Take Your Jira Document Management to the Next Level

June 4, 2025
#How To#Jira#Document management
12 min

The digital era has digested, transformed, and automated the majority of routine processes we were accustomed to. More and more companies are choosing digital products instead of traditional document management systems to efficiently run their projects and initiatives. In this article, we’ll explore how Jira document management can transform your project workflows by integrating efficient file handling solutions.

One of the most popular platforms for managing projects and tasks is Atlassian Jira software. Documentation is an essential component of the project development life cycle. The way it is organized is very critical for seamless company operations and project success within any work management tool.

Many companies prefer integrating their document management processes into Jira, enabling project teams, including Jira users, to always access the documents they need without leaving the context. Unfortunately, despite its strengths in project management, Jira itself does not provide sufficient capabilities to run efficient document management processes and organize documents neatly.

The Smart Attachments for Jira app is a tool that can reshape and facilitate your Jira workflow with great ease and convenience.

Categorize documents and attachments as needed

Jira does not provide any separate interface to store and manage attachments. Users just upload them to Jira issues and update these files upon need within issues. The situation becomes challenging when ten or more attachments appear in a single issue. This complicates the process of managing documents and locating the required document swiftly.

jira attachment categories

The Smart Attachments app introduces categories within Jira issues, enabling you to organize your files efficiently. You can assign documents to the relevant category for easy retrieval. With configurable access restrictions, confidential files remain secure and hidden within Jira.

It is no longer problematic to upload a file to the necessary category on any form or in any section of Jira. The automatic distribution rules accelerate the bulk upload of attachments to categories, ensuring they follow the essential components of effective organization.

Design the structure to store attachments

Storing attachments in hundreds of issues can become a real challenge once you need to find a specific document requested by your stakeholders. You may waste hours searching for a specific file among thousands of other files.

jira document storage

The centralized project storage simplifies storing attachments by offering a central hub similar to your local drive. Easily upload frequently used or approved documents and assets for your team to conveniently access. You can customize the storage structure to fit your needs and use automatic folder recreation for efficient file management.

Organize revisions under the parent document

While working on project documents and media assets, you can sequentially produce multiple revisions that are part of the ongoing content process. Several rounds of reviews and updates can lead to problems with identifying the last version of the document that was already approved by the customer.

jira issue revisions

Keep your document revisions in a tree-like view to quickly find the latest version. The app automatically maps files by name to the parent document, ensuring efficient organization. Alternatively, you can manually attach document revisions for streamlined management.

Execute bulk operations on documents and files

Removing multiple attachments from a Jira issue can be challenging, but what if you mistakenly uploaded hundreds of files? With the Smart Attachments app, you just need to select the required files or the entire category and choose the bulk operation. That’s done!

jira bulk operations

A variety of bulk operations allows you to delete, move, email, archive, or download multiple files in a Jira issue.

Automate file validation and routine operations

The human factor is a key contributor to mistakes in Jira. If you need to validate the availability of documents in a specific category, the supplied workflow validators can simplify this procedure during issue transitions. You can check up files against their names, the number of files in the specific category, or uploaders.

With the post-functions, you can perform routine operations on documents and files when closing issues, requesting approval from stakeholders, or requesting missing files from external suppliers.

Scale the document management in Jira

Jira Document Management can be efficient and easy-to-run. Just try a 30-day free trial of the Smart Attachments app and redefine your document management processes with the supplied features and automations.

smart attachments

Revolutionize Employee Performance Evaluation in Jira and Confluence

March 11, 2025
#How To#Confluence#Jira
12 min

Measuring employee performance demands more than traditional quarterly reviews and subjective feedback in today’s rapidly digitalizing work environment. Companies are turning to integrated, data-driven solutions to objectively track performance, boost productivity, and drive continuous improvement. By harnessing the power of Jira and Confluence, along with specialized apps like Smart Attachments for Jira, Table Filter, Charts & Spreadsheets for Confluence, and izi – LMS for Confluence, you can create a seamless performance management ecosystem that supports both real-time analytics and ongoing employee development.

