NOW AVAILABLE as of December 19th: A brand new way to track Jira issues against Compass components.

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Update December 19th, 2022: The Compass/JSW App is available again!

Thank you all so much for your patience. The app we rolled out is using some new technology on our platform that had a few kinks to work out. I'm so happy to tell you that this app is now available for all Jira Software users. Simply enable the Compass field on your desired screens and get to work.

Happy Holidays - I hope this is as much of a gift to you as it is to our team! 🤶🏻 🕎

Note: The custom field is currently only available for Company-Managed projects. However, we expect custom fields for Team-Managed projects to roll out soon, at which point this field will work there as well. Check out this link for more information: 

Announcing the ability to re-use global custom fields in team-managed projects 

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Update August 3rd, 2022: The Compass/JSW App has been rolled back.

Due to some unforeseen technical issues, we’ve rolled back the release of the Jira Software / Compass app. We have re-enabled the existing mapping using the Jira Components field in the interim. As soon as we have more information, we’ll update you here in the Community.

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What’s new?

In our last update about the integration between Jira Software and Compass we hinted at what to expect next - a brand new Forge App that automates the tracking of components across both products, and the ability to tag issues with a link back to Compass. That day has come, and I'm happy to say we've shipped the Forge app for Jira Software!

As long as Jira Software and Compass are installed on your site, and you’re using company-managed Jira projects, you’ll not only be able to see and interact with Jira issues from within Compass, you’ll automatically have access to the new Compass field in Jira Software.

Getting started

The Compass field behaves just like any other field in Jira Software, and you can add it to your issue screens. To get started, make sure you have a Jira Software project linked to your Compass component. Then click on the Jira Issues tab in Compass and follow the instructions there. For more detailed help you can visit our documentation.

Known issues

In the same spirit we've been building Compass from day one and focusing on fast feedback and feature iterations, we're shipping this with a few known issues you should be aware of:

• When bulk editing Jira issues that have components linked to them, the Compass custom field doesn’t show the component name. (Hint: follow the migration instructions in the video below to get around this!)

• When viewing advanced search results in Jira Software, the Compass custom field shows the component ID instead of the component name. (You can still search by the component name.)

• In Jira Software email notifications, the Compass custom field shows the component ID instead of the component name.

• The Compass field only works with company-managed Jira projects.

What if you're already using the Jira Components field for this purpose?

If you’re already tracking issues in Jira against Compass components using the Jira Components field, you can also start to use the Compass field right away. However, Jira issues using the old mapping will no longer appear in Compass.

In order to get your historical data to show up, you’ll want to migrate your old issues to the new field. You can use Jira’s bulk edit capabilities to complete this migration. Check out our documentation for the migration process, or watch this handy video from one of our designers, @Matt Boulton, walking through the steps.

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As always, feedback is encouraged! We’ve worked hard to make this process easier for you and want to know how we can take it to the next level. Leave comments here, or book time with our friendly PM team.

[David Harper]

I found integrating this super-easy, thanks. It's definitely an improvement over the component based linking.

I guess the one thing I found missing from the preamble at the top of the "Jira Issues" screen is the "why?". Why is showing Jira issues in Compass useful? What problems can it solve?

I guess I would find it most useful to highlight some "known issues" with the system, but it'll require a lot of discipline to keep it updated! 

[Katie Silver]

Thanks @David Harper ! Appreciate you checking it out so quickly. 

"Why" is a great question. Yes, eventually we'd like people to use that screen to highlight known issues or future planned improvements, or for developers looking at compass to be able to search a component's backlog. That said, I think the real value from this integration is not from the UX in Compass, but from the data itself: mapping Jira issues to Compass components, and being able to report on them. 

I'm envisioning us making great use of this data, here are a couple of ideas that have come up lately: 

- metrics based on development time spent on Compass components, perhaps broken down by issue type, or separating feature development from "keep the lights on" / tech debt work;

- scorecards that can work with automation, to allow JSM approval workflows to progress (or block them) based on a scorecard's score; 

- Compass announcements automatically raising issues in the relevant teams' backlogs. 

I think the "view Jira issues in Compass" UX is a starting point, which is why we haven't invested much in updating it (other than adding the new instructions this round.) 

Let me know what you think, or if you see other ideas. I'd be happy to talk on a zoom call about it more as well if you have the time! 

[Bryan Kennedy]

Looking forward to trying this out when the technical issues have been resolved.

I would love to be able to use JQL to define a Metric for a component and then use that in the Scorecard. Said another way, it would be nice to use the number of open issues on a specific Service/Application as a Health metric for the Scorecard. Is this on the roadmap at some point?

[Katie Silver]

@Bryan Kennedy love that idea - yes, we are absolutely thinking about that! Are there any other Jira-related metrics you'd like to see? 

[Alberto Azambuja]

We are in November guys? Do we have any updates on this?

