Structure and Secure Jira Attachments

Jira offers a variety of functions for project management and workflow automation. For this reason, companies love using it in various industries. With all benefits Jira brings to us, working with Jira attachments turns out to be troublesome.

You expect to get a well-organized system of Jira attachments that are easy to find and organize. Instead, you can end up browsing through your Jira issues looking for an attachment you need or repeating the routine actions with your files.

In this article, we’ll cover how to manage attachments efficiently and keep sensitive documents safe in Jira Data Center with the help of Smart Attachments for Jira.

Let’s look at the use case of a bank that keeps its daily work in Jira. The bank uses Jira to track daily employee activities, cooperate with customers, and develop new projects and initiatives. Their Jira issues undergo various multi-step workflows. At each step of any workflow, users add files and documents. So, you can imagine that the attachment section soon becomes a pile of files. Additionally, the documents can have several revisions and different levels of security.

Key points in Jira attachment management

Effective attachment structure and search

Browsing through the list of attachments can be time-consuming. Bank employees actively use Jira as a single resource for their projects. They avoid switching between different services and keep their attachments directly in Jira. In this case , looking for a specific attachment in the long list under each issue becomes tedious.

Revision control

Each stage of the bank workflow underlines the high feasibility of document edits. Multiple users work on the same document, and they need to be sure that they locate the latest document revision. This becomes difficult with several files with the same name and requires additional effort and attention.

Locking the documents against changes

After the multi-step validation process, bank files must stay protected against changes so that users don’t change anything by mistake. At the same time, edits of some documents should remain possible for a certain group of Jira users.

Validation of attachments 

Many bank activities require specific files to be present before the issue is created or transitioned. If the files are missing, the project process fails or delays.

Restricted visibility for sensitive documents.

Some attachments in Jira issues contain customer data or other sensitive information. They are visible for certain bank employees but must remain unavailable for others.

Use case solution

Minding the attachment management requirements stated above, the bank team implemented their Jira documentation workflow with the Smart Attachments for Jira app. This app has rich functionality and an intuitive interface for inexperienced users.

This app streamlines document management by enabling the creation of custom categories for organizing documents within issues. You can structure attachments according to your needs into separate categories. It also simplifies the editing process by allowing users to comment on files and create separate document revisions. Available workflow automation allows using Jira conditions, validators, and post-functions to validate file uploads and automate routine functions.

Using the Smart Attachments app, the bank creates a multi-step project workflow. A series of document categories correlate with the processes of the bank departments and allow users to keep their attachments structured. Now their Jira files are divided into document types. Users can bulk upload, update, and delete their attachments. They locate the required documents faster.

Not all projects and issue types require the same categories. With Smart Attachments, the bank defines specific categories based on the issue type and workflow stage. So, the attachment section looks concise, having only the requirements for a particular issue type and development stage categories.

The app also allows Jira administrators to apply access restrictions for specific users, groups, and roles. The team can keep private documents secure and visible only to certain employees.

To automate routine operations, the bank can add workflow automation using validators and post-functions. For example, if required, whenever an issue is created, the app validates the presence of required files. Otherwise, the issue cannot be created. At other steps, the app validates the availability of bank files with specific file names. Post-functions allow bank employees to send attachments to their clients without leaving Jira.

As a result of using the Smart Attachments for Jira app, the bank has created the attachment management system in Jira.

With this app, you can keep your attachments safe and organized. You can now try the same for your Jira instance by starting with Smart Attachments on the Atlassian Marketplace. The first month is free for you to evaluate the app.

Read more about how to run document management in Jira like a pro.