tfs-jira-synchronizer (TFS4JIRA) profile cloning or global mapping?

[Joseph Boulos]

We are evaluating TFS integrations and were leaning towards TFS4JIRA initially. One of our team realized that we have a potential maintenance headache with the sychronizer based on our use:

We have 100 - 200 (not sure exactly) projects in TFS and we want to have projects in JIRA that match. The devs want to continue their work in TFS while the rest of the organization (QA, release management, business, marketing, etc.) will potentially use JIRA to follow the life of a code release though to Production. In the Synchronizer, creating a profile for a single project is nice and straight forward, but there are some sticky things with having to map users (Jira uses jdoe and TFS uses John Doe). This can be dealt with for 1 profile, but it doesn't scale when we have 200 projects and therefore would need 200 profiles in the sychronizer. How about when a new hire comes on board...do we need to add him to all profiles?

The best solution would be to be able to have global mappings set (do it once for all profiles).

If global mapping is not possible, then is there a way that I can set it up once, then clone that profile 200 times? It still leaves us in a mainenance issue with adding a new user, but at least the startup time is a lot less.

[Paweł Murawski]

I work for Spartez company, creator of TFS4JIRA plugin. I like to add that we already have issue for feature request that you described here (https://jira.spartez.com/browse/TFS-156). I cannot promise any specific dates but still I encourage you to add yourself as a watcher to this issue. We will try to do our best to develop solution to your problem.

[Andrzej Pasterczyk]

@Ty A: yes, possible. The only thing in addition that you need to prepare is a reference back to the originating TFS project in some issue field in JIRA. Then you make two separate field mappings based on synchronization direction

TFS -> JIRA will have static value in "Project" field, and "System.TeamProject" goes to your "Custom field"

JIRA -> TFS will have "Custom field" mapped to "System.TeamProject".

[andrzej_p]

In case somebody finds that usefull here's an answer if you'd decide to try UseTFS :)

Note: The answer does not apply to TFS4JIRA

Jira uses jdoe and TFS uses John Doe

As long as users match (e.g. "jdoe" full name in Jira is "John Doe" same as in TFS) than you shouldn't need any mapping, we do the matching directly inside plugin.

We have 100 - 200 (not sure exactly) projects in TFS and we want to have projects in JIRA that match

With UseTFS you can set up single synchronizer that supports multiple projects (assuming that their workflow and fields follow same rules). So if you'd need any mappings you can do it one time only.

I'm not sure if TFS4JIRA offers similar functionality but it's worth mentioning that you can use Groovy script to operate on issue/work item data which is often helpful for creating more complex synchronization rules.

[Joseph Boulos]

Thank you for the answer on UseTFS. Definitely wrth knowing as we are evaluating both tools.

[Ty A]

I have a somewhat similar question- we have about 50 TFS projects that are all within one project collection, but we would like to have only one Jira project to give us the 'grand overview'. All issues in these projects would follow the exact same workflow, have the same status types, priorities, etc.

Is it possible with UseTFS to have one Jira project relate to many TFS projects?