Is Affects Version driven off of Release version (Fix Version/s)?

[Gabe Columbus]

We are starting to migrate to Jira from a legacy bug tracking system and want to understand how versioning works because we have older versions of software, we will not have the releases (Fix Version/s) for historical releases.  Does this mean, if we want to import old release info, to use in Affects Version, does it have to be added to the Releases?  If so, can affects version be selected for Archived, Shipped releases?

[Jobin Kuruvilla [Adaptavist] · Accepted solution]

JIRA only have versions. They are pulled into fields names Affects Versions and Fix Versions and are used as appropriate when you are creating issues. You can find a good writeup at https://confluence.atlassian.com/jirakb/general-use-of-affect-version-s-and-fix-version-s-838428168.html.

And yes, the versions can be released and archived. Also, in the context of scrum, they are referred to as releases in many places.

Check out https://www.atlassian.com/agile/tutorials/versions

[Gabe Columbus]

I get that, but if the releases are archived can they still be chosen in the Affects Version?  Or do the releases need to remain in a released state?

[Jobin Kuruvilla [Adaptavist]]

Once archived, they cannot be selected. They will have to remain in a released state.

[Ivan Nikolov]

@Gabe Columbusshort answer is 'Yes'.  A released 'fixVersion' can be selected in the 'Affects Version/s' filed as the last one is basically representing a field, capturing a fixVersion of when a bug was found or introduced to production.

Imagine you have a fixVersion (in Scrum this can also be refereed as a release) 2.3.0 which is deployed on prod and marked as 'released'. You have made several updates since then and you are now on version 2.8.0 but a bug is reported. After investigation it is found that the issue was introduced in your deploy with fixVersion 2.3.0 so that version is available and can be selected in 'Affects Version/s' as the one introducing the issue in first place.

This field is used exactly for that reason.