Project Permission Issue

[Superfreak]

Hi all,

I'm having an issue trying to grant permissions to some users within JIRA. We have two companies that have separate JIRA instances, as they're sister companies. In this particular case, members from Company A, needs JIRA access to company B's JIRA instance to a specific project. Normally, to grant a user access to JIRA, we add them to specific Active Directory group. Since the users we're trying to add, are from a separate company, we can't add them to those groups within Active Directory.

I'm trying to add the user to the following project: Projects > Systems > Infra Projects.

I went to the left hand side of that project and clicked on "Project Settings -> Permissions".

Based on reading the forums, it seems that we can grant permissions to a project, via this screen.

Example permissions that are shown are: " Administer Projects, Browse project, etc".

So, since I can't add the users to AD groups, I clicked on "actions -> Edit permissions" in the upper right hand corner.

From here I can select a project permission, ie. "Administer Projects".

A secondary window will come up stating Update "Administer Projects" permission.

Then I would select "Single User" and type in the user email address and click update.

The users now have access to see the project, but the problem that the users are facing are:

1. Unable to create new tickets because the change owner field is a 'required' entry but the user is unable to populate names for it.
2. Users are unable to change the transition of tickets to close as well.

I even tried adding users to the "Administer Projects" role, in which that role didn't grant them that access either.

What would be the correct roles to make sure these users are able to fulfill the two issues above?

The users are added to the following roles:

Browse Projects
Assignable User
Assign Issues
Close Issues
Create Issues
Edit Issues
Modify Reporter
Move Issues
Resolve Issues
Work On Issues

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello @Superfreak 

Welcome to the community.

To set a baseline can you tell us a bit about your experience as a Jira Administrator and your level of comfort and understanding regarding managing project permissions?

The users should not be added to the Administer Projects permission unless they need to be able to maintain the Components and Versions associated with that project.

They need to be granted the Transition Issue permission to be able to change the status of an issue, as a fundamental permission. Additionally the transitions in the Workflow to the "close" status may include Conditions that limit who can transition the issues to that status. You would need to review the workflow for the affected issue types in that project and look at the Transition(s) to the "Close" status to see if there are Conditions set there. That would tell you how the users would need to be updated to permit them that transition.

Also, how exactly are the users trying to change the status? Are they trying to drag a card to a column on an Agile board? Or are they selecting a new status from viewing the issue details.

We can't actually address the "change owner" field issue without more information. What exactly do you mean by the user "can't populate names for it"? That sounds like a custom field. Can you find out more information about the configuration of that field? What type of field is it? 

[Superfreak]

Hi Trudy,

Thanks for the quick response!

I'm actually very new to JIRA, as this is the first company I've worked for that has access to this. Unfortunately, our original JIRA admins no longer work here, so even my team/management are struggling to solve this issue.

For the Owner Issue, here is an example of what the fields look like when creating a ticket:


Notice that the user can't even enter their own name as an owner, nor anyone elses.

The way the user has been getting around this, is that they have to take a pre-existing change/issue that another user created for them, in their name (Sundar).

The caveat to this, is that the user is unable to close the tickets/issues, in which they have to have another user do it for them.

Hope that makes sense, as I'm trying my best to explain everything with zero prior knowledge to Jira.

*EDIT*

I granted the transition role and now the user is able to set tickets to close! Our only issue now is to figure out the "owner" issue when creating tickets.

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello @Superfreak 

Since you are new to Jira I recommend that you invest some time in training courses to help you get started with understanding the product and its administration. Atlassian University and Udemy are two possible sources for training courses, as well as finding videos on YouTube.

One of the reasons I strongly recommend this to you is that you obviously now have Jira Administrator permissions because you were able to change the Permissions Scheme. However, did you know that Permission Scheme might be used by multiple projects? You may have granted access to these users to other projects. It is important that you learn the ramifications of the changes that you are now able to make.

Based on the image you provided, I believe that Change Owners is definitely a custom field a previous administrator added to your system. To get more details about that field click on the Gear icon and select Issues. In the new screen find the Custom Fields option in the navigation pane on the left. That will take you to a screen listing all custom fields. There you can search for the field by name to learn more details about it, such as what type of field it is, how many screens it is on, and if any Contexts have been defined for it. If you can share what you find there, that would be helpful.

I'll have to ask more questions about this field to help you more, but I don't want to overload you with questions. One step at a time. :)

[Superfreak]

Hi Trudy,

I went ahead and found what looks to be the custom field that was created within the Issues pane.

I searched for "owner" and got the following:

I then clicked on the "Change Owners" name and got the following:

If I am to click on "Create, edit or delete contexts" from the "Contexts" options, it will showcase the following:

[Trudy Claspill]

That is all useful information.

Can you check one more thing? In the Field Information pop-up that you got, can you click on the Details tab?

[Superfreak]

Hi Trudy,

If I'm to click on details, I see the following:

If I am to click on "edit details" on that page, I see the following:

[Superfreak]

Hi @Trudy Claspill 

Let me know if there's potentially anymore information you may need.

Thanks!

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello @Superfreak 

I apologize for the delayed response.

I suspect that the cause of the problem is the user (Sundar) does not have the Global Permission for Browse Users and Groups. You would find that by clicking on the gear icon next to your avatar, then select System, then look for Global Permissions.

The Browse Users and Groups permission is required to use the "@" mention functionality and it can also impact the ability to find users in User Picker fields.

Global Permissions can be allocated only to User Groups, so you may need to add the user to a user group. User groups can come from your AD system, but there are also some default user groups that are built into the Jira product. 

Because you are on Jira Cloud, it may take somebody with higher level permissions (Site Admin or Organization Admin) to manage the necessary group and add the user.

[Superfreak]

Hello @Trudy Claspill 

I tried adding the user to the Jira - Users group in AD ( as we can see in the screenshot, this AD group should provide access), but alas, they still don't have access. Is there a way to check within JIRA on who has Site Admin or Organization Admin access?

Thanks!

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello @Superfreak 

I do not know of a way to look in Jira itself as a Jira Admin to find out who has Site Admin or Organization Admin permissions.

When you click on the Gear icon, do you see these Atlassian Admin options?

If you do, that means you have either Site Admin access or Organization Admin access.

If you have that level of access, be very cautious about changing things unless you understand the ramifications of the changes!!

If you have the User Management option then that will give you sufficient access to create a new User Group, outside of AD, to which you could add the user and then add the group to the Global Permissions within Jira.

[Superfreak]

Hi @Trudy Claspill

This is what my menu looks like if I'm to select the cog wheel. Looks like I may only have certain admin privileges.

[Trudy Claspill]

It appears that you will have to try to find the Site and Organization administrators for your company. I would recommend talking to your IT organization to see if they can help identify those people.