What is the purpose/definition of the project lead?

[Scott Baitz]

In all of our Jira Service Management projects, there is a project lead. Currently, it's defined as the administrator, and I'd like to actually put the correct lead for each of the project as the lead, however, I can't find any definition or support article to what that would do and if that inherits certain permissions? 

Or is it just a "title" and doesn't actually do anything? I want to empower the project leads, but also need to ensure that certain restrictions are still followed.

Thanks for any help anyone can provide here.

[Mikael Sandberg · Accepted solution]

Hi @Scott Baitz,

Welcome to Atlassian Community!

You can use the Project Lead to auto-assign new work items to them, similar to what you can do with Component Lead.

In most cases you leave the assignment part as unassigned and in that case the lead would be the person that is responsible for the project. 

[Scott Baitz]

Hi Mikael,

Thank you for the response. Auto-assign/default assignee is it's own option though, which is part of where my confusion is. If it is strictly just a "primary contact", then I'm all in. But the subtext of ensuring the lead has access to issues makes me question if it also adds permissions to other pieces of JSM that has me curious.

 

[Mikael Sandberg]

No, it does not add the project lead to any permissions, you could specify a lead that do not have access to the project at all potentially. It is only used as "primary contact" and default assignee if that is set.

[Scott Baitz]

Awesome! Thanks for the clarity.

[Laurie Sciutti]

Hi @Scott Baitz and welcome to the Community!  A project lead is essentially the main point of contact for that project.  There are options like @Mikael Sandberg noted about using project lead as the default assignee for issues in the project, but they can also be designated as the default for the project components and other project permissions in the permission scheme.  I also use the Project Lead as my go-to for any questions related to that "Project" or application.  HTH

[Scott Baitz]

Hi Laurie,

Thanks for the response. Yes, I'm hoping to use it as a template for some automations to be the "go-to" for the project as we have different projects with different leads. I just want to ensure that it doesn't serve some other undocumented purpose as there doesn't seem to be any documentation about it.

[Harrison Ponce]

This support page describes it quite vaguely but from what I have seen, you can use it in some areas for automation. It's super unclear which areas allow the use of project lead and which don't, but I've stumbled upon them randomly.

We use it more for information purposes on who we should work with, but of course wish it played a more obvious and important function.

[Scott Baitz]

Hi Harrison,

Thanks! Yeah, I had come across that support page too and found it... lacking and unclear as well.

Sounds like you're using it in some ways as we're hoping to. Mostly for us it's to be informational, to be used in a few automations, and also to allow JSM Admins to know who is running the project if there are questions or issues with the setup.