The Digital Shift in Employee Performance Evaluation

The transformation to remote work and digital collaboration has reshaped how companies monitor team performance. With in-person interactions limited, managers face challenges in capturing real-time, objective insights into employee contributions. Traditional review methods—often dependent on sporadic meetings and anecdotal evidence—can miss the nuances of day-to-day work. Now, a robust digital strategy is essential:

  • Continuous Feedback: Real-time data capture at key workflow stages helps eliminate the bias of retrospective evaluations.
  • Data-Driven Insights: Automated metrics provide clear trends, helping managers pinpoint strengths and areas for improvement.
  • Integrated Systems: Leveraging the power of Jira and Confluence ensures that performance metrics are not siloed but become part of everyday operations.

Optimizing Employee Performance Analytics in Jira

Jira has long been the go-to platform for task tracking and project management. Its flexibility makes it an ideal hub for gathering employee performance data. As tasks are completed and closed, performance metrics—such as delivery speed, work quality, and process adherence—can be automatically captured within your existing workflows.

The Smart Attachments for Jira app elevates employee performance tracking by streamlining attachment management. It helps you link relevant documents, work samples, feedback forms, and project artifacts to corresponding Jira issues. This ensures that every performance record is enriched with contextual evidence, making it easier for managers to review contributions and make informed decisions.
Performance review

Key benefits include:

  • Automated Documentation: No more manual uploads—relevant files are linked to each task.
  • Enhanced Visibility: Managers can quickly access supporting documents, facilitating objective performance analysis.
  • Seamless Integration: The Smart Attachments app works directly within Jira, complementing existing workflows without added complexity.

Visualizing Employee Performance Data in Confluence

Raw data is only as valuable as your ability to interpret it. Once your employee performance data is captured in any form, exporting it to Confluence allows for dynamic visualization and deeper analysis. The Table Filter, Charts & Spreadsheets for Confluence app is designed to transform CSV data into interactive dashboards, pivot tables, and charts that track performance over time.

How It Works:

  1. Data Export: Save your performance metrics as a CSV file.
  2. Confluence Integration: Attach the CSV file to a Confluence page and use the CSV macro to display the data in a table.
    Confluence Integration
  3. Dynamic Visualization: Enclose the table within the Table Filter and Charts macro to:
    • Create pivot tables that group data by sprint, assignee, or issue type.
    • Generate charts that illustrate trends in delivery speed, code quality, and efficiency.
    • Enable trendlines to visually track performance improvements or identify setbacks.

Benefits:

  • Immediate Insights: Instantly identify trends across multiple sprints or projects.
  • Custom Reports: Tailor visualizations to highlight specific employee performance metrics.
  • Actionable Data: Use insights to inform targeted training and process improvements.

Upskilling Teams with izi – LMS for Confluence

Objective performance analytics are only one side of the coin. To ensure continuous improvement, companies must invest in employee performance and development. The izi – LMS for Confluence app transforms your familiar Confluence workspace into a full-featured learning management system.

What izi – LMS Offers:

  • Course Creation: Build interactive courses, quizzes, and tests directly within Confluence.
    Taking a course
  • Seamless Integration: Utilize existing Confluence pages and content to create engaging training materials.
    Utilize existing Confluence pages and content to create engaging training materials.
  • Progress Tracking: Monitor employee progress with detailed reports, ensuring that training efforts are aligned with performance gaps.
    Monitor employee progress with detailed reports, ensuring that training efforts are aligned with performance gaps

By merging training with performance data, managers can tailor educational programs to address specific skill deficiencies and promote career development, ensuring that every team member has the resources needed to excel.

Integrating Tools for Employee Performance Management System

A comprehensive performance management system is built on the synergy between data capture, visualization, and continuous learning. By integrating Jira and Confluence with the right apps, companies can:

This holistic approach improves the objectivity and efficiency of performance evaluations and fosters an environment of continuous learning and growth—vital for staying competitive in today’s fast-paced business landscape.

Conclusion

Incorporating digital tools into your employee performance evaluation process is no longer optional—it’s a strategic imperative. By harnessing the power of Jira and Confluence along with apps like Smart Attachments for Jira, Table Filter, Charts & Spreadsheets for Confluence, and izi – LMS for Confluence, your organization can achieve a more objective, transparent, and effective performance management system.

Empower your managers with real-time insights, streamline the feedback process, and invest in your team’s growth to drive overall success. Start transforming your employee performance evaluations today and unlock the full potential of your digital workplace.

