Jira Admin can't see all agile boards

[James Webster]

I'm a Jira administrator (and since I'm the only admin, presumably Greenhopper too) and one of my colleages has managed to create a scrum board that I can't see.

How can I fix it so that I can see ALL agile boards please?

[Karie Kelly · Accepted solution]

David is correct. When boards are setup, the user selects a project and it creates a default filter that is setup to be shared with individuals that have access to the project. However, you can then change the filter or recreate a new one and associate it to the board. Often, users have their filter definition setup to save and be private (not shared with anyone). They would need to share with the same project or everyone. We typically have our users filter saving permissions setup to share with Everyone by default to avoid this as this was an initial problem when we started to using JIRA -- users thought anyone could see their filters.

[Alicia Pena]

How can you even see who owns the board to request access (which is really silly coming from an admin) f you can't even view it?!  Someone asked me to delete an old board, he can't do it, he said it tells him to contact an admin.  I'm an admin and can't even see it!

[AndreasS]

As an admin you can install the open source User Switcher for JIRA add-on and use it to switch to the user who is the current admin of the board, go to the board administration and change it properly. Be aware that you also have to be the owner of the filter which is linked to the board!

[Sean Stoner]

Vote for GHS-5576

[Lee Meinecke]

I just did

[Dave]

Has your colleague shared the filter for that board with you? If you do not have access to the filter which the board is based on, you will not have access to the board.

[David Hergert _PAYX_]

What James is asking for is the ability to administer all boards (not SEE them).

For example, an Administrator cannot view every filter (which is good), however, in the Admin area they can search and list ALL filters regardless of permissions, which allows them to change permissions, change owner, etc. This is especially useful when someone creates a Filter that everyone uses and leaves the company, or a user isn't sure why people can't see their Filter and an Admin needs to assist.

James is asking for something similar with boards, which as far as I can tell, is not possible at this time.

[OlgaP]

Not agree that it can be helpful in boards administration !!! As administrator you can change owner of filter , but if you are not a member of specific group, you can't share this filter with this group. Then there is no way to admin board (as admin) without to be a member of required team. But administrator shouldn't belong to all groups in jira !!!! correct ? Your proposal for admins in this situation ? P.S. voting for GHS-5576 too.

[David Skreiner]

Ah, the usual situation:

a) Unfixed Atlassian bug
b) Atlassian will never fix it because only few people vote for a fix

c) Plugin developers abuse answers.atlassian.com to sell plugins

[Deleted user]

... never ending tragedy?

[Chaim Eliyah]

but of course plugins aren't a "security breach" :p

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Jira admin means "person who can admin Jira". It does NOT give you "can see/do everything", that's a bad model.

You need to go into the project(s) and check that you have "browse" permission one way or another, in order to see the boards etc. And if you want to be able to change stuff, project admin as well.

[James Webster]

I realise that, but surely an admin should be able to change it so that they can. As it happens, the `administrators` group has all permissions for the given project and the board can't be seen

[David Skreiner]

Sorry, but that's bullshit. As an Admin, I get asked by users to configure their boards for them, then I have to go tell them how to add me so I can even see the damn board? 
Also it's inconsistent, since in Confluence, a Confluence Admin can see anything, even stuff that's been protected both with Space Permissions and Page Restrictions. 

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Sorry, what's bullshit?  Responding to a 3 year old answer that probably isn't valid any more?

(The good security model is still there, but has been extended so that admins can give themselves the permissions, as per Confluence)

[Johan Geens]

Windows admins can do anything. Anything. Even see what you're doing, live. 
A top-level-admin should be able to do/perform/reach anything in the environment which he manages.
Yes, in Jira the admin can mod the filter, but that's annoying: you always have to go to the filters and start from there... We have +400 boards currently and +1000 shared filters! And oh: the filter must be shared in order to administer it. And: don't forget to return the ownership of the filter to the original owner when you're done.
Still beyond comprehend that a JIRA admin cannot administer the boards in full whithout annoying manipulations - which renders this Atlassian's restriction useless at the end after all!

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

No, that's an awful awful security model, and one that has led to so. many. security. breaches.

You are right about the filter (and while we're there, board and dashboard) admin though.  It's a pain in the neck, and an admin should be able to manage them better.

Although I'd still want to make it hard - as a user, just because you're an admin doesn't mean I'm happy with you changing my filters/boards/dashboards without my permission. 

[IT Team]

...

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

It's a security model that does not work, and leads to breaches.  It makes security procedures a lot harder to write, check or enforce.  Coding has nothing to do with the failures I've seen it cause (bugs and poor design can fail you no matter what the model)

There is no question that granting admin automatic "all" permission is a disaster as a security model and should never happen.  Escalation is irrelevant (and too late).  It also has other advantages in that you can skip the need for impersonation, you can ring fence data so it doesn't get in the way and it makes everything far more auditable.

There is no flaw in the security model in general, but Jira Software has a known failure in making the list of boards not available to admins (later versions of Jira have fixed the dashboard and filter problem)

[IT Team]

...

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

No, it clearly does NOT work, or I wouldn't have wasted vast amounts of my career fixing the problems caused by it, and moving large companies off systems that have broken security models.

Please, read the conversation above properly and learn that "admin can do everything" is a massive stupid failure in every way.

[Norman Abramovitz]

You need to give youself all permissions. It is not true that because you are the administrator you have all permissions. It depends on your permission scheme and group definitions.

[James Webster]

This is my trouble. Administrators have all permissions I can find... all Global Permissions and all permissions for the scheme asssociated with the project in question