📔 Jira July: Configuration Diary

[#1]

👋 Hi Community,

To keep the Jira July celebrations 🎉 going, we’ve decided to create a configuration diary that the agile community can access forever.

In the comments below, tell us about…

• Your favorite configuration.

• Why your team loves it.

• The success you’ve achieved with this configuration.

• Tips for building this type of configuration.

We're here for all the configurations so let the sharing begin! 

[Jimmy Seddon]

Ok, my favorite configuration is using a custom user field and a workflow condition to act a an approval gate in Jira Software.

I know this is provided by default within JSM, but it's not there for Jira Software.  Within our release process there are specific people (or groups of people) that need to provide documented approval of a change being deployed for compliance reasons.

We have a custom user field with the approver set by default.  We also have a workflow condition that the transition from "Ready for Deployment" -> "Approved for Deployment" can only be performed by the user named in that approver field.

We like this approach as it gives us enough process to be able to meet our compliance with an entry in the issue history showing that someone approved the deployment.  But, it also provides the flexibility to change that to a different person should the default approver be out sick or on vacation.  Since that change is also tracked in the history we have a proper audit trail of who changed the approver so that we have all the proper evidence for our auditors that we are following our processes correctly.

I'm not sure if this is 100% what people were looking for here, but I thought this was cool enough to share.

[Kalee Williams]

Thanks for sharing, @Jimmy Seddon

[Johanna Pichotka_APTIS_]

My favorite Jira configuration is not something really special but it helps me a lot with my daily work. 

It's actually a combination of a custom field and a board. The custom field is a date picker called 'Work date' (Translated from German 😅) so it describes the day that I want to work on that Issue. And the board is called 'My work' and it contains all the Issues that are assigned to me. And it has different lines depending on the date I set the 'Work date'. 

1.line are the small tasks that I do every day. (labeled everyday tasks) 

2.line are the Blockers so all Issues with the priority status 'blocker' (our highest) if there are any. 

3.line are the issues with a major priority to really important ones if there are any. 

4.line are all the issues that I want/need to work on that day. 

5.&6.line are all the issues that I want to work on tomorrow and later. 

It's nothing special but it saves me a lot of time everyday. Because I work on a lot of different things/projects/contexts this combines everything I have to do and helps me plan and prioritize at the same time. 

For me this just shows how versatile Jira is and how different it can be used. And that's exactly what I love about it. 

I know this isn't for everyone but lots of people in our team do really like it so I thought I'd just share it with the community. 

Happy Jira July! 

[Kalee Williams]

Thank you for sharing and Happy Jira July! @Johanna Pichotka_APTIS_ 

[Sue Wilson]

My favorite configuration is actually an Automation

Engineering & QA Teams don't always see tasks that are added during the final two weeks, when there should actually be a code freeze and people should not be adding tasks to the release.

The Automation is triggered when the fix version field is changed on a task.  At that time, the automation compares the release date of that fix version against the current date.  If today's date is within 14 days of the release date, an email is sent to the scrum master, dev mgr and/or qa mgr alerting them that a new task was added, so they can review to verify it can be included or needs to be moved out.  

It has proven effective since releases are a culmination of at least 4 teams planning work for the same release.  Knowing what's being 'thrown in' last minute benefits them to know it's there, consider whether they have time to complete it, and look for patterns if someone (client or team) is pushing last minute changes in the final hours.

[Walter Buggenhout]

A simple, but neat trick we use pretty frequently is setting up a workflow transition from a status to itself. The most common scenario is when you want to allow people to edit a limited amount of information on an issue, having the ability (with conditions and validators) to restrict permissions and validate what is being entered, all without having to change the status of an issue.

In this example, we use the transition to update the planned date of an issue:

That only makes sense for an issue that is already planned and it does not change the issue status. Moreover, only planners (a limited group of users) are allowed to do this, so we use a condition to restrict the permission. As it is important to inform certain users of the updated date, we can also capture a custom event to send a tailored notification to those users.

[Christian Happel]

Some context first:

We are using advanced roadmaps (aka Plans) and to provide visibility into what's planned short-term but on a higher-level also longer term (up to 18 months) across our multiple development teams.

For that we introduced new issue types called themes and initiatives that are on a higher level than epics. Initiatives usually have a timeframe of about a quarter, while themes can last even 6-12 months.

To the configuration part:

On themes and initiative we newly introduced a custom field to indicate if this is a customer-facing item, or not.

Based on this we created a new Plan that we are now using to educate our sales and consulting organization on what we are planning on the roadmap for the next couple of quarters.

Now, you can argue that for customers we anyways have to create a more beautiful representation of that roadmap, but here are two reasons why this Plan view helps us tremendously:

1. It allows us to have a conversation about the roadmap with our sales team before we actually publish it to our customers, potentially resulting in adjustments to it.

2. As we present right from within the Jira product it's clear to sales that this isn't in a state that can be shared with customers. I've seen it often enough: If you use beautiful slides to show a roadmap to sales, they will immediately take that and show it to our customers ;-)

So that's why I love the approach we've been taken with this simple custom field and a dedicated view on the roadmap for sales.

[Ben van den Berg]

I have done many advanced Jira Software configurations, primarily applying Full-scale implementations of Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) at a global enterprise level, with up to 65,000 users.

However, over the past year, I started using the Atlassian cloud platform, specifically Jira Software, Jira Work Management, and Confluence, to design, configure and implement Business Operations and Management Solutions (BOMS). I didn't use the toolset to develop the solutions on other software engineering platforms. I configured these solutions in Jira and Confluence, and the businesses use cloud instances as their business operations and management solutions.