Discover how these innovative tools can revolutionize your performance review process and propel your organization to new heights.

Best Practices for Creating a Jira Issue With Templates

May 27, 2024
#How To#Jira#Project management#Document management
22 min

Atlassian Jira is a global solution that allows users to create and accomplish multiple tasks daily. Have you ever wondered how much time we spend creating issues or collecting missing information? While it is minutes on a scale of one issue, it is hours within a project and even days for the whole Jira instance. Various respected companies seek ways to minimize time costs and optimize practices for creating a Jira issue with templates.

This blog post will describe how to do this using out-of-the-box Jira capabilities and apps from the Atlassian Marketplace.

Create an issue using out-of-the-box Jira capabilities

Buying an app is easy, but not all companies can afford it. The built-in Jira capabilities work well in this case.

Tune up Jira projects

Jira allows users to add descriptions for each of the issue fields individually. By adding a field description or just inserting a link to documentation, you help users understand the rules and specifics of this field, saving your team time.

You can also use direct links to create issues. For example, clicking the link on a Confluence page will open the issue create screen. Some of these links may have prepopulated fields. It works as if you click on the Create button in Jira, but its fields already have all the information right where it belongs. You can read more details about creating a Jira issue via URL in the Globo Solutions documentation.

Use the Jira Issue Collector

Using templates for Jira issues can help streamline the creation of new tasks, ensuring consistency and saving time. An issue collector allows you to quickly gather feedback on any website through Jira issues, even from users who don’t have Jira accounts. Once the issue collector is set up, you can embed it anywhere.  It’s an intuitive way to get feedback directly in the form of Jira issues.

To create an Issue Collector, you need to have access to the project settings.Issue collector

Alternatively, all issue collectors are available in the global settings. To open them, go to Jira Settings > System > Issue Collectors.

To configure the new issue collector, click on Add Issue Collector. Fill in the required details, such as Name and Issue Type. Then, select the default values for new Jira issues created via the issue collector. You can configure the issue collector to match your template requirements.configure the issue collector

After you are all set, you can copy the generated HTML code snippet. It will allow you to embed the Issue Collector anywhere outside Jira. You can embed the generated code into your internal web pages or Confluence pages, which users can easily access to create new issues using the predefined template.

Use Jira automation rules

Create a Jira issue

Once the template issue is ready, you are ready to create an automation that will trigger the creation of similar Jira issues based on it. To set up an automation rule, you need to have access to Jira system settings as an administrator.

  1. Go to Jira Settings > System > Automation Rules.set up an automation rule
  2. Create a new rule starting with the required trigger. Triggers kick off the execution of your rule. They will listen for events in Jira. Triggers can also be set to run on a schedule. For example, you can try a trigger like when Issue is created or Version released.
  3. Add an action for your rule. Actions allow you to make changes within your system. They allow you to perform many tasks, such as editing an issue, sending a notification, or creating sub-tasks. For our purpose we use an action to Clone Issue. As a source for cloning, you must select the template issue you created.
  4. Configure the rule to apply the necessary fields from the template issue to the new issue and test it.Copied issue

You can always update an automation rule and monitor its progress in the audit log of your Jira automation rules.Audit log

Create Jira issues with templates for a specific field

In the dynamic realm of project management, templates for the issue may lack flexibility. In these projects, teams utilizing Jira can consider pre-defined settings of specific fields.

For example, you can work on projects with many files and documents. Your team might use Jira attachments in the issue to store them in the same place as other project information. It’s an intuitive way to always have all artifacts at your disposal. The problem arises when you have too many files to navigate through them. It leads to chaos in your project documentation, where team members lose time browsing through a list of attachments across issues. Smart Attachments for Jira by Stiltsoft Europe automates the Attachments field settings in Jira issues to streamline workflow and ensure your team operates at peak performance.

