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Tuesday, August 23, 2022

Jira Integration Best Practices and FAQs:

 



Issue, Story, and Epic Management

Jira only has a two level backlog hierarchy: Epic -> Story, whereas Jira

Align enables at minimum a five-level hierarchy: Strategy -> Theme ->

Epic -> Feature -> Story. Capability can also be introduced between Epic

and Feature for six levels: Strategy -> Theme -> Epic -> Capability ->

Feature -> Story.

Between Jira and Jira Align, an “Epic” in Jira becomes a “Feature” in Jira

Align, as it is the natural parent of aStory, a “Story” becomes a “Story”,

a “Bug” becomes a “Defect”, and a “Sub-Task” becomes a “Task” under

aStory. Any other custom issue types can be configured to integrate, and

those will become a “Story” in Jira Align, with a Type field indicating the

origin type configured from Jira.


Best practice: Use “Epics” in Jira as you would “Features”


A feature should be a concise unit of value that can be delivered within

a single program increment. Any objects in Jira that you use to represent

true “Epics” (which are allowed to span a PI), whether they be Jira Epics

or another object, should be migrated to be Epics within Jira Align.

The feature level should be represented by Jira “Epics”, with stories

directly underneath them. True epics have no representation in Jira. The

connection between epics and features will be made within Jira Align.

Best practice: Ensure stories in Jira are tied to a

parent Jira Epic

Stories not tied to a parent (epic in Jira or feature in Jira Align) are

considered “orphaned” stories. The value from these stories cannot be

rolled up to any higher level initiative to promote organizational visibility.

In Jira Align, you can use Program > Backlog (select PI at the top left, and

then click Orphan Objects at the top right), to see your orphaned stories

and assign them to a parent feature.



Best practice: Ensure stories in Jira have a story

point estimate

Without an estimate, it is impossible to forecast completion for a backlog.

Estimates are also what drive the velocity number for a team per sprint.

Each portfolio in Jira Align can be configured to estimate stories in one of

two ways: Modified Fibonacci or Power of Two. Ensure your stories use

the correct estimation system for your portfolio and that the majority are

estimated. At the least, there should be no unestimated stories assigned

to an active sprint. In Jira Align, you can use Program > Backlog (select PI

at the top left, and then click Orphan Objects at the top right), to see your

unestimated stories.

Best practice: Finish story within a sprint, otherwise, move or

split it before closing the sprint

Within Jira, if an issue (story, etc.) is unfinished when you close the sprint,

Jira will tell you it is moving the story to the backlog. Unfortunately, that

story will forever be tagged with the sprint where it was not finished

if you do it this way. Let’s say another team picks up the story in their

sprint. Now it looks like that story belongs to two sprints, and in fact the

Jira reports for the original team will now include the new team’s sprint

in the filter dropdown menu. When this occurs, you also have to tell Jira

Align which sprints belong to which teams, by going to Team > Manage >

Sprints, and then selecting the Manage Jira Sprints option from the More

Actions menu at the top-right of the page. You will need to remove wrong

sprints from teams where they do not belong.

To avoid this whole issue in both Jira and Jira Align, remove the stories

from the sprint BEFORE closing the sprint. This will accurately report in

Jira that you had a scope change for the sprint, and it will not forever tag

that story with the sprint it was not completed in. Another work around is

to split the story within Jira Align, allowing part of the story to be properly

closed out in one sprint, and the remainder to go to the backlog or any

future sprint.


Q: What if I use Jira Components, the Structures Plugin, or some other

way to mimic a three- or fourtier hierarchy in Jira?

A: The Jira Align/Jira integration does not support Components or third

party plugins. Plan to use Jira Align for all layers above the feature, which

is represented natively in Jira as a Jira Epic. You will need a migration

plan for importing your higher level layers into Jira Align, which can easily

be done via Portfolio > Epics > More Actions > Import Epics or Solutions >

Capabilities > More Actions > Import Capabilities (if using capabilities).

Q: What if my team does not do any story estimation?

A: If your team does not estimate stories, then Agile common sense would

indicate that all your stories are approximately the same amount of work

(“sized” the same). If that is the case, the best thing is to estimate all

stories with the same value (1 or 2, for example). That way the velocity can

still be calculated (by both Jira and Jira Align) and will reflect the number

of stories completed. If the stories are NOT all of similar size, then not

estimating them means you will not be able to calculate a velocity, you

cannot make trade-offs between larger and smaller stories, you cannot do

any forecasting, and a host of other anti-patterns. In this case, your teams

should begin to estimate your stories ahead of putting them into sprints,

at a minimum, according to Agile best practices.

