How to search for projects and how to get an overview?

[Deleted user]

I would like to know how I can search for a project? And how do I get an overview of projects which are assigned to me or in which I have issues. At the moment we are loosing speed, and so much time, because we cannot perform searches on projects. We have over 300 projects to manage!

Does anybody know?

[Guillermo _DEISER_ · Accepted solution]

Hello Daphne;

As Nic said the searches in JIRA are for issues. However, if you need to create a way to classify your projects (I'm not talking about categories) you could try our plugin profields. With profields you can create Project-level attributes (metadata) such as: technology, department, priority, status, type (build and support for instance). Then you can show the information in some gadgets we provide.

But with the version 2.0 you can also execute JQL queries based on Profields values. Example: I want to know all the projects of a certain department. The filter can be dispalyed in a gadget with the list of the projects that meet the statement.

I know that the example you mentioned can be very tricky to adapt but you can have the filters saved in order to have this list. But you would probably need more differents scenarios to justify the plugin. Who knows...

Of course, you must decide if this type of project level information is useful for your company. If so, I think that profields can be a great help. You can know more about it at: https://marketplace.atlassian.com/plugins/com.deiser.jira.profields

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Indeed, profields is an excellent way to add project-level data. I think Daphne needs to work out what she's actually wanting to search before she can decide how to approach the problem, but if storing data at a project level is the route, then I was going to suggest exactly this plugin.

[Guillermo _DEISER_]

I agree with Nic;

If you have only this problem, the use of Profields is like to use a sledgehammer to crack a nut :-) But if this is only one of your concerns, you can give it a chance.

Cheers

[Deleted user]

Thank you so much for the help. We are going to try Profields and see if it's a solution.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

What do you expect a "search on projects" to be? I mean, what results would you expect?

What does clicking on "projects -> view all projects" not do?

Jira's searches are for issues, which belong to projects. You don't assign projects to people, you assign issues within those projects. All you need to do is run the standard "assigned to me" filter and you'll see what you have been assigned across all the projects. If you want that project specific, then add the project(s) into the search to narrow it down. You can get a simple summary on your dashboard too - add the "filter statistics" gadget, tell it to look at "assigned to me" for the filter, and then select "project" as the statistic, and you'll get a simple bar chart showing you all the projects you've got issues assigned to you in it.

(For what it's worth, I've got 1000 projects to work with on my main client, and I've worked with bigger - 9000 in one place. I've never needed to search for projects. Only issues)

[Deleted user]

Hi Nic,

Thank you for your reply. I have customners who ask for support. They send me an e-mail and then I have to make an issue in Jira in the project of that specific customer. For instance:

Website is down -> I get an e-mail -> I go to Jira and now I want to search for this clients support project (most customers have multiple projects, build and support). Now I go to the projects tab and then I use the find of my browser to locate the project because I can't use the search of Jira as it cannot search for a project. I already have made a tab with all the support projects in it. But still I waste a lot of time searching for a project. And I cannot get an overview of my projects.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Ok, I can see the problem, but I can't see how you expect a project search to help you. There's two questions here:

1. How do you know that customer X should be raising something in project Y? How are you storing that relationship?

2. Again, the question is how you expect "project search" to work? How do you know what you are looking for, and if you did have some form of project search, what would you type into a search box and what results would you expect?