The app helps you create issues in Jira with a pre-defined attachment field based on your project needs. It brings standardization to your Jira document management. You can automatically enforce attachment policies across all issues. The app allows you to select attachment schemes with specific file categories that match your requirements. For example, you can select to have the Wireframes, Mockups, Ready Design, Media Assets, Text Content, and Source Files categories for your attachments. After that, each time you create an issue in the project, these fields will appear in the section for your attachments.create issue with attachments

To customize the look and feel even more, you can select additional criteria defining how your attachment fields appear in certain cases (for different users and user groups or in various issue types). For example, you can make the Media Assets attachment field visible for everyone in each issue of the project, while Source Files will be visible only for administrators and designers and appear in Jira tasks and improvements only. This is an easy way to ensure that every issue meets your organization’s standards.
Standartization of attachments

You can bring consistency to your team projects by applying the same attachment scheme to multiple projects. If you think that certain scheme settings work well for most projects, consider making it the default scheme. In this case, you can maintain a uniform approach to handling attachments.bring consistency to your team projects by applying the same attachment scheme to multiple projects

Implementing attachment management automation makes it easy to eliminate the discrepancies that can arise from manual management. You will reduce the time spent configuring attachment settings for each issue, allowing your team to focus on more critical tasks. Additionally, automation of repetitive settings minimizes the risk of human error and ensures that all attachments comply with predefined criteria.
Automate repetitive settings to minimize the risk of human error and ensure that all attachments comply with predefined criteria.

Сreate issues from templates with apps

The out-of-the-box Jira capabilities can be handy, but not for every case. Here comes the Atlassian Marketplace where lots of vendors offer their apps for almost every possible challenge.

If you need to find a solution to create Jira issues with templates, enter the respective keywords in the search field on the Atlassian Marketplace. As a result, you instantly get a variety of apps for creating issue templates.

Apps of the Atlassian Marketplace

These apps have similar features. They let users save time populating issue fields with issue templates. You just need to pick the right template from the list. This is quite handy when you create lots of similar issues regularly. Let’s dive deeper into some of them.

Issue Templates for Jira by Devinity

Issue Templates for Jira allows you to revolutionize your workflow of creating Jira issues. You can save time of your team by using templates, smart defaults, and automation to bring new tasks or ideas to Jira projects.

This app is helpful for companies in all industries looking to create Jira issues and structures across multiple projects automatically. We suggest looking into the Issue Templates for Jira for those of you who work on large projects with advanced logic. In this case, you might regularly build complex Jira epics with tasks and subtasks and want to understand their relations effortlessly.

Once you have identified the requirements for your issue creation workflow, you can come up with the issue templates created by the app. Using these templates will allow you to autofill common fields on issues so that you don’t need to type them manually each time. The game-changer is the ability to apply the templates created with the Issue Templates for the Jira app to the issues created before when you just started the app usage. Thus, you can standardize the existing tickets, adjust their field content to the company’s best practices, and minimize mistakes through dynamic variables.

Smart Defaults in Jira help maintain this consistency by automating the calculation of field values. You can copy field values from parent issues to subtasks, calculate date fields based on the current time, and automatically assign tasks to the project lead or appropriate team member. This ensures that your tickets are always up-to-date and accurately reflect the project’s requirements.

Issue Templates for Jira

For those of you looking to integrate Jira with external services, Issue Templates for Jira have another bonus feature. You can automatically apply templates to newly created issues even when triggered by external software such as Zapier, Jenkins, or Bitbucket. The app will handle the issue structure and content based on your settings.

Field Templates for Jira by Globo Solutions

Field Templates for Jira helps you create templates for system and custom text fields. Splitting template visibility by project roles, issue screens, and types makes it extremely adaptive to every process and team.

Yet the third option every user has at their disposal is the Field Templates for Jira app. This add-on is an alternative solution for issue templates. With its help, you can create templates for both system and custom text fields. Splitting templates visibility by project roles, issue screens, and types makes it more adaptive to every process and team.

Field Templates for Jira by Globo Solutions

You no longer need to reinvent the issue summary or spend time on how to create an issue description. All you need to do is to select the template for the current situation and fill in the rest if necessary. Combining templates is not only possible but welcomed.

As a result, it greatly speeds up the issue-creation process for reporters. The ability to create comment templates not only on the project level but for each user individually is a nice bonus of this solution.

Define your way to optimize Jira projects

Leveraging templates, smart defaults, and automation in Jira transforms how you manage projects. By reducing repetitive tasks, ensuring data consistency, and integrating with other systems, you can streamline your workflow, allowing your team to focus on what truly matters – delivering outstanding results.

