How can I setup my board to view only specific issues in multiple projects?

Patrick Canonge April 22, 2021

I have 3  IT teams, each with their own projects that they create and work issues within. As a PM, I need to assign issues to these individual teams or team members across all 3 of their projects for the specific IT Project that I am managing, i.e. a data migration from an acquisition. Then I need to be able to setup a board in Jira to display only the issues that pertain to the IT Project that I am managing. 

I have attempted to create a filter for my board and have not been successful. Can anyone offer advise or direction. I cant be the only PM to need this functionality in Jira. I'm open to all suggestions, JQL examples, whatever you got!

 

Example: project in (IT, VA, INS, ISK) 

I'm not sure what is the best way to filter the specific issues??

 

Thank you

Patrick

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Trudy Claspill
Community Leader
Community Leader
Community Leaders are connectors, ambassadors, and mentors. On the online community, they serve as thought leaders, product experts, and moderators.
April 22, 2021

Hello @Patrick Canonge 

You're on the right track. You need a custom filter to display the subset of issues on the board.

The question you need to answer is how do you identify the issues across all three IT JIRA projects that pertain to the IT Project that you are managing? There must be something unique about those issues to distinguish them from other issues that are not relevant. Is there already a field used in all the JIRA projects that identifies the IT Project to which the issue pertains? That would have to be part of your filter criteria.

If you can tell us what piece of data/what field you use in the issues to identify the IT Project to which they pertain, then we can help you with constructing the filter.

Patrick Canonge April 22, 2021

Hi Trudy,

Thank for getting back to me. I think you nailed my main problem. I don't know what the best unique identifier would or could be. I began with a label and one of my engineers thinks it may not be the best way to filter. 1. Getting the team to actually add the label! 2. If they forget to label. We considered linking to a specific Epic? I'm having trouble visualizing that process. I'm new to Jira and learning as I go.

Any thoughts?

 

Patrick

Trudy Claspill
Community Leader
Community Leader
Community Leaders are connectors, ambassadors, and mentors. On the online community, they serve as thought leaders, product experts, and moderators.
April 22, 2021

Ah, that is a question many people have faced. :)

If the teams are responsible for setting the data in the issue so that you know it is part of your project, there will always be a risk that they don't set that data or that they set it to an incorrect value. That is a fundamental process question that you are going to have to address. The ability to configure JIRA to try to force the data to be set and to be set correctly is not bullet proof.

Whatever method you end up using, you are going to have to have a secondary process to try to catch the issues where the data didn't get set or got set incorrectly.

So, what are the pros and cons of getting the issues in disparate projects linked to an Epic that represents your IT Project?

- An issue can be a child of only one Epic. Do the IT teams want to be able to organize the work within their own projects under their own Epics, separately from how you are grouping work for your project?

- The Epic would have to exist in some JIRA project. Which one would you use; one of the IT Teams' projects or a separate project of your own?

- It would be possible for the JIRA projects to be configured to require every issue to be a child of an Epic, but that level of configuration would have to be done by a JIRA Admin. And, would the IT Teams go along with that?

- What if the teams start creating their stories before the Epic is created?

 

Let's consider use of a Label.

- Anybody can create a Label value, so that would not require any Administrator intervention.

- Label values are shared globally in JIRA, so you don't have to create the Label value in each project.

- Because anybody can create a Label, there is risk that somebody will think they have added the correct Label when they have not.

- An issue can have multiple Labels, so you could have a Label that represents your project while the team also uses other Label values on the same issues for their own purposes

 

Let's consider use of a Component.

- Components are created per project and must be created by a Project Admin for that project. So, you would have to coordinate that with each IT Team's Project Admin.

- An issue can have multiple Components, so you could have a Component that represents your project while the team also uses other Component values on the same issues for their own purposes

 

In each case, there is not a built in requirement that any of the fields have a value. It is possible to configure each project to require values in specified fields, but getting buy in from the teams for that could be challenging. 

 

I'm not a PM, so I can't really provide the PM perspective on JIRA use. The only experience I've had with trying to coordinate work across multiple team projects was at a higher level (Initiatives, as parents to Epics). I'm sure there are Project Management tools that are available to add to Jira. If adding tools to your Jira instance is an option, you might want to do some internet searching for "jira project management" to see if there are any that would suit your needs.

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Patrick Canonge April 22, 2021

Wow

Lots to consider! Thank you for your time. Let me get to work :-)

 

Patrick

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