jira 7.1 why is my Boards missing from banner

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

The banner is an optional informative text bar in JIRA.

Do you really mean the menu bar, where projects, issues, create etc usually appear?  If Boards is missing from that, you either don't have Software installed, it's disabled, or your account doesn't have the permission to use it.

Check in "manage applications" to see the current status and access settings