Apps available on the Atlassian Marketplace can help you introduce best practices for creating a Jira issue with templates or pre-configures fields in your projects. You can search for them yourselves or test the ones we cover in this article:

You can try any of these apps or their combination for free on the Atlassian Marketplace. Follow the links above to navigate the app listing pages and click Try it free. If you don’t see the button, please contact your Jira administrator to help you start using the apps you need. After the trial starts, you will have 30 days to evaluate the app functionality in your company and see if it suits you.

Exploring Jira Search in Cloud: Tips and JQL Search for Issues with Attachments

March 19, 2024
#How To#Jira
14 min

In today’s fast-paced project management landscape, efficient communication and collaboration are paramount. Jira Cloud, a popular project management tool by Atlassian, offers many features to streamline workflows and boost productivity. Among these features, JQL search is a powerful tool for locating essential information within your projects. Whether you’re a seasoned Jira user or just getting started, mastering Jira search is essential for navigating your projects efficiently. In this article, we’ll delve into the functionality in Jira Cloud related to searching for issues with attachments, exploring its out-of-the-box JQL capabilities and pro tips, and suggesting a helpful app from the Atlassian Marketplace to enhance your experience further.

Understanding Jira Search in Cloud

Whatever your search goal is, start by accessing the Jira Cloud search bar. You can locate the search bar at the top of the screen. It’s easily identifiable by its magnifying glass icon. Jira Cloud has flexible search capabilities: basic search for a quick lookup and advanced search for complex filters and criteria.

Running the Basic Search

The Jira basic search functionality allows you to search for issues using simple keywords or phrases. Start with it to get results in a second by following these steps:

  1. Enter Keywords: Click on the search bar and type in the keywords or phrases related to the issue you’re looking for. For example, you could enter “bug fix” or “project XYZ.”Running the basic search
  2. Review Search Results: As you type, Jira Cloud will provide real-time suggestions to help refine your search. Simply select one of the suggested terms or continue typing to complete your search query.
  3. Navigate to Issues: After entering your search query, hit “Enter” or click the magnifying glass icon to execute the search. Jira Cloud will display a list of issues that match your search criteria.
  4. Explore Issue Details: Click on any search results to view more details about the issue, including its summary, description, status, and assignee.

Mastering Effective Search Techniques

  1. Use Specific Keywords: When entering your search terms to narrow down the results, be as specific as possible.
  2. Utilize Filters: Jira Cloud offers various filters to help you refine your search further. Experiment with filters such as project, issue type, status, and assignee to find what you’re looking for faster.Mastering Effective Search Techniques
  3. Save Your Searches: If you frequently search for specific issues, consider saving your search queries for quick access in the future.Save Your Searches

Running the Advanced Jira Search

Running the advanced search in Jira Cloud is handy for cases where a basic search is insufficient. It allows users to filter and locate issues based on specific criteria precisely. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to run advanced searches in Jira Cloud:

  1. Navigate to the Jira Search Bar: You’ll find a search bar in the top navigation bar of your Jira Cloud instance. Click on it to activate the search functionality.
  2. Access Advanced Jira Search: Once the search bar is activated, you’ll see a dropdown menu with various search options. Click View all issues and press the Switch to JQL button to access the advanced search interface.
  3. Use Jira Query Language (JQL): Advanced search in Jira Cloud utilizes JQL, a powerful query language that allows precise filtering of issues. You can manually enter JQL queries or use the form-based interface to construct your search criteria.
    Use Jira Query Language (JQL)
  4. Refine Jira Search Results: As you input your search criteria, the results will dynamically update to reflect the issues that match your specified parameters. You can refine your search by adding or modifying existing criteria.
  5. Save and Share Jira Search Results: Once you’ve configured your advanced search, you can save it for future use by clicking the Save filter button. Saved searches can be accessed later from the “Filters” dropdown menu for quick retrieval. Additionally, you can share saved searches with other team members for collaborative use.Save filters

Following these steps, you can precisely locate Jira Cloud issues, enabling better project management and decision-making.

Running an Attachment Jira Search

Searching across Jira issues by keyword, assignee, or priority covers multiple business cases in the day-to-day routine. However, you may need to find files and documents attached to issues, comments, and other project artifacts. This article will teach you how to achieve this.

