How do I create an empty project?

[Patrick Wright]

In reference to the following question (except I am using Jira Cloud not JSM): 

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-Service-Management/How-can-we-create-just-a-blank-project/qaq-p/1799231

I am struggling to figure out how to create a truly "blank" Jira project (perhaps I am attempting to use Jira as it was not intended, in which case please let me know the "right" way).

In one of my previous questions:

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-questions/Need-advice-on-creating-multiple-projects-for-multiple-teams/qaq-p/2900834

I decided to configure my Jira instance with a "team" project which contains the team's board and any team-specific issues.  I then have more Jira projects for products, product families, etc.

The "team" projects are easy to create.  They are based on the "Scrum" Project Template (since we have scrum teams).  I can configure one project then just copy the settings (e.g., workflows, schemes, etc...) to new team projects as needed.

My confusion comes when I want to create the "product" projects in Jira.  Essentially I am looking for a "template" which doesn't have boards and is just a repository of issues.  The team board will use the "Team" field to pull in issues across all active projects.  That way issues can "live" in the project to which they are related.

I notice a "Blank Project" template.  Is that what this is intended to be used for?

Since I am working with company-managed projects, what would be really helpful (at least in my mind) would be the ability to create a project with specific settings rather than using a template.  For example, when creating a project I should be able to choose which workflow scheme, issue type scheme, etc... to use.  It is slightly frustrating to have everything configured as I want it to have Jira then create all these new schemes, issue types, workflows, etc... every time I use one of the built-in templates.

[Walter Buggenhout]

Hi @Patrick Wright,

Totally agree. Only, there is a way! Just start creating your project from the scrum template, exactly like you did for the team projects. Then be persistent as you go through the different steps of the creation process and let Jira believe it can trick you into yet another set of separate schemes.

After 3 or 4 steps, you'll reach the point where you need to specify the name and key for your new project. Sneakily hidden below those fields is a check box that you can select to Share settings with an existing project. Tick the box and select any existing project from your instance. Your project will then inherit the scheme configuration of the selected project and no board will be created.

Hope this helps! 

[Patrick Wright]

@Walter Buggenhout Yes that is helpful to know.  I have used the "Share Settings" option before during my testing so it's good to confirm that this does what I am expecting.

Do you have any advice on my second question about how to create a project that doesn't have any boards?  Is that what the "Blank Project" template does?

Given that a "Scrum" project's options look like so:

I am looking for a project template that just has the Timeline, Calendar, List, Issues, and Components.

[Walter Buggenhout]

No, the blank project is a business project, which means it comes with a board and without components. It is team managed on top of that, so not what you want.

As I mentioned, if you create a project with shared settings, it will be created without a board. The downside of this is that that also eliminates the timeline view in a company managed project, since that is a feature linked to a board. So it's not 100% straightforward.

What might be good to know, is that Atlassian is currently preparing the rollout of a new navigation. You can read more about it in this support article. Along with many quite significant changes, one of the things I personally do appreciate, is that it lets you customise the navigation as a project administrator, so you can hide views you don't use. 

[Walter Buggenhout]

The new navigation is currently rolling out on a limited scale and is scheduled to become available during the first half of 2025.

[Patrick Wright]

Okay, that all makes sense.

I have one more related question. Do you know of any article which explains all the various project templates in detail (how they are configured, what they include, what types of issues, schemas, etc. they create, and how they are intended to be used)?  I have done some searching and all I could find were the following articles which only give a general and incomplete explanation:

https://support.atlassian.com/jira-software-cloud/docs/what-are-the-project-templates/

https://support.atlassian.com/jira-service-management-cloud/docs/what-are-the-project-templates/

[Walter Buggenhout]

I haven't seen any full documentation on existing templates, @Patrick WrightTemplate documentation to a certain extent is included right inside the product. When you create a new project from a template, I believe in the 2nd step of the creation process, you can see an overview page that lists e.g. the issue types and workflows that will be created with the template. You can safely click through these steps and familiarise yourself with the ones that (based on their title) seem to make sense to you. As long as you don't complete the last step in the creation process, nothing will be created in your site, so it won't create any clutter.

But circling back to your original statement: keep in mind that every project created from a template wil contain its own configuration schemes for issue types, workflows and screens. If you have already built your own project configuration, you might be better off not using any of the templates at all anymore because of that. Until you really start exploring something completely new, such as setting up a service desk or a project for a marketing team, to name a couple of examples.