These solutions are currently used by a Mechanical Engineering group of companies, an Electrical Engineering and Contracting company, a Refrigeration Contracting group of companies, and obviously for my own business, Agile Digital Solutions (Pty) Ltd.

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I crafted the following solutions as separate but interfaced and integrated modules:

Customer and Supplier Relation Management Module

This is the core module, and all other modules interface and integrate with the other modules and links anything related to a customer or supplier.

It also makes provision for Customer Statement Generation in PDF document format.

Sales Module

This module makes provision for the sale of stock (from an inventory when an Inventory Module is in place) or the sale of goods & services. Depending on the customer's business process, it caters for the following significant workflow steps: opportunity, billing (costing, quoting, invoicing), payment, and Done.

It includes real-time source document generation for the following documents: Costing, Quotations (Proform, Source & Copy), Invoices (Proform, Source & Copy), and Payment Receipts.

Workshop Management Module

The workshop module caters for the operation of a Mechanical Engineering Workshop. It covers a complete workflow process from when the business becomes aware of a work item (job) until the customer pays for it. 

The workflow covers the complete workshop operation and provides quality assurance steps according to their ISO9001 process requirements.

Billing Module

Some of the companies wanted a separation between the front office and the back office. In such instances, I implemented a separate Billing module depending on the customer's requirements. The Sales Modele and/or the Workshop Module integrate with the Billing Module and hand over the billing process to the back office operation. It caters for the following significant workflow steps: quoting, invoicing, payment, and Done.

It also includes real-time source document generation for the following documents: Quotations (Proforma, Source & Copy), Invoices (Proforma, Source & Copy), and Payment Receipts.

Jobs Module

This module is specifically used for electrical and refrigeration contractors with mobile teams performing emergency repairs, appointments, electrical compliance inspections, scheduled maintenance, etc. All work is planned, executed, tracked and recorded by this module, which integrates with a Billing Module. The mobile also integrates with a Google Workspace, and all appointments scheduled in Jira are assigned to specific teams and appear in the Google Calendars of the various team leaders. They also record their time (effort) and all materials used in the Jira job. It generates multiple Job Cards in PDF format, allowing customer sign-off and acceptance of work on the team leader's mobile device.

Inventory Module

We implement an Inventory Module when a business needs to keep track of stock items they manufacture or resell. It is a complete stock control function with PDF reporting. This module usually integrates with a Sales Module, Workshop Module, Billing Module, and Procurement Module.

Managed Equipment Module

I implemented a managed equipment module for a customer contracted to a Pharmaceutical supplier who owns cooling devices at hospitals and oncology practices. Those cooling devices need to be serviced and maintained at regular intervals to ensure they function optimally to preserve medication stored at those distributed locations. This module automates maintenance events by scheduling and keeping a record of all equipment and its maintenance history. It interfaces with the Job Module and their Billing Module. Various reporting functions are available, all of which generate PDF documents. 

Procurement Module

The procurement module takes care of all purchasing, regardless of whether it relates to manufacturing, cost of sale, trading etc. It caters to when a requisition is made, the procured items or services are sourced, approved, ordered, paid, received, inspected and accepted, and the transaction is completed. Some customers have ISO9001 quality processes included in their procurement module's workflow. And obviously, the module produces various source documents like Request For Quotations, Purchase Orders, Quantity and Quality Checklists etc.

The module also interfaces with an Inventory Module, Sale Modules, and Suppliers in the Customer & Supplier Relation Management Module.

Certificate of Compliance Module

This module is a Confluence Module that electrical, gas and refrigeration contractors utilise to record and issue various Compliance Certificates.

It records and keeps an accurate compliance certificate register for the relevant companies. Mobile inspection teams use it on mobile tablet devices to conduct inspections, compile assessments and issue electronic compliance certificates at their customer locations.

Financial Module

I am busy designing and configuring a Financial Module which will cater for the following functionality:

• Flexible Chart of Accounts
• Various types of General Ledger transactions.
• Banking: Bank Accounts, Bank Statements, Bank Deposits and Withdrawals, Bank reconciliation.
• Budgeting and tracking against budgets.
• Flexible financial and reporting periods.

I must provide Financial Reporting, like Charts of accounts, Balance sheets, Income Statements, General Ledgers, and Annual Financial Statements.
We plan to interface the Financial Module with all the other modules, like the Inventory-, Workshop-, Sales-, Jobs- and Procurement Modules, to reduce repeating and monotonous effort by automating as much as possible.

I hope this inspires you to apply Jira and Confluence way beyond the project management context.

All my customers love the Kanban boards and say they will not be able to live without them now that they are used to them.

[Kristin Lyons]

Mine is definitely Automation.  For my personal Jira instance I have a few Automations set to create issues on a monthly basis for re-occurring tasks that I have.  It reminds me to do basic things like check server storage and delete old backups.  Although it's on my personal Jira instance, I am an Atlassian Administrator for multiple organizations/companies so it's a way for me to really make sure I get everything done for each client that needs to be done on a regular basis without forgetting.

[Cathy McLeod]

We set up a Global Automation that clears the assignee when an issue is moved between projects, and only allow the assignee to be assigned by members of the project.

Prevents people from having random tickets assigned to them that they may or may not be able to access :)

[Gonchik Tsymzhitov]

My favorite configuration is using built-in functionality with no-custom functionalities.

like to use external middleware automation for Jira installations. 

[Daniel Ebers]

For us the favourite currently is the issue collector functionality - sometimes forgotten, this little precious form builder can help teams gather feedback from external sources, like a web page!
https://support.atlassian.com/jira-cloud-administration/docs/use-the-issue-collector/