Searching for all Jira issues with attachments

In Jira Cloud, there isn’t a built-in feature to find all attachments for a project at once in a single search. However, you can use a combination of JQL and the advanced search functionality to retrieve attachments associated with issues in a specific project. Here’s how you can do it:

  1. Navigate to Advanced Search: Go to the search bar in Jira Cloud and access the advanced search interface.
  2. Use JQL to Filter by Project: In the advanced search interface, you can use JQL to filter issues based on the project key. For example, you can use the JQL query project = PROJECT_KEY to retrieve all issues from the specified project.
  3. Refine Search to Include Attachments: After filtering issues by project, you can refine your search to include only issues with attachments. You can do this by adding the JQL clause AND attachments IS NOT EMPTY to your query.
    Searching for all Jira issues with attachments

The search results will display all issues within the specified project with associated attachments. You can click on individual issues to view their attachments or export the search results if needed. While this approach doesn’t provide a single-click solution to find all attachments for a project at once, it allows you to retrieve attachments associated with issues within the project effectively.

Searching for issues with specific attachments by custom criteria

Let’s consider a scenario where a software development team needs to find a user interface wireframe for a new feature. Team members want to enter keywords like “UI wireframe simply” or the designer’s name to locate the necessary file quickly. This process saves valuable time and ensures everyone can access the latest wireframe version.

While Jira Cloud doesn’t offer this type of robust search capabilities out of the box, you can further enhance your experience with the Smart Attachments for Jira app available at the Atlassian Marketplace. This app ensures key workflow metrics to streamline:

  • Improved Accessibility: With attachment search, users can access required files directly from search results, eliminating the need to sift through countless Jira issues and projects.
  • Enhanced Collaboration: Teams can collaborate more effectively by sharing and referencing attachments related to specific tasks or discussions.
  • Increased Productivity: Rapid access to attachments accelerates decision-making processes and prevents delays caused by searching for critical documents.

In the Find attachments section of the app, you gain access to a comprehensive list of all attachments associated with your Jira project. But that’s just the beginning – you can search through these attachments with precision using two criteria:

  1. The user who added the file to the Jira issue. Quickly locate attachments uploaded by a specific user. Finding the proper attachment is a breeze, whether it’s your colleague’s latest design mockup or your documentation.
    Searching for issues with specific attachments by custom criteria
  2. The file name or text from its part. Search for attachments by their names, whether it’s the full name or even just a part of it. You can use these criteria to search for files by their format type as well. No more endless scrolling – just type in the keywords and let Smart Attachments for Jira do the rest.
    Search for attachments by their names, whether it's the full name or even just a part of it.

Using Smart Attachments, you can find the required files and perform bulk operations on them immediately. Thus, you can speed up your work by deleting or downloading all attachments simultaneously.Find the required files and perform bulk operations on them immediately

Advanced Jira Search with Labels

Looking to narrow down your Jira search even further? The app allows you to search for issues with attachments based on their labels. Combining the power of JQL with our app, you can quickly refine your search. To search for Jira issues by attachments with specific labels, click the respective button in the app Find attachments section.Advanced Search with Labels

 

Here you can narrow down results by using not only the Label filter but also project, issue type, status, and user filters. Keep in mind that this advanced search operates on an OR logic basis. In other words, you’ll receive a list of issues containing any specified labels in the Jira search results. To view the attachments with a particular label, simply navigate to the respective issue.Narrow down results by using not only the Label filter but also project, issue type, status, and user filters.

Conclusion

Jira search is vital for streamlining project management and fostering collaboration. By leveraging this functionality, organizations can optimize their workflows and achieve greater efficiency in their endeavors.

With Smart Attachments for Jira, efficiency, and organization are at your fingertips. Say goodbye to cumbersome searches and hello to streamlined project management!

Ready to revolutionize the way you handle attachments in Jira? Try Smart Attachments for Jira today and experience the difference firsthand.

Related posts

    Manage Attachments Like a Pro in JIRA

    November 14, 2023
    #How To#Jira#Document management
    11 min

    Atlassian develops one of the most popular project management platforms in the world – Jira. Millions of users use its capabilities when managing software products, running all kinds of marketing, operations, and legal processes, or handling support and service requests through a virtual desk.

    Flexible configuration, adjustable platform scalability, customizable interface, multi-tier permission schemes, and other things make this platform tailored to the actual needs of the majority of users.

