Share one issue "ticket" across multiple projects and show on both projects boards?

Shawn Lunny April 25, 2014

How could you setup a scenario like this:

Marketing (using simple issue tracking workflow as of now):
Issue is opened such as "Create Acme Logo" Status: "To-Do"

Joe in marketing moves status to "In Progress" and is done. IT now needs to put the logo on the site, and Joe wants to assign to Mary in IT.

IT (using Agile issue tracking workflow as of now):

Issue is assigned to Mary as "In progress" and now she can work on the item and progress through rest of workflow as needed.

If answer can provide the following details, will get the vote:

1.) Is there a way that an issue can be shared between projects (we don't want marketing seeing IT's other issues and vice versa, only ones that need to be shared). Could creating an issue type that both projects use work? How would we set it up?

2.) We want to have the issue go through the workflow on both boards so each project team knows the status of an issue and if its complete. How do we make that happen?

3.) Less critical, but can both projects log time against the issue and see that time in their reports? For example I'm sure marketing manager wants to know Joe made a logo, and IT manager wants Mary's time documented.

Thanks in advance!

3 answers

1 accepted

12 votes
Answer accepted
Boris Georgiev _Appfire_
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April 25, 2014

I would advice using issue links and have two separate issues - one in the marketing project and one in the IT project.

  1. Issue is opened such as "Create Acme Logo" Status: "To-Do". This issue will be in the marketing project i.e. MKT-1
  2. Joe in marketing moves status to "In Progress" and is done. IT now needs to put the logo on the site, and Joe wants to assign to Mary in IT. Joe should create an issue in the IT project and assign it to Mary - (issue - IT-2) after creating this issue, Joe should add an issue link to the related issue from Marketing - MKT-1 (Issue )
  3. When the issue IT-2 is closed the linked issue MKT-1 can be automatically closed by a post-function (TransitionLinkedIssues)

1.) Is there a way that an issue can be shared between projects (we don't want marketing seeing IT's other issues and vice versa, only ones that need to be shared). Could creating an issue type that both projects use work? How would we set it up?

To restrict users from both projecs seeing all issues in project that is not theirs you can setup Issue Security for these projects. The default the issue security level of all issues in the project should restrict users from other projects seeing the issues. When an issue is created in Marketing that should be seen from IT then another security level should be specified which will include also the users of the IT project. (Again - setting the security level can be automated to some extend using post-functions in the workflow - see Set Issue Security From User's Project Role Function)

2.) We want to have the issue go through the workflow on both boards so each project team knows the status of an issue and if its complete. How do we make that happen?

Users from both projects will see the corresponding issue in their board. For example Joe will see MKT-1 is In Progress and if he wants to see details he can easily navigate through the issue link to IT-2 issue and see the status in the IT project and vice versa.

3.) Less critical, but can both projects log time against the issue and see that time in their reports? For example I'm sure marketing manager wants to know Joe made a logo, and IT manager wants Mary's time documented.

Since there are two separate issues, each one will have work logged against it, so the managers will be able to see the time spent on the issue.

I can try to help with some more details on how to automate some steps of what I described, if you think that process works for you. It's much harder when you're on JIRA OnDemand as it lacks a lot of the plugins I would normally use.



Shawn Lunny May 2, 2014

Not ideal to track on two projects but looks to be the ideal solution otherwise. Thanks.

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Enelar March 10, 2016

I don't like this solution. We torturing marketing guy: he should every morning click on every links.

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Alma G. October 3, 2018

Exactly. Double work. Tool should be made to make things easier to do the work. Not to complicate it.

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touficalame December 6, 2018

The many issue is the mind setting of projects instead of a Product, Application or a solution. Over the past 5 or 6 years, I have noticed the disregard to managing a product life cycle. Are we trying to replace task and sub-task issues with epics and stories.

Let's take a minute. The product backlog is owned and managed by the product owner (business) and the sprint board is managed by development. This also the case for Kanban. In either case, we can group your Features and functionalities and create tasks for Marketing, IT and Documentation. The tasks may run in parallel or with a defined precondition.

 

In the case, we are dealing with integrated products or digital channel. You may have a channel Product backlog (Parent Backlog) based on business process and Children backlog. You may use components and/or keywords to ensure. For instance, a Personal Client transactional website, Personal Client trx mobile app,  an business transactional website with shared features and business flow and different view port orientation or Look n'feel.

 

Once we think of a product and not a project, understanding your product interaction with user and system actors, only then you will be able to properly manage your deliverable end product from all team players/stakeholders.

In conclusion, do not forget about the difference between ALM(Product or Application life cycle) and PLC (project life cycle) regardless of the tools. Think PEOPLE over PROCESS AND TOOLS, i.e. understanding the needs of all your actors (teams), optimize and orient your processes toward an added value manageable product and the tools that will enable you to achieve customer satisfaction. Finally, once you have a good manageable and traceable product backlog(s), the dashboard and metrics will flow nicely.

 

 

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18 votes
Sunnegardh January 3, 2017

I realize it was a while ago this question was asked, but maybe it will help someone else.

