Next-gen release notes for Jira Software Cloud

[#1]

Update October 7th 2019:

For the latest updates on Next-gen, please head over to https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/whats-new/next-gen

Next-gen projects is agile as you know it, and aims to combine the power of Jira with the simplicity you expect. It enables teams to start clean, with a simple un-opinionated way of working, and is poised to progressively add more structure to the way your team works, as and when you need it.

The way we’re approaching the new next-gen experience mirrors this philosophy - we started with a clean slate and we are rebuilding Jira front to back, and progressively disclosing the power to you.

Next-gen will eventually satisfy all the needs that classic projects satisfy today, and more.

Got a question? scroll to the bottom of this article to leave a comment, like or watch this page for updates

New to next-gen projects in Jira Software Cloud? Check out this guide to getting started with next-gen projects. 

Would like to know a lot more about next-gen? Watch the new Jira begins now.

Interested in what's coming next? Please visit the public roadmap.

Next-gen release notes

Released June 17th 2019

• Time tracking: Need to track how much time you spend on a story or bug? Now you can log the hours you work on issues in your next-gen project.

Released June 12th 2019

• Subtasks: Looking for a way to break your work down into manageable chunks and get visibility on how these granular pieces of work are progressing - we've got you covered.

Released June 12th 2019

• Card layout: When priority and due date are configured on an issue type, we'll display these on the card in the backlog and board. This is a first step towards letting you customise the card layout.

Released June 3rd 2019

• Roadmap chart on iOS: Next-gen roadmaps are now accessible on iPad devices.

Released May 8th 2019

• Filtering improvements: Some improvements to filtering on the Board and Backlog to help you quickly find your work.
  • Filter lists will be sorted alphabetically
  • A search bar will included when there are more than 10 items in the list
  • An issue type filter will be added by default
  • Epics marked as Done will no longer show in the epics filter list
  • It will be possible to share a filtered view with others by copying the URL

Released Apr 15th 2019

• People field: Been looking for a user picker custom field? Good news! You can now add a *People* field to your next-gen issue types. The *People* field lets your team select people across your Jira site to complete the field. To restrict the field to a single person, all you have to do is tick a box. 

Released Apr 12th 2019

• Link to Confluence pages: Give your issues instant context with links to Confluence pages. Click the Confluence page quick-add button at the top-left of an issue, then choose from a list of recently visited pages or paste in a link to a page.

Released Mar 11th 2019

• Grouping on mobile: Project admins can now choose to group issues on the board by assignee or by epics when on their mobile device. The grouping will be seen by all users across both web and mobile.

Released Feb 21st 2019

• Inline issue create on backlog: Create issues in the backlog in any position. No more having to scroll to the bottom of the backlog and then moving your issue after it has been created!

Released Feb 14th 2019

• Default field values: Save time creating issues by prefilling your custom fields with a default value. Set a default priority level for each of your issue types or give them default set labels for filtering, sorting and reporting.

Released Feb 6th 2019

• Issue watching: You can now add and remove watchers by using the eye icon in the top right of the issue detail view. It will display a list of people watching the issue as well. Learn more

Released Feb 1st 2019

• New Builds API and  Integration: To help your team understand where the development of a particular feature is at in its life cycle, we've provided an API to allow 3rd parties to create Apps to add build status to your Jira issues. Learn more

Released Jan 24th 2019

• Epics with color: Categorize the Epics on your roadmap by color (the additional spice-factor is just a bonus!)
• Export your roadmap into image: Easily export your roadmap to PNG to share via presentations, Confluence pages, or emails.

• Navigation change for User management and Billing: Navigate to User management and Billing from anywhere in Jira. Site administrators will see the Settings icon appear on the bottom of the left navigation panel.

Released on Jan 18th 2019

• Support for project categories: Assigning categories to next-gen projects now works the same way as classic projects. You can add your next-gen project to any of the categories (pre-defined by your Jira admin) from the Details page in Project settings. 

  Project admins can learn how to assign a next-gen project to a category here: https://confluence.atlassian.com/x/l4MyO

  Jira admins can learn how to create new categories here: https://confluence.atlassian.com/x/-A5WMg

Released on Jan 14th 2019

Announcing the first release of realtime board and issue updates!

When you transition a card by dragging its position;

• up or down,
• between columns,
• between swimlanes, or
• make changes to the Summary or any field on the card,

updates will be seen by all other users looking at the board, backlog or issue views in next-gen projects. This currently only works across the Jira web interface, but we're working to bring this also to mobile.

