only after you enable the Keep deleted issues option. The app can’t restore previously deleted issues as they are already removed from Jira.

4. How to track tickets added/removed from a project backlog?

A good way to see how issues are moving in your project is Sprint Burndown Chart. It generally shows the work that was finished or moved to the backlog during each sprint. So you will know if your team is overloaded with tasks or underloaded.

If you hover the cursor over the red line, you will see what issue was added/removed/comleted during the sprint. Also, this information is available in the table below the chart.

5. How to find issues migrated from one project to another?

Most teams in Jira are working on multiple projects, and sometimes they need to move issues from one to another. How to find out whether some tasks migrated between projects? You can get a general overview of moved issues with Issue History for Jira app. To do so, include project and issue type fields in the table columns. Also, you can count how many issues migrated. This use case is fully described in the community How many tickets were moved from one Jira project to another?

6. How to track status changes in Jira projects?

Actually, there are many ways to monitor status changes in Jira. It depends on your needs and the result you want to get. JQL supports history searches for the status field with WAS and CHANGED operators. For instance:

status CHANGED FROM "In Progress" TO "Done" AFTER  "2022-01-01"

Also, you can check Jira ticket history to see status changes on the single-issue level. Check out this article to find out more: 6 simple options to track status changes in Jira

7. How to track user activity for the Jira project?

The best built-in option to check user activity in Jira is the Activity Stream Gadget. It allows you to filter actions by single or multiple users or to review the general stream of activity from across all the projects for the whole team.

 Check out other options: 3 ways to see user activity in Jira

8. How to get issue changes in Jira project for specific dates?

You can choose any dates for your report with the help of Issue History for Jira app. It is equipped with an advanced date picker which provides maximum flexibility while selecting time frames. It can be a preset date range or a custom one.

9. How to track changes for multiple projects?

Here, you can also try the Activity Stream Gadget and select all the projects you need if the order of events doesn’t matter to you. Or create a JQL filter with Issue History for Jira app and get the most complete issue changelog possible in a well-structured and customizable report.

10. How to download all changes made to the Jira project?

You can export issue history using REST API, but it is a time-consuming option. Also, it is possible to export the full issue history for any Jira project with Issue History for Jira app. You can download the report as XLSX or CSV files with two button clicks. Find more details here:  How to export issue history from Jira?

11. How to track issues’ due dates for Jira projects?

There is one convenient gadget on the Jira dashboard called “Projects” where you can see a Calendar with all issues’ due dates. Select the Project you need and choose the Calendar option under the chart icon.

In Summary

The options presented above aim to simplify monitoring changes for Jira projects. We’ve tried to suggest the best solutions, and you can try what works best for you. Have you found the answer to your question? If not, please do ask in the comments section, and we try to find a solution together.