    But like all enterprise systems, it also has some flaws. One of the most noticeable problems is a trivial mechanism of managing attachments. This affects most business and development processes as all of them are accompanied by the creation of additional artifacts that are usually stored within the issues. A bigger number of these files leads to additional problems like searching for the necessary attachments and keeping them organized in your Jira issues.

    Our article aims to provide you with a solution to this problem. You will learn how to manage attachments like a pro with the Smart Attachments for Jira app.

    Organize Jira attachments in categories

    The first thing that frustrates you when looking at a Jira issue with many attachments is probably one long list of files. It’s difficult to navigate, having no filters, sub-headings, or labels. What seems OK with five files becomes a pain in the neck with 20.

    The Smart Attachments for Jira app introduces categories that you can use for storing attachments. You can create categories shared by all Jira projects in your instance.Documentation approval scheme configuration

     

    Alternatively, you can customize categories and create unique ones for all Jira projects if you have different workflows for files there. You can also set the default category scheme. If doing so, you will have this category applied to all newly-created projects.Default category scheme

     

    Categories are created in Jira settings in a few minutes. Once configured for the project, they immediately appear in the Jira issue view replacing the native Attachments section. You can upload files to the appropriate category or move files between them. It’s easy to guess that file search and navigation become faster after attachment categorization, which helps you organize Jira issues.Categories - issue view

     

    Users can modify the default order of categories specified by the project administration and adjust their order to their actual needs. This is helpful as you can select the categories you use most and place them on top. No worries, this re-order is user-specific, so your teammates’ choice will remain the same.

    You can select to collapse the attachment section or a particular category in it for your Jira issue view. This way, you can save your screen space if this or that category is not currently used.

    The category selection is available during file upload when you create or edit issues or transition the issue from one status to another. If you prefer to upload files with drag-and-drop, categories will appear as corresponding areas on the screen.Upload files with drag-and-drop

     

    Configuration of categories is defined per instance or project, so either a Jira or a project administrator can create the set of required categories. Additionally, it is possible to regulate the visibility of the category depending on the issue type. It makes categories very flexible and easy to adjust to any project. The app offers additional access restrictions for cases with sensitive data in attachments. You can limit access to files in a specific category for specific users, user groups, or project roles. The app offers additional access restrictions

     

    Track Document Revisions

    Document management is always about version control. Whether you have one or several document authors, all who collaborate on a file attached to the Jira issue need to know the file status.

    Tracking attachment revisions ensures that all are on the same page. Jira lists all files in a row out of the box, but you can take advantage of document revisions with Smart Attachments for Jira. This feature allows you to have a document under which you can store numerous revisions. It helps you transform your Jira into a full-fledged document retention platform. Just select the file to which you need to create a new version and select to upload a new file version. You can also select the uploaded file and convert it into the document revision.Tracking attachment revisions

     

    Alternatively, just add the attachment with the same name to the Jira issue. The app will automatically match attachments by name, treating them as document revisions.

    Add Attachment Metadata

    In addition to the document versioning, you can add metadata to attachments. This feature facilitates document management and collaboration. Now you can better elaborate on the changes for the specific contract, financial report, corporate presentation, or any other artifact your team works on.Add attachment metadata

     

    Perform Bulk Operations and Workflow Automations

    Work in Jira is always about efficiency and productivity. Smart Attachments for Jira help you run bulk operations on files. You will accelerate the execution of routine tasks on attachments. You can just bulk delete attachments, move them to another category, archive, download, or send them to your colleagues or business partners from Jira.Perform Bulk Operations

     

    In addition, you can integrate post-functions, conditions and validators into your project workflows. Use this Jira automation features to enhance experience when managing attachments in issues.
    You can verify the presence of attachments in the specific category or files uploaded by the particular user, user group, or project role before or during execution of a transition with validators. It ensures the required files are present in the Jira issue.integrate post-functions, conditions and validators

    You can also set up the post functions and automatically delete, email, or move attachments between categories based on the name pattern or regular expression. This greatly automates the user experience and allows you to skip some trivial operations.set up the post functions

    One Solution for Most Situations

    If you deal with dozens of attachments in each issue will be a great assistant in this case. Now you can keep all your attachments in order, have documents with full history of revisions, automatically execute routine operations on them, and use a lot of other augmentations provided by the app.