Realtime updates gives you confidence that you're looking at the very latest updates. We think it'll be a hit, especially for those of you who spend a lot of time working remotely.

Released on Dec 17th 2018

• New Jira issues performance improvement: ~10% improvement in the load times

Released on Nov 12th 2018

Performance improvements!

In true web app fashion, we've updated Jira so that it no longer wastes time reloading pages as you switch between navigation items.

This dramatically improves application performance, making Jira feel snappier, and overall makes navigation in Jira faster. An example is timing the roundtrip journey from navigating to reports and back from the board. Time trials (including time it took our testers to click on navigation items) has shown that we've made this particular journey 57sec faster!

Note that this is a first release and not all functionality has this feature right at this time but we are continuously updating all parts of Jira to work in this more performant single page app way.

Released on Oct 30th 2018

• Drop down custom field: Drop downs are a great way to capture information from a defined list of options. These will allow for single and multiple selection of options. Read more
• Epic assignment improvements: we've responded to a lot of feedback from you that when you are on the backlog, or board or the issue view, it is hard to set the parent issue (eg. epic). We've fixed that with convenient access to change the parent issue.

Released on Oct 17th 2018

• Story point estimation: Estimation is a great way get a shared understanding in your team of the effort required to complete a piece of work. Our first iteration will be focused on Story Points and in the future we will make Time estimates available. These Story Point estimates will also show up in your Burnup and Velocity reports to help your team learn and improve over time. Read more

Released on Oct 12th 2018

• Last updated timestamp in Roadmaps: Know how up to date your plan is with our roadmap timestamp, which tells you exactly when the last change was made on your plan; and by who. 

Released on Oct 11th 2018

• Apps list: The apps list will allow you to view the marketplace apps you have installed for Jira Software and see how they have been configured. This will be available from the project configuration screen in project settings. Read more

Released on Oct 10th 2018

• Drag n drop in Roadmaps: We know that plans change; we've now made it even easier to keep your roadmap up to date with the ability to more fluidly adjust your priorities. Move an issue to the top of the list and bring it forward in time in a single action. Read more

Released on Sep 21st 2018

• Epics: A much-loved featured on classic Scrum and Kanban projects is making a return - Epics! This means you'll soon be able to group your work into general themes, giving you the power to organize your team's work at a high level. Read more

• Roadmaps: With roadmaps, visualise the work that's in progress and what's coming next - right inside Jira Software. Collaborate with your team on the epics you want to prioritise and quickly react to change by easily adapting your roadmap. Read more

Released on Jul 27th 2018

• New rule: Automatically update a field: We're building a rule to help you automatically update an issue's fields. Soon, you'll be able to add the rule to one of your columns and set up which field should be updated. Once added, Jira automatically the value of an issue's field when it's dragged into the column. To add rules to your agility board:
  1. Select the More menu (…) > Manage rules.
  2. Select Add rule.
  3. Choose the rule you want to add and set it up.

• Customize the fields on your issue types: Some tasks require more information to help your team begin the work. Jira now lets you customize fields on issue types, providing more context for your team. 

[Alf Prøven]

Any updates on when subtasks might be available in Jira Next Gen?

[Jason Wong]

@Alf Prøven thanks for the question!

We can't give specific times on when it will be released just yet, but I can tell you that it is in development. We've heard a lot of next-gen users request subtasks to help them break down and track work in smaller individual increments.

We'll also be adding in the ability to add checkboxes to descriptions and comments that are designed for more lightweight / personal tasks in situations where you don't need / want full blown workflow tracking.

[Jonathan Chatwin]

@Jason WongMost of the images above are broken... FYI

[Fowler]

Lack of subtasks are the only thing holding me back from migrating my team and our existing projects to Next Gen. I love that you're getting a "fresh start" with the new project types, and am really happy with the experience, but even launching without subtasks is kind of shocking.

It's pretty rare to be able to "start from scratch" with a new project, and not being able to move existing issues with subtasks into a Next Gen project has put our migration completely on hold.

Guess I'll go assign custom epic colors for a while /s 😫

PS: Inline checklists/lightweight subtasks sound awesome

[Jason Wong]

@Jonathan Chatwin - thanks for reporting the problem. We'll get the images fixed.

Which image do you think you're most interested in seeing?

[Jason Wong]

I've re-uploaded the images so they should be fixed now.

