What is the function of the new Location field in the JIRA board setting?

[Giovanna Berry]

I noticed that with a recent release, JIRA (cloud version) has a Location field in the board settings and when you create a board. What is the function of this field? What happens when you have a board built pulling in issues from more than one project and the field can only handle one entry?

[Andy Heinzer · Accepted solution]

This location field just determines where else this board might appear in Jira.  For example if you choose to associate it with a specific project, then when you navigate to that project landing page, you can then see which boards are paired to this project.

Boards in this project show this:

In my case I created a new board in addition to the default scrum board.  My additional board is called "all" in this case.

If you set this location field to be your profile, then this board would not appear on this project view.

This new feature was also blogged about recently in Boards in the new JIRA experience

[Giovanna Berry]

Thanks so much! That makes a lot of sense.

[George Nunn]

@AH, when a board doesn't have a specific location, so it's natural place is to be assigned to a profile not a project, it appears as though no one else can see it on the mobile App and this is causing some real issues for us.

We use centralised (locationless, in 'New JIRA' terms) boards to feed issues into different teams from multiple 'Projects', which effectively act as platform backlogs.  These boards currently sit in the process facilitator's (my) profile... so I can see them on the App, but no one else can, which completely defeats the point. :)

Am I missing a setting somewhere?  It would be REALLY helpful, if not essential, if it was possible to share boards, as you share filters.  Either that, or to have the ability to create locations that aren't project specific, not unlike the ability to add project categories.

I hope that makes sense?

[Roger Lovell]

Warning, if your project is 'Business' and not 'Software' type then the project will not appear in the new Board Location drop down list.

[Guy Davenport]

I think this is a shortcoming of the system. I would like to use Kanban in a business project.

[Nathan Webb]

I second this! Will this be changed?

[Jim Pickering]

It's the same for JIRA Service Desk too. Cannot create boards for it, since it isn't JIRA Software. The JIRA Service Desk Project isn't among the options for Board Location. Pity.

[Evan Goldin]

Yeah, this is really confusing and weird. Can this be fixed? Is there a ticket? I have a Business project that should be able to host a board. 

[Martin E. Brüggemann]

+1 ... I guess the minimum would be a small inline note explaining why this dropdown doesn't list all projects.

However, a Kanban for a JSD seems pretty reasonable to me, so I can't see why I am not "allowed" to hook a board to it...

[Fabian]

+1 ... any news atlassian???

[Josh Kronick]

you can use a kanban for a business project... 

just create a filter that has the JQL:

project in (businessProjectName)

then create a kanban and use that filter... and BAM

you have a business project that uses a Kanban.

[Adam Labedzki]

+1 would love to create board located in business projects.

[Gabriel Muller]

For those who are wondering if there's a suggestion to address this, yes, this is the JAC ticket: https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JSWCLOUD-16316

[John Jones]

not gonna get fixed if it doesn't "rank" high enough in the blah blah blah equation they use to determine priority... so keep waiting, it's only been 18 months.

[MrStranger]

Thank you! I was racking my brain trying to figure out why the project wasn't showing for a location choice. This is dumb, this needs to be addressed.

[MrStranger]

Wait... this isn't what's causing it. The project is a Software project but it still won't appear :(