Setting up a Company-Managed project template

[Alex MacPhee]

I am excited about the new feature of Company-Managed projects. It sounds like it solves a lot of the issues we have had in the past with major workflow deviations and the difficulty that creates for our QA team that wants the ability to roll up multiple projects into one board. With every project utilizing the same workflow and project setup we should be able to gather consistent data across all of our teams as well.

My issue is that I can not seem to find a good guide for how, as an administrator, I can setup the standard workflow and project configurations that I want my software teams to use. I don't see any way to promote an existing workflow or setup the company template anywhere in the admin menu. 

I assume I am either misunderstanding the purpose of a Company-Managed project or it is just so new that documentation is not quite there yet.

[Trudy Claspill · Accepted solution]

Hello @Alex MacPhee 

Company Managed projects are not new. This is the original project concept for Jira, and was previously referred to as "Classic" projects. Team Managed projects, previously referred to as "NextGen" were the new feature.

You cannot set up an actual template that will be available in the project creation process for a Company Managed project. Instead what you do is actually create a project and create all the schemes that you would want to use as a template. Then in the project creation process, when you get to the point of entering the Name for your project, you can select the option to "Share settings with an existing project", and then select the project that you have configured with all the schemes that you want the new project to use. The new project will be created with all those same schemes associated to it automatically.

For existing projects, you would have to modify each project's configuration to assign the "template" schemes to it, which could lead to the need to make significant updates to the project usage if there are significant variations from the schemes they already use and the "standard" schemes you want all projects to use.

If you have additional questions on this, please don't hesitate to ask.

[Alex MacPhee]

Thank you for your response. This is disappointing. After reading this description:
https://support.atlassian.com/jira-software-cloud/docs/what-are-team-managed-and-company-managed-projects/
I assumed It would allow for me to have a standardized workflow and project setup. The "Share settings" process is awkward and people forget what the template project is named or they forget to click the box.  Currently we have 50ish projects with workflows named after the project and 50ish different statuses to map to my roll-up board. I had hopes that this problem was resolved. 

Sounds like I will need to get all the Project Managers to follow the pattern moving forward. In the meantime I will migrate old projects to the new workflow and get things back on track.

Thanks again for the assistance! forgive me for my disappointment :) 

[Trudy Claspill]

Another option for you to consider is a third party app called Delegated Project Creator.

I used that app a few years ago, but with Jira Server. Back then, we could create a project "template" in that app that would allow us to set each Scheme we would want the new project to have. Users could use the app to request a new project from the list of templates provided through that app. The app was also used to fulfill the requests, with the ability to fulfill the request (creation of the project through the app) being allowed to only Jira Admins, but also being able to delegate the ability to fulfill the request to non-admins.

At the time, I was using Jira Server and the app wasn't supported for Jira Cloud. I have not investigated how the functionality has evolved for the app, no whether there is a difference in the functionality based on the hosting of Jira.

There may be other apps that provide similar functionality. 

[W.L]

Hi @Alex MacPhee 

I understand and share your frustration with the share settings process.

"Share settings" process is awkward and people forget what the template project is named

You might want to take a look at cloud addons that allow you to create custom projects templates. There are some with different functionality, UX/UI and price range so just compare for yourself.

https://marketplace.atlassian.com/search?query=project%20templates%20jira

[Mikael Sandberg]

You cannot promote a project to be a template, but what you could do is create a project that you use when you create other projects. Then at the end when you name the new project you can select your template project to share the configurations with the new one.

[Alex MacPhee]

Thanks Mikael! This is unfortunately what I was afraid the answer would be.

[Jasmine Thomas (TechTime)]

I would suggest creating a project with all of the configurations added and name it "*Project name* template".

You could have a "Development Project Template", or "Support Team Template", etc. This should make it easier when employees are unsure of what project to choose once the "Share settings with an existing project" is checked.