Unable to Copy Board

[Ed Cupaioli]

Objective

I want to create a base template for a scrum board that will allow me to easily create new boards customized issue types for all of my freelance clients. 

Steps to Recreate

1. Login to Jira, select the Projects dropdown then select create Project
2. On the Project Templates screen, select Software development from the side bar then select Scrum in the page body. Select Use template on the modal to proceed.
3. On the choose a project type panel, select "Select a team-managed project" 
4. Enter a name and key for the project detail panel then select next

According to the documentation, I should be able to do the following:

1. From the global navigation at the top of the page, select the search field (or press /) and select Go to all: Boards. Then select Create board in the upper right of the screen.

2. Find the board you want to copy and select Copy from the menu on the right side.

What I expect to happen

The three dots should appear next to my board on the Boards page

What actually happens

The three dots do not appear next to the board, RCT Board, I want to copy: 

Additional Notes

The three dots appear next to a board that is company managed. However, the company-managed UI is extremely obtuse and documentation on the board is scant on how to modify and create issue types. 

[Kai Becker]

Hi @Ed Cupaioli 

welcome to the community and thank you for your question and also this awesome description.

The problem with team managed projects is that they are capsulated and every configuration item stays insight. I guess that these boards you see are the default boards that got created with the projects and so are capsulated inside these projects.

From what I can tell, this is a technical limitation and you won't be able to copy these boards.

What you could try instead. Create a new board and adding it to your user. Make sure to use a filter as a base that includes your issues. 
After that, try to use your description to copy the board. This will probably come with other downsides from your perspective I guess, but I can't think of any other way.

[Ed Cupaioli]

@Kai Becker Thanks for the reply. Nothing you said makes any sense to me as I'm new to admin on Jira. I'll need the exact steps to "use a filter as a base".  

As I stated in my objective, I just want to create some custom issue types, columns for my kanban board (to do, in progress, etc), and be able to churn out projects with those exact settings for each project for my clients. Whatever I need to do in order to achieve that objective, I'll do it.  

I created a new project with the company-managed setting that will allow me to create custom fields for my issues and apply them to all projects, hooray! Unfortunately, this company-managed UI is on hardcore mode in that I don't have the nice drag and drop interface when I was customizing my issues. I'm slowly figuring it out, but I'm confused as to why it's so unintuitive versus the team based. I have to go to 4 different settings panels just to add some custom fields. I figured out that the Layout is how the issue gets displayed and the Screen is how the issue form is laid out, but I wouldn't find that out from the docs. 

[Kai Becker]

Hi @Ed Cupaioli 

I'm really sorry that my answer didn't quite help you. I can totally understand that configuring Company-Managed projects is some what overwhelming when first starting with it.
Nevertheless this type of project is the foundation of Jira, as it has been since the Server version. The main benefit of this type is the possibility to reuse and easily create new projects with the exact same configuration. Basically exactly what you want. 

I would recommend watching some youtube videos or going to university.atlassian.com to get a better understanding of this project type.

For example here is a video on how to create filters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zM1s2fY33gQ

And here is a step by step documentation on how to create a board from a filter: https://support.atlassian.com/jira-software-cloud/docs/create-a-board-based-on-filters/

[Ed Cupaioli]

@Kai Becker Thanks for the reply and the helpful information. I finally found the way to customize the issue form to my liking but then I hit another blocker, ironically, when I attempted to add a blocked column. I can add the column and status just fine but I'm limited to the category. I found out that those categories are locked to just the three options: to do, in progress, done. 

I think team-managed is the better solution since it allows me more flexibility and is much more user friendly, but why oh why does Jira not allow me to copy my projects? Adding a filter will not achieve copying a project with all the custom fields and columns I have for issues. There is a feature request for this so hopefully it gets picked up and implemented.  

For me, project management software is more for the people I work with. I want to create a system where my clients can create beautiful error reports like the one I made without thinking about it. They just fill out the details and hit submit. Every project management software allows me to do that to varying degree, but Jira does it the best. It's just unfortunate it has that one achilles heel of not allowing you to copy a project. I might just go back to Asana while that issue gets resolved. 

[Kai Becker]

Hi @Ed Cupaioli 

thanks for the update. If you are open to use a marketplace app you could check out 

Deep clone for Jira This will enable you to copy team managed projects.

Here is the documentation in this feature: https://documentation.codefortynine.com/deep-clone-for-jira/project-clone

Hope this helps at least.

[Ed Cupaioli]

@Kai Becker Thanks, I'll try that out! Though, I believe the best solution is to take up those Jira university classes and learn company-managed from the inside out. I see the value in having more control over boards and issues and being able to apply standard settings throughout all projects. Also, I'm in the process of changing how I work, from ad hoc requests to roadmapping and sprint planning.

Some more background on my solution: 

Asana was good for ad hoc since I could hook it up to a user friendly form that asked questions and forced people to organize their thoughts and provide the exact information I needed, which would set me up to execute on a task within a 24 hours or less timeline. I was the only dev on my team and I had to do the roles of 4 people as a single person. I simply did not have the time for meetings or pulling teeth on email/slack so the form was an obvious solution, but my work was transactional and not lasting. 

I had the opportunity to work on a large corporate contract where I was part of a proper dev team and got two weeks to fix a single line of JSON, but I learned it was not so simple as fixing that one line. I needed to properly solution my fix within the larger ecosystem of the code, write out the acceptance criteria, and document for other developers. I much preferred this type of working as my work was more lasting and holistic, rather than constant fire drills for work that was forgotten and discarded in a month. Now I'm back to contracting for small companies and I am attempting to use agile methodologies for a better way of working for more sustainable products.