    You can tart a free trial of Smart Attachments for Jira at the Atlassian Marketplace.

    Best Practices for Organizing a Jira Issue

    August 8, 2023
    #Document management#How To#Jira
    8 min

    Atlassian Jira Software is a global solution. Thousands of people use it at work, creating many tasks daily. For many teams, Jira dashboard is a place to start their day and to look at in the evening. In this blog post, we share the best practices for creating a Jira issue and organizing projects in Jira.

    Tune up your Jira project

    Have you ever wondered how much time we spend on creating issues or finding missing information? We aim to be more and more effective. That’s why companies are looking for techniques and solutions to optimize the process of working with issues in Jira and minimize team efforts.

    When you start with your Jira project, you can enter additional descriptions of Jira fields, components, and workflow states. This action is not required. Many admins would tend to skip it to save time. However, you can lose many more in the long run.

    Setting detailed descriptions where possible in Jira, you can minimize your team’s onboarding with the project later. This way, you help users understand the rules and specifics of this particular field, saving your team’s time in a long perspective. So try not to get tempted by one-minute benefits and stick to best practices instead.

    Add links and references

    Jira itself is a great solution for project management. With proper organization and description, working with Jira issues can be easy.

    You can facilitate the team workflow with the help of additional informational resources. Jira allows us to do it in a moment in a few ways.

    Add project shortcuts

    All additional data is beneficial. Is it true? Well, almost. The truth is we are pressed with time and have limited resources to study all the information we face daily. So think twice before adding another link to your Jira issue.

    For data used regularly by many team members, Jira has project shortcuts. You can add links to the team space in Confluence, Bitbucket repository, or project website here. Whatever matters most for your team in this project and lives outside Jira fits well in Jira shortcuts.

    Add project shortcuts

    Link to Confluence pages

    Confluence is another Atlassian product that synchronizes with Jira easily. You can create a knowledge base with detailed instructions, records, and tutorials in Confluence and reuse it in your Jira project. This way, you get well-structured documentation that is reader-friendly. At the same time, you avoid duplicating information by linking Confluence pages to Jira issues instead of copy-pasting information.

    Connect several Jira issues

    Your projects will look much more organized if you link related Jira issues. For example, your team can have many tasks to do, and one task requires another to be done in advance. You can simply specify it in the Jira description. The problem is you can miss this information while browsing across the project.

    In Jira, you can link issues and identify their relations. After that, everyone will see the association between two existing issues on either the same or different Jira instances.

    Connect several Jira issues

    Issue linking allows you to indicate different connections. For example:

    • An issue may relate to another.
    • An issue may duplicate another.
    • An issue may block another.

    Jira has default relations for issues, but Jira administrators can customize them to fit the project better. This functionality makes issue linking flexible.

    Add files to Jira issues

    Sometimes you may need to add files directly to Jira issues instead of including links. Jira allows you to store files and documents related to tasks and always have them at hand.

    By default, you can attach files up to 10 MB, but your Jira administrator can update these settings. All attachments will appear in the corresponding Jira issue in one list.

    The out-of-the-box Jira capabilities can be handy, but not for every case. Here comes the Atlassian Marketplace. Lots of vendors offer their apps for almost every possible challenge. The same is true for working with documents. Just type the word “Attachments” in the search field on the Atlassian Marketplace, and you instantly get an advanced solution for file management in your Jira issues.

    Smart Attachments for Jira

    With Smart Attachments for Jira, you can perform more complex operations on files in your Jira. The app has lots of functionality for various business types.

    With Smart Attachments, you can create categories for different file types and locate them in your issue faster. You can select any category name based on your project specifics. For example, it can be categories named after the attachment type (i.e., screenshots, designs, videos, etc.) or the review stage (i.e., draft, work started, ready for review, approved, requires work). For more complex cases, you can add access restrictions based on user groups or project roles. This way, your teammates get a well-structured file system within Jira, and project leads can be sure that sensible documents can be viewed or modified by relevant people only.

    Create categories for different file types

    Resume

    Jira Software provides multiple ways for project organization. Consider adding shortcuts, links, knowledge base, and attaching files to ensure your team’s productivity. If you work with many files in your Jira project, Smart Attachments for Jira will help you organize them. Still, you are to choose what’s best for your business.