Business project management - track milestones

[Myro]

Hello,

at our company we want to implement a project template for our company which produces custom automation machines.

It should cover following project milestones (only the first 3 are described to simplify our requirements):

1. start
   create the project in JIRA, select users by their roles (roles are same for each project, they could be covered by JIRA user management groups). Those users will be notified throughout the project life, when milestones they ought to be interested in are reached/approached.
   Also a space in Confluence should be created automatically for the project, which will be used
2. kickoff meeting
   after the meeting a project role (e.g. PM) should be notified/offered to create a document in Confluence (predefined template) - e.g. the user will be redirected to appropriate Confluence's space and a predefined 'kickoff' template will be loaded without the PM having to look for it. 
   - assign (automatically created) (sub)tasks to responsible people (mechanical designer, electrical designer) - to create their documents 
3. design review
   same like #2, specified Confluence template will be offered to a user responsible for when this milestone is reached
4. documentation ...
5. design...
6. production...
7. verification...

I am planning on creating a custom project template (with Atlassian SDK, plugin development) and an issue workflow where statuses would be the milestones. The project would only have one issue with this workflow.

Would it be then possible to display different fields / buttons on the issue during different stages (statuses) of the project (JIRA issue) ?

Also it is very important, that some of the milestones be planned for specific dates which will be specified at the JIRA project creation (and possible to be changed later). 

Thank you very much for any ideas, suggestions!

[Walter Buggenhout · Accepted solution]

Hi Myro,

Apparently this still ís a live question. If I understand your question well, you want to set up an entire out-of-the box repeatable project methodology and framework, including standard work breakdown, document templates, work tracking, probably reporting and so on.

As @Matthew Wong has described, part of that can be done with what the core of Jira really rocks at: tracking tasks through a workflow you design to your process.

Often in automation companies / projects there is a standard breakdown of tasks. And I know from experience there can really be many. Jira can be extended with apps from the Atlassian Marketplace to extend the functionality into areas you would never imagine.

Valid options for your specific use case might be to define a Template Project with your default issues already in there, so you could just copy it (complete with issues and default configuration) at the start of a new (business) project using Scriptrunner. Or you could consider creating a work breakdown template using Structure.

As you describe your story, I know for sure there's much more to it. For as soon as you create your project, the very next thing is how you are going to track progress, make sure you deliver on time. Maybe even follow up on time spent and budget. Can this all be done with Atlassian tools? Definitely, especially with the right choice of apps on top.

Given your scenario, my advise would be to talk to an Atlassian Solution Partner near you to discuss your process and help you find the right solution to your challenge. It should be a really valuable investment.

[Myro]

Thank you Walter, as I am a programmer, I want to use the Atlassian SDK (have already played with it) and develop some functionality myself.

I have already bought Gantt Chart Module from BigPicture. I intend to create a default project with subtasks for each milestone - so that they can be "tracked" in the Gantt Chart with appropriate milestone dates.

[Matthew Wong]

Hey Myro,

I'm not sure if this is still a live question for you but the scenario described is not uncommon. Many teams will track a project through a workflow while managing the actual project's work in a separate project.

That said, I don't think any custom project template will be necessary for you through SDK. You can just as easily create your workflow in a standard Jira project and create from shared configurations to minimize the amount of work you'd have to do to get a repeatable project configuration up.

With regard to your question - yes, different fields can be designated to appear at particular points in time during an issue's lifecycle. You can create screens for particular transitions so that those fields are only available for input at particular moments in time. In terms of what buttons are available, this will be contingent upon what transitions you make available from one status to another. If you make it possible for a status to transition into three others, then you'll see buttons to correspond to those actions. If you restrict the transition only to one additional status, then you'll only see one potential action to take.

[Myro]

Hi Matthew, how do I create the "repeatable project configuration"? And also, how do I set the fields to appear only at particular transitions.

[Walter Buggenhout]

Hi @Myro,

Each individual transition in a workflow comes with the option to associate a specific screen. So every single step from one step to another can have a different screen and set of fields on that screen.

So for each transition:

1. Think which fields you would need to fill out on that transition
2. Make sure those fields exist in your Jira as (custom) fields
3. Create a screen and add those fields to it
4. Associate that screen with the transition in your workflow

And if you can reuse a screen for different transitions / workflows (because they require the same fields), definitely do so!

[CHAITRA KUMAR]

Hi @Matthew Wong / @Walter Buggenhout / @Myro 

We have a similar situation in our company. We need to track multiple milestones for a single issue. We cannot however use a workflow with all the different milestones as multiple statuses because,  we record the forecast milestone dates before the issue even starts.

The leadership team wants to be able to see a single two dimensional table with rows being the various issues and columns being different milestones and the values in the table are different forecast milestone dates.

Is this scenario possible in Jira without using scriptrunner? (We have Structure Gantt)

Thanks in advance

[Anil Kumar Tiwari]

No first the knowledge should be sufficient enough to face any challenge.