Q: What if my team makes heavy use of custom issue types?

A: Any custom issue types can easily be configured to integrate to Jira

Align. These issues will be represented in Jira Align as stories, and you can

preserve the original issue type name in the field called Type on the story.

© 2019 Jira Align — Confidential and Proprietary 15

Q: What if I map the same Jira field (Story Points) to two unique Jira Align

fields (LOE for stories and Points for features)?

A: A custom field is created or exists by default in Jira. This field is added

to the Story Points field ID mapping in Jira Align under Administration >

Jira Settings > Jira Setup. You need to turn on the Enable Feature Point

Sync and Enable Story Point Sync options on the Jira Setup page. In Jira,

you need to make the Story Points field show up on the Jira story and epic

pages.

The story’s LOE field in Jira Align syncs with the Story Points field in Jira.

The feature’s Points field in Jira Align would sync with the Story Points

field on the Jira epic.

Note that Jira Align features (Jira epics) have story points in Jira Align that

is a rollup of children stories LOE. Jira Align does not sync this field with

Jira epics; it syncs the feature’s Points field which is a separate estimate.

Q: How do I prioritize Jira epics and stories?

A: To enable rank synchronization between Jira Align and Jira, a custom

field ID for rank must be set in the Rank text field on the Jira Settings

page within Jira Align Administration. In the field, enter the default Jira

rank field’s ID. The setting Enable Rank Sync on the same page must also

be set to Yes.

Rank synchronization is performed automatically; ranking must be either

pushed to or pulled from Jira Align on demand. To do this, navigate to the

feature or story backlog, ensure a program is selected in the Configuration

bar, and set the program increment to None. Ranking requires setting the

PI to None as PIs don’t exist in Jira. Then, select Pull Rank and choose to

either push or pull the rank from the external system.

Once a push or pull request has been made, a job order to the external

system is created and the rank synchronizes after the job finishes. After

the job order is sent, the options for push and pull rank are not selectable

until the job completes.


If Push rank to the External System has been selected, the rank of all

items in the selected Jira backlog updates according to the ranks of their

corresponding Jira Align issues. If Pull rank from the External System has

been selected, the Jira Align backlog rank updates according to the ranks

of their corresponding Jira issues.

Note that only items that are visible on the Jira Align backlog when push

or pull rank is performed will be updated.

Q: Why are issues in Jira sometimes updated with the connector ID and

sometimes by an actual user?

A: The updates made via the service account were made in Jira Align.

Updates made by a specific user were made in Jira. In Jira Align, the

service account will use Jira user information when available due to

matching external ID or emails between Jira Align accounts and Jira

accounts. Updates made to Jira are made by the service account via the

API so they will have the service account’s name. If you need to verify who

made the update, you can typically check the Jira Align audit log.



Commonly Utilized Jira Query Language (JQL)

A very useful tool used to search for Jira issues is JQL, which stands for

Jira Query Language. Jira users can use JQL to create database queries

to provide faster access to information in Jira. If you have a technical

background and are familiar with SQL, then you have a head start

because Atlassian’s implementation of JQL is similar. To learn more

about JQL and how to use it with Jira, please consult Atlassian’s Jira

documentation:

·· Search Jira like a Boss with JQL

·· JQL: The Most Flexible Way to Search Jira

JQL functions the same way in Jira Align as it does with a Jira Advanced

Search--it allows you to create custom queries that search for data in

Jira. When a JQL query is used in Jira Align, it returns data directly from

Jira and performs a one-way sync to Jira Align (i.e., data is pulled from Jira

into Jira Align, but not pushed from Jira Align into Jira). For example, you

can use a JQL query to search for a specific sprint in Jira, and have the

found sprint added to Jira Align’s backlog and/or Sprint grid.

The primary use case for JQL queries is to search for legacy data in Jira

and have it pulled into Jira Align. For example, let’s suppose Jira was

integrated with Jira Align via the connector on a specific date, such as

01/01/18. In this case, Jira and Jira Align data has been syncing since the

integration date, but what if you wanted to sync data that was created

before the integration date, for example from the year 2017? You would

need to create a JQL query that searches for your target data in Jira and

syncs it with Jira Align.

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