Administrator's Guide - 2.20
This guide applies to Delegated Project Admin Pro for Jira version 2.1 and above.
On This Page
Select what to delegate
The first step in configuring Delegated Project Admin Pro is adjusting the settings on the Select What to Delegate screen to indicate which configuration types can be modified by your Delegated Project Administrators.
There are 2 possible modes for delegating certain aspects of project configuration to Delegated Project Administrators, as noted by the left and right sections of the screen:
- Basic "Guided Path" — allows them to switch a project from one scheme to another
- Full "Self-Service" — allows them to customize a "Process Template", which is a set of configuration options controlling the issue types, fields, and workflows that can be applied to a project. In Self-Service mode, the Delegated Project Administrator can also edit the Notification and Permission Schemes to customize them as desired
The changes resulting from Self-Service mode can have a more significant impact on a project than Guided Path mode. Hence, it is best to use caution when configuring Self-Service mode. That being said, Delegated Project Admin Pro ensures individual changes — from either mode — can be rolled back by a Jira Administrator or a Delegated Project Administrator.
The choices you make on this screen affect the user interface your Delegated Project Administrators see. For instance, if you do not delegate Notification Schemes, then the Notifications tab will not appear in Guided Path mode; if you do not delegate any Statuses, then they will be unable to edit a workflow to add/remove a workflow step.
A Jira Administrator can choose to delegate only via Guide Path mode, only Self-Service mode, or both. Please note that your selections on this screen will not be put into effect until you have selected your Delegated Project Administrators on the Select Who to Empower screen.
When you modify the workflows from the ‘Project Admin’ screen and ‘Delegated Project Admin’ screen simultaneously, you may observe unexpected behavior while using the workflow transitions. It is recommended to modify the workflow at one place at a time to avoid workflow discrepancies.
Guided path
For each scheme type shown in the Guided Path section, click the 
icon to open a Delegation screen:
From this screen, you can configure which options are available to Delegated Project Administrators:
- None (Delegation disabled) — will disable delegation for this type of scheme
- All existing schemes — allows Delegated Project Administrators to select from all of the relevant schemes in your instance
- Exclude only specific schemes — allows you to select which of the relevant schemes SHOULD NOT be available for Delegated Project Administrators to select from
- Include only specific schemes — allows you to select which of the relevant schemes SHOULD be available for Delegated Project Administrators to select from
When "Exclude only specific schemes" is selected, you can select each desired scheme in the "Select schemes to exclude" dropdown and they will appear at the bottom of the popup.
Once a scheme has been added to the list, it can be removed by clicking the adjacent
icon.
When "Include only specific schemes" is selected, you can select each desired scheme in the "Select schemes to include" dropdown and they will appear at the bottom of the popup.
Once a scheme has been added to the list, it can be removed by clicking the adjacent icon.
Click Close when you are through making changes. This screen will be dismissed and the Select What to Delegate screen will be updated to reflect your selections.
Continue clicking the icon for each remaining scheme type shown in the Basic "Guided Path" section to ensure its delegation is set as desired. Now the priority scheme is available in the Guided Path mode, where you can switch between different priority schemes like other schemes. The filters described above are also applied to the priority scheme in the Guided Path mode.
Self-Service
As mentioned above, a Process Template is a set of configuration options controlling the issue types, fields, and workflows that can be applied to a project. In the Self-Service section, the items shown for issue types, fields, workflows, and statuses are used within a Process Template and indicate what will be available for your Delegated Project Administrators to select from when adjusting a Process Template while in Self-Service mode.
Projects can have one or more Process Templates associated with them. For instance, you may have a project that supports multiple issue types. Three issue types use one set of fields and the fourth issue type has a different set of fields. In this scenario, two Process Templates would be needed in order to ensure the appropriate behavior is carried out for the project.
The Groups item is used within Process Templates. Instead, it indicates what groups, if any, should be available for your Delegated Project Administrators to select from when editing Permission Schemes or Notification Schemes while in Self-Service mode.
Click the icon for any of the items shown in the Self-Service section to open a Delegation screen:
From this screen, you can configure which options are available to Delegated Project Administrators:
- None (Delegation disabled) — disable delegation for this particular item
- All existing <items> — allow Delegated Project Administrators to select from all of the relevant items in your instance
- Exclude only specific <items> — allows you to select which of the relevant items SHOULD NOT be available for Delegated Project Administrators to select from
- Include only specific <items> — allows you to select which of the relevant items SHOULD be available for Delegated Project Administrators to select from
When "Exclude only specific <items>" is selected, you can select each desired item in the "Select <items> to exclude" dropdown and they will appear at the bottom of the popup.
Once an item has been added to the list, it can be removed by clicking the adjacent icon.
When "Include only specific <items>" is selected, you can select each desired item in the "Select <items> to include" dropdown and they will appear at the bottom of the popup.
Once an item has been added to the list, it can be removed by clicking the adjacent icon.
Click Close when you are through making changes. This screen will be dismissed and the Select What to Delegate screen will be updated to reflect your selections. Continue clicking the icon for each remaining item shown in the Full "Self-Service" section to ensure its delegation is set as desired.
