Multi-program features in Jira Align and impact on Jira program projects

[Mit Tolia]

Hi All,

Wondering if anyone from the community has had experiences working with multi-program features functionality available in Jira Align. 

This is, when the "approach" field is turned on and the user gets an option to select a single program feature or a multi-program feature, which then results in ability to select additional program and filter jira projects etc.

In this situation, if a feature is expected to be worked upon by more than 1 program, if leveraging multi-program feature functionality, is it possible that this feature would sync in 2 program Jira projects - i.e. 2 programs in Jira? 

https://help.jiraalign.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000157034-Manage-Jira-multi-program-features

We seem to have tried this, but the feature in Jira Align is not syncing in 2 program projects in Jira and think there is something that we are missing and not sure if there is another setting or a feature toggle etc. that needs to be turned on etc.

Thanks in advance if anyone has tested this out and can share some insights.

Thanks and Regards,

Mit Tolia

[Tim Keyes]

Hi @Mit Tolia

I hope all is going well. Does this help:

"If a feature is pushed to multiple Jira Software projects from Jira Align, then the fields on the feature synchronize one way from Jira Align to Jira Software, with the exception that child stories assigned to the Jira Software epic will still roll up to the same feature in Jira Align."

https://help.jiraalign.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000088393-Jira-data-synchronization

[Mit Tolia]

Hey @[deleted] - thanks so much for your reply. 

Yep, I think once the feature syncs with more than 1 program jira project, am aware of the behavior, but our issue at the moment is that by making a feature multi-program & selecting additional programs, the feature itself is not syncing to more than 1 Jira program project.

In Jira Align, we do not seem to select multiple Jira projects that this feature would sync to, which I think is causing this behavior. Not sure if we are missing a step or two somewhere.

Does that help clarify the issue we are having? 

Thanks and Regards,

Mit Tolia

[Tim Keyes]

Hi @Mit Tolia

I'm encountering the same issue. I can create a support ticket for you and the team can check it out if that is alright with you?

Its possible the functionality was removed or blocked when we locked changes to the Jira Project inside of Jira Align since it was leading to misaligned data with Jira in some instances. 

Do you have more details on the use case to have a single Jira Align Feature send updates one directionally to two Jira Epics.

[Heidi Hendry]

Hey @Tim Keyes 
I've logged a ticket on this for Mit and myself.

My thought is that the expected behaviour would be that the feature would NOT show up in multiple JSW projects, as a Feature (Jira Epic) can only belong to 1 JSW project. To appear in multiple JSW projects, it would need to be cloned, and then how do you keep them all synchronised?

What do you think?

[Tim Keyes]

Hi @Heidi Hendry

Thank you for submitting the ticket. I saw it come through in my email. Years ago you could add multiple Jira Projects to a single Feature in Jira Align and it would create two Jira Epics (one from each project) in Jira. The sync would then become one directional from Jira Align to Jira for that Feature. If you updated the Feature in Jira Align it would sync updates to both Epics in Jira. If one of the Epics was updated in Jira, the updates would not sync.

We can validate if that changed.

[Colin Weaver]

@Tim Keyes & @Heidi Hendry 

Just to add to this if you enable the setting :

Assign features to multiple Jira projects in Jira Align

then you can create a feature in Jira Align with two Jira projects assign and it will create 2 Jira Epics . The View In Jira button won't be seen in Jira Align, instead we display the Jira 'Charlie' logo and if you click on it a pop-up gives you links to let you choose which Jira Epic to open.

I haven't specifically tested the sync but expect it to be one-directional (except for the child story relationship)  as mentioned by Tim in his various updates.

Note: while this ability is still available, I think we would usually recommend using a single program project in Jira to contain your Epics and then have the child stories of those epics in different team projects and not using this ability to allow a single Jira Align Feature to be synchronized to 2 or more different Jira Epics