Can Jira handle large amounts of stored documents in Stories/Subtasks?

[Markus Lindberg]

Hi!

We have set up a project/workflow/board that we want to try. Our workflow consists of one Story that consists of 3-15 subtasks, depending on the complexity/nature of the project. However, our projects (Stories) can imply an ample amount of documents, documents that we would like to store in Jira. The functionality of storing files in both Stories and Subtasks exists, but is it appropriate to do so (for example with regards to searchability)? Or is there some kind of limitation when it's NOT appropriate to store documents? And if so - what is the "critical mass"? 

Reaching out for input on this, perhaps even experience from using Jira as a documentation tool. Thanks in advance!

[Tarun Sapra · Accepted solution]

Hello @Markus Lindberg 

Just to add to the answer by @Christos Moysiadis 

- You can easily have 15 sub-tasks (or even more), that's not an issue.

- Jira is for project tracking and management and confluence is for content management. Hence use Confluence for managing and creating content and you can easily link content with Jira issues.

- Very large files (like video files etc) don't go that well with confluence, especially space exports etc. Thus, even if you have large doc files (xls,doc,pdfs etc) you can use easily use confluence 

As per docs (Search)

https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/search-139528.html

It also looks at the content of some attached file types (Word, Text, PowerPoint, Excel, PDF, and HTML).

Hence in confluence it's also possible to search contents of attachments which comes in very handy.

[Markus Lindberg]

Thanks for your and @Christos Moysiadis answers!

Actually, my main concern is not the amount of subtasks, but the amount of documents that can be stored on Jira in a way that's easily manageable. We can absolutely think of using a mix of Confluence and Jira in the future, we have thought in that direction earlier, but to start with we would like to just use Jira and see how it goes.

So, back to my main question. If excluding Confluence for now, is it appropriate to upload potentially many (100+) documents (pdf's, xls's, etc, no heavy media files) in Jira, given our tentative setup (1 Story with 3-15 Subtasks)?

/ Markus

[Tarun Sapra]

Hello @Markus Lindberg  as you said

"(100+) documents"

That's not an issue at all. Jira can easily handle large number of attachments. The instance I am managing, has over 100 thousand(100K) attachments and things are running pretty smooth.

[Markus Lindberg]

Wow! Looks like a green light for us then :p And is it easy if you want to search for a specific document in a case/project that was finished ~one year ago? 

[Tarun Sapra]

And just to add, if you want to search for specific attachments etc in JIRA then that's not supported natively in Jira, instead you will need to use paid third party apps for searching for attachments via JQL

https://scriptrunner.adaptavist.com/latest/jira/jql-functions.html#_attachments

https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/31399/jql-tricks-plugin?hosting=server&tab=overview

[Markus Lindberg]

Hmm... that doesn't sound too good though. We're a 10.000+ employee corporation with a reluctance of adding apps that each team wants. There's no handy way of searching uploaded files other than this? 

[Tarun Sapra]

Searching for attachments is not on the Atlassian roadmap right now. Hence you will need a plugin.

https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRASERVER-1210

[Markus Lindberg]

Hmm, bad news. But thanks for your input! :)

[Tarun Sapra]

Hello @Markus Lindberg 

Please accept/upvote answers so that other users are also benefited. 

[Markus Lindberg]

Ah, sorry! New to this. Done! :)

[Christos Moysiadis · Accepted solution]

Hello @Markus Lindberg ,

About the first part of your question i would like to tell you that we have issues which have more than 15 sub-tasks. And even a more complex structure sometimes. So it's not a big deal if Jira is correctly configured.

About the second part. For documentation you can use Confluence. Its the knowledge base of Atlassian! You can have the docs,files,images etc. there (amount can also be increased too) and then create a link in Jira Software & Confluence.

Regards

CM