I want to create a Standardized Company-Managed Business Project Template

[Dave Blazek]

I want to create a Customized and standardized business project template that all the PM's in our PMO can select that has standardized drop downs for each of the fields we choose.  I would like them to be able to choose this template and start filling in tasks as well as the other fields we choose.   

I have searched for articles for how to do this and can only find information on switching between Team and Company managed projects. Assume I am eligible for the needed permissions/access level. 

Thank you. 

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello @Dave Blazek 

Welcome to the Atlassian community.

What all do you want to have in your "template"? Would it be just configuration information, like issue types, workflows, issue screens, fields, and field selection lists? Or are you wanting to have a predefined set of issues also?

For Company Managed projects it is possible to set up a "dummy" empty project and create all the customizations to the configurations. The next time you create a new Company Managed project the Jira Administrator can elect to "share settings" with the dummy project. In that manner, the new project will use all the same configuration schemes as the dummy project.

Note that in this case the new project and the dummy project truly share the configuration schemes. Any change to the schemes affects both the dummy and new project(s) that share the schemes. This is not creating a copy of the schemes for the new project.

This can cover most of the configuration you would need for a Business project. There are a few things that would not be included.

It would not include copying the users granted roles in the dummy project. It would not include values specified for the Category field (a special field in Business projects) as those are project specific values.

It would not include any predefined issues, as those are not part of the "configuration" of a project.

This option is available only for Company Managed projects, and such projects can be created only by Jira Administrators if you use only native functionality.

If you are open to using third party apps there could be some additional functionality available, such as methods to give non-Jira Admins a way to create new projects based on a template configuration set, or a method to Clone an existing project's configuration and predefined issues.

[Allen Chen]

Hello @Trudy Claspill

After creating the Project A using shared settings with a dummy project, is there a way to not change the dummy project settings after making changes to Project A. I would like to reuse this dummy project to create other projects. 

Thanks.

[Trudy Claspill]

@Allen Chen 

You would have to make copies of all the schemes used by the dummy project, and associate those to Project A. Then make changes to those new copies.

[Trudy Claspill]

@Dave Blazek 

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[Dave Blazek]

I am not sure I am asking the right questions. I understand that we cannot create a custom template in Jira that can be duplicated for each new project. For reference, in MondayOS, we were able to create a New Business Project template board that an be duplicated and modified to the needs of the PM. This board consisted of a standard set of "groups" for each phase of the Project Life Cycle. All groups(rows) share the same columns.  In each group is where the Project Manager would enter each the individual Items/tasks/Issues associated with that particular phase of the life cycle, however many tasks, or subtasks that may be. The columns, similar to the list view in Jira, in our MondayOS template board includes agreed upon standard columns as well as predesignated drop down entrees. For Example; an Item/task "Status" Column may have predetermined entries Of "Done, Working on it, or stuck". Obviously, we have many of the standard project management criteria as columns such as timelines etc. but the point is that they are present with standardized selections to choose from. Each PM can add other columns as needed based upon the needs of that particular project. This creates an efficiency that at the very least minimizes the time the PM needs to spend building the entries needed for each Column. I hope I am explaining my question in a way that is understandable, and I appreciate the input received so far. If possible I am determined to integrate Jira into our processes in a way that doesn't decrease our efficiency and makes our transition as smooth as possible. Thank you.       

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello @Dave Blazek 

Jira classifies projects in two ways:

Business, Software, or Service

Company Managed or Team Managed

Company vs. Team Managed determines who can make changes to the configuration elements of the project. Configuration elements include things like custom fields, workflows (the Statuses that can be set for issues), and issue types.

For a Company Managed project only a full Jira application/product Administrator can make changes to those configuration elements.

For a Team Managed project the Project Administrator can change those elements.

The customized base configuration elements can be shared only between Company Managed projects. But if a Company Managed project is created to share the base configuration, then only a Jira Administrator can modify that configuration for the project.

It sounds to me like you want to allow non-Jira Admins (PMs) to modify the configuration. That could be done only with Team Managed projects. Team Managed projects do not support creating a custom configuration that can be shared between projects. They use project configuration templates established by Atlassian, which cannot be customized. All the customizations would have to be made after initial project creation.

For what you refer to as groups/phases you could use the native Business project field called Category. This is a single selection list. It is initially empty, and can be customized per project by the Project Administrator. 

With regard to the List View in Jira, each column represents a Field in the issue. Users can elect which columns/fields they want to see in List View by selecting from the available Fields in that project. Adding entirely new fields to the project falls under the purview of the administrator based on whether the project is Team Managed or Company Managed. Adding values to Selection List (dropdown) type fields also falls under the purview of the administrator.

I hope I have provided information that helps address your questions.

[Nikola Perisic]

Welcome to the community @Dave Blazek !

In Jira, when choosing the templates, there isn't a way to create a custom template. SInce you are looking for the business project, the Work management project template list would be the best choice for you. When it comes to permissions, by default all users in JIra instance are available to create team-managed projects, unless this has been modified. When it comes to company-managed, only Jira administrators (users who have the Administer jira global permission) can create these types of projects.

Choosing between these two depends on your team performance. If you have a smaller team, where you or someone else from the team can manage the whole project - team-managed projects are the best. They can only have one board and have limited configurations.

Company-managed can have multiple boards from different projects, they can share configurations from different projects (careful here) and have more customization options.