How do I make each company managed project use a specific field screen rather than creating a new 1?

[AlexanderM]

Hi,

I'm in the process of setting up a new instance for our smaller team where we'll have product / project managers jumping on for  short periods.  I as the admin would like to standardize the fields in the scrum projects so that we can continue to report and provide a guide on how they should be entering and updating their proejcts. 

In the environment as it stands each project creates it's own scheme and screens.  I tried just adding the fields I need to the Default but since it's always creating it's own field screens it doesn't apply.  I can go in and edit each project but my fear is that the PMs will not do this and we want to prevent mistakes.

[Robert Wen_Cprime_ · Accepted solution]

Hello, @AlexanderM ! Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

If your Scrum projects are company-managed projects, what you can do is create a "template project" that has the fields, screens, workflows, and schemes the way you want. When you create a new project, you can set it to "copy the configuration of an existing project" (your template project)

For the existing projects, you're going to have to manually change the schemes to what you set in the template project.

[AlexanderM]

Thanks Robert! Is that through a marketplace add-in? I'm not seeing those options I do have a project that has the right screens and fields but I don't see an option to copy the configuration. 

Thank you

[Robert Wen_Cprime_]

This is at project creation.  Select your project template (Scrum, Kanban, or Bug Tracking) and your project type (team-managed, company-managed).

The next screen has you create the project details.  Check Share settings with an existing project.  Then select your template project.

[AlexanderM]

Thank you!

[AlexanderM]

I must be missing a step.  I do the above and select Share settings with my template but the new project has none of the Scrum board features, I can't even add new issues.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

For Company Managed projects, yes.  These are configured mostly by "schemes".  Whilst the default in Jira is to use a template which creates new schemes for the new project (which isolates the config from other projects), you can tell a new project to use existing schemes.

To walk through it, 

Hit Create project from the project menu -> Choose a type -> Use template -> Select company managed

You are now on a screen with "Add project details" and a prompt for a new key.  Below that prompt, there is a tick-box for "Share settings with an existing project", which will ask you which project to share with.

For existing projects, I'm afraid you'll need to slog through the admin of "change scheme" for almost everything on every project.

[AlexanderM]

I seem to lose the features of a scrum project when I do that.  Even the ability to create new issues in general...

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

The schemes don't control the Scrum functionality, but if you choose to share the schemes across projects, the new project process doesn't go through all the stuff you need to make a project look like a Scrum project.  Main thing is that it won't create a scrum board for you when you create the project, but that's easily fixable - go into the project and create one!

[Robert Wen_Cprime_]

As far as the ability to create new issues. the new project will be using the same permission scheme as your template project.  I would check there.

[AlexanderM]

But if I create a new Board for my project it just creates a brand new project that doesn't inherit the standards that I'm trying to build.

It says that Company managed projects should allow an Admin to control what fields and workflows projects use but I can't find where to set that up.  At this point I may just end up buying the marketplace add-in that lets me duplicate projects but that seems to be a work-around rather than a fix.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Creating a new board does not create a new project.  Not when done from within a (company managed) project - you click the boards drop-down in the left-hand panel and "create board" appears at the bottom of the pop-up menu.

>Company managed projects should allow an Admin to control what fields and workflows projects use but I can't find where to set that up

You control that in project admin by selecting schemes for the project (mostly, but not all of the config).  You'll need to be an administrator to do it.

[AlexanderM]

Thank you for all your support, I managed to go through the steps and get it working!

However I don't have enough confidence in my users that they'll be able to follow instructions that far.  Alas, I will take on the creation of each project and import the fields and screens to standardize it all.

I am a bit disappointed that for Company Managed projects I can't just go in and configure what the fields, screens, shortcuts and overall structure of these should be (as it seems to indicate in the brochure) - so that each time a user creates a company managed project they get the fields that I need to report on. Perhaps I'm not paying enough to get those features (I'm on the standard $7.50 plan).  Alternatively I may get the marketplace add-in "Deep Clone"

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Only admins can create company managed projects, they're intended to be controlled by the organisation, and people shouldn't be free to just randomly create projects.  You should really only have 3-4 administrators and part of their role is to create projects when they're needed.  Project creation doesn't take too long if you're using shared schemes though.

On server, I automated it completely - a Jira project let people request project creation, with fields to select which one of the five sets of common schemes they wanted, and when the boss approved, a post-function created them.  Not been asked to do this for Cloud yet (but I have just written "it'll be a few days development on the bits I can't steal from the docs or library" on a quote)

Instead of deep-clone (which will just handle issue creation), you might want to look at Wittified/Appfire Project Creator app - it does template schemes, allows for self select and can do initial population of standard issues into new projects.

[Kelsey LaMastres _Appfire_]

Hey Nic, thanks for recommending Delegated Project Creator!

Alexander - feel free to give the app a try free for 30 days and contact the Wittified support team if you have any questions.

[AlexanderM]

I'll give it a shot thank you!