Do you need a JSW License to create, modify and comment on issues in a project?

[Lance Gibson]

Hello,

We are currently in the process of implementing Jira Software for both IT and Business projects. We have already implemented JSM for ticketing. 

We are rather confused about the licensing and hoping someone in the community can shed some light. 

All of our IT staff have licenses for both JSM and JSW. So no issues there. However, on the JSW side, we plan to run business projects that have team members from the business side as well. In our legacy project management software - you could assign a role that did not consume a license to allow non-licensed team members to comment and complete project tasks. Is it possible to achieve something similar in JSW? 

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Accepted solution]

>you could assign a role that did not consume a license to allow non-licensed team members to comment and complete project tasks. Is it possible to achieve something similar in JSW?

Not in JSW.  You can, in theory, do it for Jira Work Management (core), and Jira Software projects, and you can allow some access to JSW issues, but only licenced Agents can move issues through the workflows.

I say "in theory", because you absolutely do not want to do it.  On server, you've lost most of the point of doing issue tracking - you won't know who is making the changes.  On a publically available system (server exposed to the internet or Cloud), you will be mercilessly spammed to death.  Sometimes within hours of opening the access up.

Unlicenced access is for reading stuff, never any form of write.

With JSM, you do have the ability to use "customer" accounts - they're registered and tracked, so you can keep the spammers out, but they do not allow customers to work with issues, only the requests that are presented in front of the issues.  (They do not count as licenced though, so they are free of cost)

[Lance Gibson]

Thank you for the info. So licensing is the preferred method here as the workaround opens up unwelcomed access. I get it. I'm thinking we'll slowly purchase licenses over time as we spin up business units in the system. 

Thanks again. 

[Kian Stack Mumo Systems · Accepted solution]

@Lance Gibson, 

There are ways to open up the instance to allow anyone to comment/create/edit without signing in. This is typically not recommended as anyone that can hit your Jira site (in Cloud, that is ALL of the internet by default) will be able to create/comment/edit. Additionally, all of those actions are logged as "Anonymous". You have no real security on projects you set up that way.

I would always recommend that you license the users contributing content. It's more expensive, but is almost always going to be the correct approach.

Thanks,

Kian