Sync a Jira Board with Multiple Team Level Projects in its Filter Query to a Jira Align Team

[#1]

Recently, a customer requested guidance on how to sync a Jira Board with an unique Filter Query. The referenced filter query brought in multiple projects into a single team's scrum board and closely resembled this: project in (PA1, PA2, PA3, PA4) ORDER BY Rank ASC.  This is how Jira Align can support this ask!

Begin with multiple Jira Projects with Team level scrum issues including the Story, Sub-Task, and Bug.

Pick a board from one of the 4 Projects and ensure the Filter Query is set as desired and the Filter Share is listed to the Project.

Questions on setting the filter share and why we set it can be found answered here:

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-Align-questions/Jira-Align-Admin-gt-Jira-Management-gt-Jira-Boards-No-Project/qaq-p/1225114

Map all 4 Projects to Jira Align under Jira Align Admin > Jira Settings to the same Jira Align Program

Map only the Board where you set the Filter Share under Jira Align > Jira Management

Notes: Stories from all Projects on this board will map to the Jira Align team associated to the board (in this case PA4) 100% of time when assigned to an integrated sprint.  Stories in the backlog will only map to the associated team when the issue originates from the Project set in the Filter Share (in this case PA4). 

Please note you can only list one Project in the Filter Share in Jira or it will lead to a mapping error in Jira Align.  To assign issues from the other Projects listed in the filter query to their appropriate team in Jira Align when they are located in the backlog you will need to setup custom team field mapping as referenced here:

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-Align-articles/Syncing-the-Team-Field-Between-Jira-Software-and-Jira-Align/ba-p/1253507

I highly recommend using the single select list field type from Jira.  You will need to setup the custom team field mapping for all Projects shared within the Filter Query.

This is what the custom team field should look like in Jira.

Your stories from the Jira Board will now sync to their associated Jira Align team regardless of their Project and Sprint assignment.

Note: I do not recommend this implementation due to its complexity and overall lack of guardrails for data integrity but it will work if users utilize the custom team field in Jira and do not integrate any additional boards from these Projects.  If additional boards from these Projects are integrated the teams that work on those boards would also need to implement the custom field mapping for team. 

[Sam Tsubota]

@Tim Keyes - This is a very helpful article for a unique use case. Are there any special best practices that will need to be followed to ensure the data integrity outside of the ones already documented?

[Tim Keyes]

Hi Sam,

The biggest thing to note is if Teams in Jira forget to utilize the custom team field mapping and the issues are not assigned to a sprint, the stories will end up in the unassigned team/ sprint backlogs in Jira Align.  As soon as the team remembers to assign the custom field in Jira or assign the issues to a sprint the work will end up in the correct place in Jira Align.

It should also be noted that custom team field mappings are necessary when there is more than one integrated board per an integrated Project.  If the Projects listed in the Filter Query is the Primary Project on other Boards that are integrated with Jira Align the custom team fields will need to be utilized for all issues associated to the Project to ensure an issue is not assigned to the wrong team in Jira Align by the connector. 

[Sam Tsubota]

Thanks Tim! I can see why this is not a recommended implementation due to additional complexity of requiring teams to use the custom team field properly. 

[Tarun Sapra]

A very helpful article Tim, thanks for sharing these insightful details.

[Shawn Kessler]

@Tim Keyes another great article on best practices for integrating Jira and Jira Align. Looking forward to seeing your upcoming posts!

[Tim Keyes]

Thank you Shawn!

[Eric Jacobson]

Tim, can you explain how the dev team will then plan and start a Sprint?  Can they drag Issues into a sprint on their current multi-project board?  Or do they have to go to four separate boards (each of the 4 projects) and plan 25% of a Sprint on each of those project/boards?

[Tim Keyes]

Hi @Eric Jacobson ,

Thank you for the question.   Given this setup, the Dev Team in Jira would have 1 board with x number of Projects in its Filter Query that would represent the Team.  The team would create and start their sprints directly on that single board.  There would be 1 sprint at a time that issues from all x Projects would be added into.

Please let us know if you have any additional questions or questions on specific parts of this fucntionality.

Cheers!
Tim

[Eric Jacobson]

Thanks, Tim!  This sounds feasible so far.

BTW - I think there is a typo in one key place:

"Stories from all Projects on these board will map to the Jira Align team..."

I wasn't sure if it was supposed to be "these boards" or "this board".  Per your answer to my question I'm thinking, "this board", as in, the team board that filters multiple projects.

Thanks, again!

[Tim Keyes]

Hi Eric,

Thank you for the note.  You are correct.  I have updated the article to this.  Please reach out with any follow-up questions our via our running ticket if a call is still desired.

Cheers!
Tim

[Colin Weaver]

A word of caution : This solution could potentially result in sprints showing the error: "Sprint was not created because this sprint originates from another board."

As such you may also need to ensure that the Jira Sprints  are created in the board with the filter, that has been added into Jira Management, and not in boards under each project

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As the author stated at the end of this article this is not a recommended solution