Regarding the different levels of administration in Atlassian/Jira

[Johan Markström]

Hi,

I'm currently preparing for the ACP-610/ACP-620 certification, and I have been going through the lessons in Managing Jira Projects (ACP-610/ACP-620 Certification Prep) a few times, and I've also been reading random blog posts and discussions on the Atlassian community. My previous experience with Jira software is as an end user. 

I've found it difficult to fully grasp the terminology surrounding the levels of administration for Atlassian/Jira, and I believe this is due to inconsistencies in the terminology used on forums and in the Atlassian University course material.

I'd like to discuss what I have found so far, probably exposing my lack of knowledge and getting slapped on my fingers for ranting about stuff I just learned.

The terms for describing different levels of administration that I have come across are: 

• Organization admin
• Site admin
• Jira admin
• Product admin
• Project admin

From what I have found, Organization admin and Site admin have the same permissions. The difference is that Organization admin is a role and Site admin is a group. After plaiying around in the sandbox supplied via the certification course, I noticed this: 

• Adding a user to the site-admins group automatically assigns them the Organization admin role.
• Assigning a user the Organization admin role automatically adds them  to the site-admins group.

Furthermore, the Jira admin and the Product admin relate to each other in a similar way; 

• Adding a user to the jira-admins-<site name> group automatically assigns them to the Product admin role for the product Jira administration.
• Assigning a user to the Product admin role for the product Jira administration automatically adds them to the jira-admins-<site name> group.

This has given me the impression that there are essentially three levels of administration in Jira:

• Org admin/site admin
• Product admin/Jira admin
• Project admin

Is this a correct assumption? 

Thanks,

Johan

[Robert Wen_Cprime_]

It actually is four levels.  You see a difference between Org Admin and Site Admin if you have more than one cloud site.  Org admins also see the billing details.

[Johan Markström]

Thanks for your reply! 

So if MyCompany is the org, and I'm the Org admin and you're the site admin, we initially both have the same perminssions (apart from billing details) at MyCompany.atlassian.net?

We both have access to admin.atlassian.com and MyCompany.atlassian.net, right? 

And if I'd create another cloud site MyCompanySweden.atlassian.net only I could access that site, and you could only access MyCompany.atlassian.net until made site admin for the new site? 

Appreciate you taking time to help me! 

[Robert Wen_Cprime_]

Right.  As an org admin, you add site admins to your different sites by putting them in the appropriate site-admins group.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Not quite - in Jira, there are four levels.  But there's also only three.  Yes, I've just directly contradicted myself, but it's not a Schroedinger's cat problem, it's a visibility thing.  

When you've seen "product admin", it means "Atlassian product admin", and when you're looking at Jira, that might mean "Jira system admin" or "Jira admin" depending on the context.  

The levels in Jira are:

• Site Admin  (Organisation admin is part of that)
• Jira system admin
• Jira admin
• Project admin

But, it's three because:

Server/DC does not have "site admin", because there is no "site" when you're running it yourself.  Your network and application admins take on the stuff site admins do on Cloud (access, authentication setup, user provisioning etc).  It only applies to Cloud.  So there are only three layers you can get to as a Jira admin.

On Cloud, technically there are four layers in the system, but you, as the end-user, do not get system admin.  Only Atlassian can do system admin.  So there are only three layers you can get to as a Jira admin.

[Syed Muhammad Umair Mansoor]

Hi,

In server we have:

System admin

Jira Admin

Project Admin

in Cloud we have:

Organization Admin

Site Admin

Product Admin

Project Admin

However the Jira admin in server is extended to organization admin, site admin and product admin in Cloud & Project admin in server is extended to project admin in cloud with team managed project.

[Johan Markström]

Thanks! 

[Johan Markström]

I hope you're in the timeline where I posted this comment to thank you for your help!

[Johan Markström]

I appreciate your clearification!