how can I share the same board between multiple projects?

[Reda Menčikovaitė _ Project manager]

Hey, I need your insight to this one.

We are using JSW trial at the moment (but will pay next month for whole premium package). We need different board view which include all our project tasks. for example I have team alpha and they are working on projec A, project B. Also I have team bravo they are working on project C and project D. All projects are company managed kanban projects. We need to find a way how to create different view for Squal level view (all teams, all projects included),  Team level view (just this team projects include), client level view = project kanban view it is a default, engineer level view  (using a filter in kanban board of a team view only my tasks).

in JWM we create new PROJECT then new client/project comes in, so now I have data base of more than 130 company managed projects.

For the views I already tried:

A) create one project as a team (ex. alpha team), inside it create alpha team kanaban board, use separate JQL filtering to import all projects tasks related to this team.  DISADVANTAGE: each time when we have a new client or project I need to update the JQL filter and insert the project name in order to see it in alpha team project.

B) I tried to create one project and inside it 4 different boards. project=Squad view, board = alpha board, board=bravo board, board= delta board. DISADVANTAGE: JQL filtering as well

also I notice that i do not see "Boards" in my JSW in top of meniu.

Can someone fill me in what is the best way to implement different kanban boards with minimal effort of changing the filters or other configurations in order to have Squad board, team board, project board?

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Accepted solution]

I'll start with a couple of the easier ones to answer:

Boards do not belong to projects, nor is it the other way around.  Atlassian have dropped the Boards out of the main menu in favour of board links into the projects because a lot of people do have a 1:1 Board to Project relationship, but it doesn't really do a lot.

You can still get the boards list, it's under "your work" -> " see all boards".  I tend to bookmark the URL though - it's like https://aclsandbox.atlassian.net/jira/boards

Now, the harder bit.  You need to decide how to set up your projects and how to identify the work your teams will be doing. 

Your projects should be set up to contain similar issues and your boards should be set up to work for a team.

The thing to define the projects on is mainly behaviour - a project configures how issues within it will work, workflows, schemes, permissions, versions, components, notifications and so-on.  I don't know what your business is like, but you hit on "client" as the thing to define projects and that really is a perfectly valid choice (because permissions mean you can limit clients to their projects)

For the boards, you seem to have teams that will draw their work from many projects.  To do that, you need to put some data on issues that means you can write a board filter that draws in everything for the team.  At the moment, you're using the project directly (project in X, Y, Z), but there are other options, for example:

Team (custom field) = X

Labels in (X, Y, Z)

or, the really sneaky one I'm leaning towards here:

Category = Z

Category will work for you if you have a 1:many relationship between Team and Projects.  That is, Team X works on projects A, B and C, Team Y has D, E, F and so-on.  Category is a project level field that is derived down to the issues.  If you set up Project categories so they match your teams, then every time a new project arrives, all you have to do is put it in the right team category, and their board will automatically draw in all the issues in the new project.

Another trick is to combine them.  I often work in places where "Team X works on A, B, C, but sometimes needs to work on issues elsewhere when asked to".  That leads to board filters like "Category = 'team x' or label = 'team-x'"

[Reda Menčikovaitė _ Project manager]

Hey Nic, thanks for the advise, the Category doesn't fit for our business requirements and working methods we are using inside company, but anyway it was really good insight!

I talked to manager about the requirements, and the problem solves itself :)

Solution was to simple, but non of us see it in a first place, we were focusing on each teams, client list and didn't see that all teams in some ways works with all clients. 

we decided to change JQL filter settings:

instead of Alpha team works with A,B,C projects we changed to All projects, so that means every time we have a new project it will automatically appear in team's boards.

[Reda Menčikovaitė _ Project manager]