Jira and Jira Align Integration: Workflow Best Practices

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Before integrating Jira with Jira Align, there are some best practices that should be considered. Some are a little more rigid than others; while others can lend themselves to some workarounds. Let's explore further to understand what these are, why these are important and the potential impacts. 

Full end-to-end flows

Jira workflows should represent full end-to end flows starting with statuses prior to being ready and ending with a “Done” status.

Why: When creating an issue, it is not immediately ready to start. There need to be statuses prior to this that account for the refinement of the issue. “Done” status needs to have a post function to populate the resolution to “Done” which in turn populates the Resolution Date. The Resolution Date is what drives the State of the story being “Accepted” in Jira Align.

Where the "Accepted" state for features in Jira Align is driven by the state mapping, the Accepted Date that is captured in the Audit Log on a feature in Jira Align is driven by the Resolution Date.

A Post Function is also needed to clear the Resolution if the issue is moved out of “Done” status.

Related articles:

• About and how to add Post Functions
• Jira and Jira Align Integration: Story Resolution Transition Best Practices
• Jira and Jira Align Integration: Syncing a Jira Date Custom Field with Jira Align Accepted Date

Standard and less complex workflows

Jira workflows should be standardized and less complex when possible (especially at the team level). It is recommended to have a standard workflow scheme that is standard to all projects or limit the number of variations.

Why: Jira statuses are mapped to/from Jira Align states/process steps. Standard and less complex workflows reduce administration overhead and potential state mapping issues.

Workaround: Bi-directional syncing of process steps can be enabled to help with more complex workflows but would still need standardization. When combining multiple workflows into a single Process Step flow in Jira Align will present process steps not used by all teams.

Do not require transition approvals (for bi-directional syncs)

Jira workflows should not enforce transition approvals. Transitions should accommodate potential changes via Jira Align.

Why: If there are transition approvals and the process step/state is updated in Jira Align, it will fail to sync to Jira. If using transition approvals, statuses can only be updated via Jira. This is not as problematic at the team level where most status updates will be done via Jira. There are no transition restrictions in JA. Any transition not supported will not sync to Jira.

Related article: Workflow approval

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Related Articles

• Jira and Jira Align Integration: Sprint Best Practices
• Jira and Jira Align Integration: Issue Best Practices
• Jira and Jira Align Integration: Issue Field Best Practices for Create and Edit Screens 
• Jira and Jira Align Integration: Story Resolution Transition Best Practices 
• Jira and Jira Align Integration: Release Vehicle/Fix Version Best Practices