Can I use JIRA to track issues for a project that spans across multiple products?

[Cyrus Doomasia]

Hello,

I am a newbie to JIRA and I was hoping that the experts out there can help me out.

My company is currently implementing a complex project. This project requires implementing on at least 4 different products. Each product has numerous Components.

PROJECT ABC

• Product A
  • Component A1
    • Issue 00001
    • ...
  • Component A2
    • Issue 00001
    • ...
  • ...
• Product B
  • Component A1
    • Issue 00001
    • ...

• • Component A2
    • Issue 00001
    • ...
  • ...
• Product C
  • Component A1
    • Issue 00001
    • ...

• • Component A2
    • Issue 00001
    • ...
  • ...
• Product D
  • Component A1
    • Issue 00001
    • ...
  • Component A2
    • Issue 00001
    • ...
  • ...

Each product is developed by a different team that maintain their own sets of issues. Currently, there is no easy way for the project manager (or an executive) to track what are the gating issues on the WHOLE project. He or she has to go to individual products to find its status.

Can and how would one setup JIRA to help with this situation?

Thank you!

[John Price · Accepted solution]

Hi Cyrus -

Since you didn't mention Jira Agile I will assume you aren't using that. If these products are software applications with different codebases, bugs, features, etc. I would suggest having a different Jira project per product. In order to see what's going on across all the products, I would create some saved filters and custom Jira dashboards. For example, let's say your project is to release MS Office 3000, and you have teams working on Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. I'd have Jira projects and components like:

WORD

Editor

Printing

Import/Export

EXCEL

Import/Export

Formulas

PPT

Presentation Mode

Image Editing

Then I'd have saved filters like:

Open MS Office Issues (JQL: Project IN ('WORD', 'EXCEL', 'PPT') AND Resolution = unresolved

Or you can use Project Categories to change that to

Category = "Office Products" AND Resolution = unresolved

Then you can just set up various Jira dashboards that use that sort of filter. Dashboards are easy to create and you can have lots of them if needed.

If you have more complex needs like requirements management, issue ranking, release management there are says to handle that using Jira/Confluence/Jira Agile or other tools.

[mwarton]

Hi Cyrus,

Just wanted to mention that you might want to check out our reporting plugin Intelligent Reports.

It lets you easily get reports across multiple projects in executive friendly Microsoft Word format. The reports can be customized to your specific purposes.

You simply design your report template in Microsoft Word, then use simple point and click rules to fill in the report with JIRA data. No scripting or API to learn.

It even comes with a cross project sample report preinstalled, the All Projects Timesheet report, which breaks down your entire teams time logged in JIRA by project, staff and issue.

Try the 30 day free trial and see if it fits your team.