[Jason Wong]

@Fowler Thanks & noted. We're working hard to get subtasks to you and later on a way to help move over existing issues & subtasks.

[Marton Sarkadi]

When will it be possible to log time to a next gen project? I can't seem to find a way to do that. This is the most essential thing in a project for the team to log time so we can follow the progress and see how much time was used from the estimated amount.

[Sjef van Wezel]

The next-gen certainly brings a number of great improvements, a few things are holding me back to switch.  For example in the classic project configuration I can define tabs to group custom fields.

Activating Next-gen shows them all in the right panel which makes grouping a bit useless and second text fields with a wiki style renderer are just shown as plain text. So if for those issues a solutions is provided I’m ready to go. Is there a release date known to provide a solution for this?

[Jeremy Steuhl]

Can the status of each epic appear on the bar in the road map?  Like in the example below?

It would be awesome if we could somehow see whether the epic is at risk of not being completed on time.  

[Jason Wong]

Hi @Marton Sarkadi,

We’re currently looking into whether we make time tracking any different to how it is implemented in Classic, but at the moment the focus is on delivering sub-tasks. Are you using any other external tools to track times such as Hubstaff or Tempo? Are you using it purely for estimation and tracking progress against that or also for other things like payroll?

[Jason Wong]

@Sjef van Wezel Glad to hear that we’re getting close!

I’m pleased to tell you that the kind of benefits you were getting with tabs to group fields that you’re missing with the new issue view is coming soon.

[Jason Wong]

@Jeremy Steuhl we're looking into this and understand why you needed it. We're taking small steps there, such as removing completed epics from the default view. A few customers have also requested a view on epic progress with visibility into it's child issues. 

We're still figuring out how to balance the need to give you the ability to display more critical information without over complicating the view.

[Marton Sarkadi]

Hi @Jason Wong,

time logging is one of (if not THE) most important features for us in Jira. We use it for estimation and also to track progress, it would be great to use it with the new next-gen roadmap feature. We use it for payroll as well, some of our team are contractors. Some use Toggl as external tool and sync the times with one of the plugins.

[James Graham]

Is there a way to get Next-Gen issues showing on a current gen board which includes those projects/issues?

The JQL is showing them correctly in the filter view but they don't appear on our Kanban board.

[Peter Nguyen]

I noticed there's a setting in Jira Cloud to set fo parallel sprints but when I do, it doesn't seem to be work?  Anyone else experiencing this?

[Jason Wong]

@James Graham - yes it is possible to do that by first creating a filter, and then a board based on that filter. Jump down to where it says "To create a Scrum or Kanban board based on filters".

It sounds like you've already done that, so I suspect the reason it isn't showing is that the statuses haven't been mapped to your columns. Go to board settings -> Columns and check that the statuses are mapped. There are some limitations and sometimes they won't map due to the statuses being defined at a project level vs the older boards using globally defined statuses.

[Jason Wong]

@Peter Nguyen - that will only work on Classic boards. The next-gen boards do not currently support parallel sprints. It's very project centric at the moment, but from here on you'll see the team adding more sophisticated ways to manage work.

[James Graham]

Thanks so much Jason, totally missed that!

[Conor]

I keep being added inadvertently to projects within my company. How can I leave these projects myself instead of having to contact the project owner to make their project's private?

[BiancaE]

Great that we're keeping the same page running to easily glance at previous releases!

[Eoin]

@BiancaE I just finished making an update and I saw your comment. We seem to be limited to character count on this page so I had to remove some of the earlier detail. This community page will continue to be where we answer questions, but we also have a public roadmap where you can view the same information and this will have everything for historical purposes... https://www.atlassian.com/roadmap/jira-software

[Jack Robertson]

How can I turn off the next-gen default view for my users? We've created specific screens for a project that just didn't look good in next-gen, so I need to have them see those by default so I don't have to tell every user to go into their settings and turn it off.

[Lou Hill]

@Jason Wong or @Eoin is this page no longer being updated?  Last update was March 11th, though changes have been made to Next Gen Projects.  Seeing the new epic progress bar and option to link to a Confluence page, I am curious if I missed any other changes or what is coming next.  I also checked the public roadmap, it appears dated as well.  Thanks.

[Deleted user]

@Jason Wong: really loving next-gen projects thus far. It's like y'all have bottled up the best-of-Jira and I appreciate keeping it light.

What's the best way for the community to help provide feedback on the roadmap and stay plugged in?