Without this feature the integration between Compass and Jira is basically useless as components are project specific and it becomes a total nightmare to try to manage at project level

[Katie Silver]

Hi @Alberto Azambuja

So sorry for the delay on this one. We hit some technical roadblocks that have only recently been prioritized by the other teams that own them. We are hoping to get this out by the end of the year, and I will update this post and add another one to the Community as soon as it's available again. 

[Jan-Hendrik Spieth]

Happy new year everyone ... so, with that update back in December, our Components mapping turned dysfunc, and we now looked into the new Compass custom field.

While things basically work, we're strugging a bit with the following factors:

• The Compass custom field is slow, meaning it takes a couple of seconds on the view issue screen to load, and so does the popup screen when changing the Compass value. Feels real sluggish
• Components field allows to enter several values, Compass field strictly limits to selecting one single component.
• Dropdown field for selecting components shows them ordered by component ID, which is fairly useless. This is actually a similar issue on the Components screen in Compass itsself, but there we can sort by component name, at least.

[Katie Silver]

Thanks so much for kicking the tires, @Jan-Hendrik Spieth . I really appreciate your feedback. 

• We're aware of the slow performance of the Compass field. We're going to continue to try and improve performance, but so far it's been somewhat complex. I will keep the Community posted of any improvements we ship. 
• Got it. Can you let me know how you were using the Components field w/ multiple components before - maybe a specific use case? 
• Makes sense, and I hadn't heard this before. I'll see if we can get it sorted in a more user-friendly order. 

Thanks again, and if you have any more feedback just let us know. 

[Jan-Hendrik Spieth]

@Katie Silverthanks for the reply. Good to know our feedback is always taken seriously :-)

Re: Components field w/ multiple components

To be honest, we're really just experimenting and so it was something that we noticed when moving away from the Components field.

If you ask right now whether setting multiple Components is critical for us, I will say "most likely no".

But so for now, it's just an observation. Theoretically, a story or even an epic could very well involve/relate to/affect several components. On the other hand, if e.g. a new feature requires code changes in two components, you could argue there could or should be separate Jira issues.

[Jan-Hendrik Spieth]

Another observation about the relation between Compass and Jira:

I just tried using the new "Capabilities" component type to create a component for "Login with Facebook" (I guess it's clear what this component would be about).

Now, we have several products (=Jira projects) that depend on this capability. Which means that Jira issues for this capability can exist in several projects!

But: Compass allows to only select one project.

I believe this is a severe limitation, at least for Capabilities, maybe also for other component types.

Update: nevermind - someone pointed me to the sidebar, where I can easily add several projects :-D So, I was merely mislead/struggled with the "Jira issues" screens.

[Katie Silver]

Excellent. Thanks @Jan-Hendrik Spieth ! 

[Michal Kozlowski]

Hi there,

I see from your article and my own experiments that value for the "Compass" field in JQL search input is dynamically changed to Compass component ID (ari:....)

So, how can I create JQL query and use it in Jira API without necessity of using Compass component ID?

[Katie Silver]

Hi @Michal Kozlowski , at the moment the only way to use the field with JQL is to use the ARI. We've got the dynamic update in the search field like you mentioned, but we're still working on making the actual query human readable. 

[Jan-Hendrik Spieth]

It appears the Compass custom field is incompatible with the "Issue Create Modal" feature, aka a new issue create experience. So at least Atlassian Support tells me (JST-849933).

Effectively, we currently have to decide whether we want to have the Compass field in our create issue screen, or be able have that "new issue create experience".

We decided to drop the Compass field.

Is the Compass team aware of this? Will it be fixed?

[Katie Silver]

Hi @Jan-Hendrik Spieth  , thanks for letting us know. Yes, we know there are some limitations of the field as is. We're working on improvements and making the field more stable as we speak. We'll let you know once the next round of improvements ships. 

[Katie Silver]

@Jan-Hendrik Spieth after quickly testing on my side, it looks like the Compass field is still compatible if you use the full-size Create modal, but it doesn't allow for minimization into the smaller size. Is that the same as what you see on your side? 

[Jan-Hendrik Spieth]

Exactly, @Katie Silver The resizing is what we are looking for here.

[Katie Silver]

OK, thanks so much for confirming @Jan-Hendrik Spieth . I'll raise this specific issue with the team today and see what we can do. Appreciate the feedback as always!

[Pavel Shkleinik]

@Jan-Hendrik Spieth as a temporary workaround you can configure different screens for create and view/edit issue operations. It is as simple as:

1. Creating a copy of the default issue screen

2. Adding Compass field to the screen copy

3. Associating copied screen with Compass field with view & edit issue operations

Here are more detailed instructions: https://confluence.atlassian.com/servicedeskcloud/associating-a-screen-with-an-issue-operation-1097176045.html

The result should look somewhat like that:

sorry for the inconvenience and hopefully this helps!

[Jan-Hendrik Spieth]

Thanks @Pavel Shkleinik yes, separate screens are probably they way to go for anyone who wants both the Compass field, and the resizable create issue screen! I guess many customers have more than one screen in place there, anyway ;-)