Acceptance Criteria Sync

[Vandana Kurapati]

If you have any documentation related to Acceptance Criteria sync between Jira Align and Jira please share

[Peter Jessen · Accepted solution]

Hi @Vandana Kurapati,

This Help article addresses the Jira integration with Jira Align  - https://agilecrafthelp.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000088453-10X-Jira-Integration-Setup

Within the article is this section:

Sync acceptance criteria

For features and stories, you can synchronize a Jira custom field with acceptance criteria with Jira Align's acceptance criteria. In the box, type the Jira custom field ID that is used for acceptance criteria, for example, customfield_12345. After the acceptance criteria are synchronized with Jira custom field, no more acceptance criteria fields can be added in Jira Align. You can add all acceptance criteria in one field in Jira Align.

Some things that may not be clear from the above:

1. This is a limitation of the Atlassian Jira API, not Jira Align's connector, as far as I know. I will defer to Jira Align Support for the technical details as to the why.
2. There is one Jira custom field value that can be entered in Jira Align for Acceptance Criteria.
   • This means that if you want to integrate Acceptance Criteria for stories but not features, it is not possible.
   • The moment you populate the Acceptance Criteria Jira custom field value in Jira Align, you lose native Jira Align multiple acceptance criteria functionality/granularity for both features and stories.
3. What are the options?
   • Don't integrate Acceptance Criteria between Jira and Jira Align to maintain the ability to have multiple, track-able Acceptance Criteria for reporting and health visibility in Jira Align.
     • For features:
       • In Jira you would not enter any acceptance criteria on the features.
       • Only enter acceptance criteria on the features in Jira Align.
     • For stories:
       • In Jira you can enter the story acceptance criteria in the description field or in the single Jira acceptance criteria field.
         • If you enter them in the Jira AC field they will not sync to Jira Align
       • In Jira Align - allow the acceptance criteria to sync via the Jira story description field or enter them as granular acceptance criteria and manually maintain them in Jira's AC field or keep them in sync via the description field.
   • Integrate Acceptance Criteria between Jira and Jira Align and lose the native Jira Align multiple/granular Acceptance Criteria functionality
     • This maintains automatic syncing of the Jira Acceptance Criteria text field to Jira Align, but you lose the robustness of the native Jira Align functionality that provides progress and health at a more granular level than is available in Jira natively.

Regards,
Peter

[Shawn Kessler]

@Peter Jessen for the win!

[Shawn Kessler]

@julie.byrne is in the house! Welcome, my friend!

[julie.byrne]

Hey @Shawn Kessler  - so excited to have this community resource for Jira Align. :)

[Vandana Kurapati]

Thank you Peter

[Vandana Kurapati]

After integrating Acceptance Criteria between Jira and Jira Align- JA to Jira Acceptance Criteria sync is happening only once and any more updates to JA Acceptance Criteria is not synching with Jira. Is this known issue?

[Peter Jessen]

Hi @Vandana Kurapati ,

Can you be more specific? Updates only occur when the AC field is changed by at least one character in either Jira or Jira Align.

I suggest you check with your Jira Align admin to see if the fields are properly configured in the connector.

Also, if the Jira admin replaced the Acceptance Criteria custom field in Jira, then it might have a new custom filed ID and will no longer sync.

There are multiple reasons fields won't sync between the systems that could be at the Jira project level, the field level, the screen level, or the connector.

Regards,
Peter

[Karyn Kagiyama]

Super helpful information, Peter! Just a further clarification that you can add acceptance criteria to the feature (Jira epic) in Jira and the integration will create and add it to the feature in JA. Also, updates to AC are synced bi-directionally.