When you are through configuring what to delegate, click Select who to empower for each delegation approach at the bottom of the screen to move to the next step.
Priority scheme in guided path
Jira admins can select the priority schemes that are available in the "Select What to Delegate" page. Admins can include or exclude certain priority schemes or make all priority schemes available.
Include and exclude filter for priority schemes:
Select who to empower
The Select Who to Empower screen is where you will identify the project administrators who can perform actions against the items you selected on the previous screen.
In order to perform delegated administrative functions on a given project, a user must fall into one these categories:
- User Type: Jira Administrator — refers to members of the jira-administrators group. Members of this group do not have to have the "Administer Project" permission
- User Type: Project Administrator — refers to someone with the "Administer Project" permission
- User Type: Trusted Project Lead — refers to someone with the "Administer Project" permission AND who has been set as the Project Lead
- Group: <groupname> — refers to someone with the "Administer Project" permission AND who is a member of the named group
These first 3 categories that appear on this screen show up by default. The fourth — Group: <groupname> — must be added for each group you wish to empower, by clicking Add a 'Trusted Admin Group' to empower.
Important
- The permissions selected on the Project Administrator row act as a "base" set of permissions for the project administrators denoted in the Trusted Project Lead and Trusted Admin Group rows.
- The Trusted Project Lead and Trusted Admin Group can extend the permissions, given on the Project Administrator row, but it cannot narrow those permissions.
For example, if the Project Administrator was given the Process Templates permission but the Trusted Project Lead and Trusted Admin Group were not given this permission, the Trusted Project Lead and Trusted Admin Group will still be able to customize Process Templates because that permission was specified on the Project Administrator row. - The Application Access column in the Self-Service mode is enabled only if the Permissions column in the mode is selected. Thus, a Delegated Project Administrator must have permissions to allow users to work with a Jira product (Jira Service Management, Jira Software, Jira Core).
As you can see, there is one column pertaining to Guided Path mode and (in blue) many columns pertaining to Self-Service mode. For each row, select the checkboxes that correspond to the type of project administration functions you want to delegate. Alternatively, you can use the Select All or Deselect All links at the end of the row.
When you are through making changes, be sure to click Save to save your changes or click Cancel to discard them.
Guided path
In the Basic "Guided Path" section, each checkbox indicates the type of scheme where the Delegated Project Administrator will be able to switch to another existing scheme.
There will be one extra checkbox for priority schemes for the Jira version 7.6 and newer versions.
Note that the checkboxes in this section have no effect unless you have delegated that type of scheme on the Select What To Delegate screen.
The Full "Self-Service" section is, by its very nature, more complicated. Here is what each checkbox means, and what aspects of the UI will be available to Delegated Project Administrators when they use the app's screens described in the User's Guide.
| Checkbox | Delegation It Allows | UI available to Delegated Project Administrators on the main Self-Service screen, when checkbox is selected | Types of Activity that |
|---|---|---|---|
| Self Service: Enable | Entering Self-Service mode |
| N/A |
| Self Service: Disable | Exiting Self-Service mode |
| N/A |
| Project Group | Allows a trusted user to create a new project group | See Project Group section | N/A |
| Process Templates: Customize | Renaming, cloning, or removing a Process Template |
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| Issue Types: Select | Adding or removing an Issue Type |
|
|
| Fields: Select | Adding or removing a Field from the Create, Edit, and View screens. |
|
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| Fields: Edit | Making a Field required or optional, reordering a Field on the Create, Edit, and View screens. |
|
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| Workflow: Switch | Associate the Process Template with another existing Workflow |
|
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| Workflow: Edit | Add a step/transition to the Workflow, edit the Fields available on the transition screen, reorder the Fields available on the transition screen |
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| Groups: Select | Allow the referencing of a Group or Group Custom Field Value (within a Permission Scheme or Notification Scheme), as long as a field of that type was delegated in the Fields section of the Select What To Delegate screen. | N/A | N/A |
| Notifications: Edit | Edit a Notification Scheme to add or remove notification recipients |
| N/A |
| Permissions: Edit | Edit a Permission scheme to grant or revoke a permission |
| N/A |
| Priorities: Edit | Edit a Priority Scheme in a project or group of projects |
| N/A |
Adding a trusted admin group to empower
There may be times when you want a subset of Project Administrators to have greater control than other Project Administrators. In this scenario, you can create a group, populate it with the appropriate members, and then use the Add a 'Trusted Admin Group' to empower button to add a row on the Select Who to Empower screen for that group. You can then assign permissions to the selected group as desired.
Remember to click Save after making any changes.
How scheme customizations are protected
As soon as a scheme is changed in Self-Service mode, Delegated Project Admin Pro performs the following behind-the-scenes:
- A new scheme is created by copying the original scheme and then applying the Delegated Project Administrator's changes. This scheme will contain "Delegated Project Admin" in its name to denote that it was created by Delegated Project Admin Pro.
- The original scheme, when viewed using normal Jira administrative screens, will appear with a
symbol. Because this scheme is no longer used, this symbol denotes that the scheme should not be deleted so that it can be restored should a Delegated Project Administrator choose to exit Self-Service mode.