To answer question 1), two projects or more can share a board an thereby one can filter out the issues that are relevant to the people using the board. One way of getting the Marketing issue on the IT-board would be this;

Add a special label to the issues you want to show up on the other board. Say the Marketing department labels issues that the IT department are interested in as "IT".

Edit the filter for the IT board so that it collects issues from the marketing project AND from the IT project. However make sure that you limit the issues from the Marketing project by configuring the filter so that it only collects the issues labeled with "IT". So pretty much like this;
project = MarketingProject AND labels = "IT" OR project = "ITProject" ORDER BY Rank ASC

The board will now show ALL issues in the IT project, but only the issues labeled "IT" from the Marketing project.

The issue will follow the workflow of the project in which it was created. So if the Marketing team is using a simpler kanbanboard (to do, in progress, done) i would suggest adding the missing statuses to the Marketing workflow. The marketing board could have a column in between "in progress" and "done" called "sent to IT", which could hold all the "in progress" IT-statuses.

When the development/IT team are completely done, they will set the status to Done and the issue will move to the "done" column on both boards.

(It will require some minor changes to the IT-board configuration as well, but i'm thinking this explanation will be enough to get the general idea!)

Adam R February 8, 2017

This is exactly what I was looking for. Thanks!

Sunnegardh February 8, 2017

Great! Happy it helped smile

Johan Söderström October 24, 2017

We have exactly this solution. It works great to share the issues to be able to see them in each project board.

The problem for us is the permissions. You still need to have browse permissions in both projects for it to work. When working with sprints you also need to give manage sprint permission as well in both (or more projects) to be able to close the sprint with issues from other projects.

Is there any way to restrict access for users so they only see their issues and those who are labeled with their project but no other issues? 

Stefan Højrup March 8, 2018

I'm hoping someone here can help me.

I tried doing what sunnegardh said.

In project 1 i use a query which select issues from project 1 and project 2 - where labels are set to CUSTOM

In project 1 i have only one board and it selects issues from the two projects - it is working like i want i to.

However when a user of project 2 views this project they see the board of project 1. They now have two boards to select from, their own and the one from project 1. How can this be? I would figure they would only have their own board? It is causing some pain because they will get the board from project 1 - if a user of this project has viewed this board later than a user of project 2 has viewed theirs. JIRA picking the last viewed board.

Anyone know how to fix this?

Nuria Llobera Vila March 26, 2018

@Sunnegardh

Hi Sunnegardh,

The solution you describe is very nice. I have a problem with the Status.

I have a board with three projects: Project 1 is Marketing, Project 2 is Development and Project 3 is Documentation.

The columns in the shared board would be:

To Do --> To estimate --> Waiting for Purchase --> Ordered --> Waiting Development --> Waiting Documentation --> Done.

There are some columns that belongs only to Marketing:

  • To Do, To Estimate and Waiting For Purchase

Some columns are shared:

  • "Ordered" is shared with the status of Marketing (Status Ordered) and status of Development (Status To Do)
  • "Waiting Documentation" column is shared with the status of Development project (status Done) and Documentation project (status To Do)
  • "Done" column is shared by two projects: Documentation and Marketing

I use the status Done of Development project under "Waiting for Documentation" column because is the way that Documentation Project can see if he can start with the Documentation.

Thus, I have here two problems: there is the Status To Do under "Orderded" column and "Waiting Documentation" Column. I have also status Done under "Waiting for Documentation" and "Done" Columns. 

Is there a way to differenciate status between projects without have to change the status names?

Mark Frampton April 23, 2018

@Sunnegardh

Hi Sunnegardh,

I've followed your method to try to set up shared issues across two projects but still have one issue.

I have an Internal project and an External Client Project; I want to show a few of the internal issues to the External Client but hide other internal issues from the external client users.

I can successfully share a filtered set of issues from the internal project with the External Client Project and restrict access to the comments on these issues;

BUT, I can't stop the External client users, who are in a group that has been granted the "Browse Projects" permission in the Internal Client Project, from viewing all issues in the internal project;

I was hoping I could filter the boards in the internal project to restict issues returned to those where currentUser() was in the "Internal Project Full Access" group (a group I set up to for internal users);

Then I tried setting up issue security levels (one for internal users only and one for all users);

But neither method gives me the required visibility.

Any ideas/suggestions much appreciated.

Mark

DUSHYANTH KONUDULA June 24, 2018

@Sunnegardh Hello, I've the similar problem statement in my project right now. Can the cross-board feature in JIRA helps in this regard ?

To keep it simple, two different projects with different workflows, When the user 
selects/moves the issue to a state (say "In Progress"), the issue should appear in the other project kanban board B2 and then progress through the B2 Workflow. Is this feasible ?

Also, to make is bit complex, considering the users access restrictions on the two projects. That meaning, Project P1 should have different level of access than Project P2. 

Any leads are off great help.

Thank you in advance :)


Dush

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Julie Reviglio June 21, 2022

Hi, 

I know this is an old thread but I am trying to do what @Sunnegardh outlined above.

How do I edit the filters to collect 1 issue from one Project Board to another?

I'm still new at this and learning everyday so thank you to whoever answers me

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