For a project that was originally using an Issue Type Scheme named "PMS: Process Management Issue Type Scheme", this is how it would appear once an issue type was added or removed while in Self-Service mode:
Advanced settings
General configurations
- When enabled, the Help Us Improve the Product parameter allows us to collect some usage data that helps us improve the product. To learn more about what is being sent, refer to Analytics Information. This configuration can also be turned off if you do not wish to share the information.
- Number of process templates that can be created in Self-Service mode is configurable through 'Number of process templates' field. If the number of process templates to be created is limited then no user will be able to create process templates more than the number configured here. In case no limit is configured here, there will be no limit on the number of process templates to be created.
Remember to click Save after making any changes.
Field description mappings
The final step in configuring Delegated Project Admin Pro is to use the Advanced Settings screen to review the description of any fields you have delegated under the Full "Self-Service" Settings section of the Select What To Delegate screen.
If you wish to change any of the field descriptions, click the pencil icon. The description will then be editable and you can click Update to save your changes or Cancel to discard them.
Once you've changed a field's description, a "customized" lozenge will appear next to the field and you will be able to click Reset to default to restore the original description.
Work with locks
In order for Delegated Project Admin Pro to protect some of the critical operations, it will only allow one operation of it's kind at a time for a given project. An example of this is the switching of Workflow Schemes. While multiple projects can switch schemes, there can only be one "switch" per project happening at the same time.
This protection is done by the app acquiring a "Lock" before the operation and then cancelling the "Lock" after the operation has completed. In some rare cases, these locks may not be unlocked. If this happens and you as the administrator are aware that the operation is complete, you can go to the "Lock Info" tab to scan for Locks and then cancel the individual locks.
Stop delegation for specific projects
In this section, Jira admins can control which projects have Delegated Project Admin Pro delegation capabilities. Select the project by typing the project name in the Stop delegation on Projects field. This stops delegating the administrative capabilities to Project Admins for the selected projects.
Projects that are a part of a project group are not displayed when you try to select projects to stop delegation.
Reports
This section displays all the projects with details in guided path mode and self-guided mode. Switch between the two tabs - Guided Path Mode and Self Service Mode to view the projects of the respective mode.
You can click the project link in each of these tabs to navigate to the respective delegated admin page of the project. Click the link provided with various elements in each of the projects to view the respective history details in a dialog.
- All the projects displayed in both the tabs are paginated. You can see a maximum of 50 projects in a page.
- Only when a scheme changes through guided path mode, the respective project is displayed in the Guided Path Mode list of projects in this page.
- Only when you select Enter Self Service Mode for a project in the Delgated Project Admin tab, the project is displayed in the Self Service Mode list of projects in this page.
- When an Administrator clicks the project link to view the project in the respective delegated admin page of the project, the administrator cannot view the page without delegated project admin permission. A permission denied message is displayed.
Export to CSV
You can export reports data to a CSV file by clicking Export to CSV on the top right corner of the page.
Note that the projects from Self Service mode are displayed in continuation with those of Guided Path mode. You do not see two different tabs in the exported CSV file.
Administer project groups
Create a project group using the project UI
If a trusted user with the "Project Group" permission also has the "Enter Self-Service" permission set, as the project enters Self-Service mode, they will be prompted with a series of dialogs that will allow them to create a new project group. This same set of dialogs can be reached by going to Actions > Associate Project to Group in a project that is already in Self-Service mode.
| Do not join a Project Group | Create a new project group | Join an existing project group |
|---|---|---|
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By selecting the independent option, the project does not join a project group. It will function independently. | By selecting this option and specifying a name, a new project group is created with this project being the only member. | If there are already groups and the user is a project administrator on these projects, they can select to join the project group. |
Join a project group using the project UI
If the user selects to join an existing project group, the system will scan the configuration of both the project joining and the project group it will join. If it identifies any issues that are incompatible with the project group's configuration, a dialog will be shown and the project will not be able to join the project group:
If the project is able to join the project, but there are changes that will be made to the project due to the various Schemes being different (Workflow Schemes, Issue Type Schemes, etc.) a dialog will be shown with the details of the changes:
The user can then select not to join the group by clicking Cancel.
Leaving a project group using the project UI
If the user wants to separate the project from the project group, they can select Associate Project to Group from the "Actions" dropdown.
This will cause the project to go through the screens above to select a new group. They can also select Exit Self-Service Mode at which point they will be prompted if they only want this project to leave Self-Service or all projects in the Project Group.
If the user wants to separate the project from the project group, they can select Exit Project Group also from the "Actions" dropdown.
User is asked for confirmation before exiting from project group.
Work with a project group using the global administration UI
Any user that has the "Project Group" permission can see all of the project groups that they have project administration rights for by going to the profile dropdown in upper right corner and then selecting Project Group Settings. For administrators, this is also available in the administration area.
Here the user can see the groups that they are Project Administrators for. Clicking on the drop-downs allows the user to filter the view.
If a new project group is needed, the user can click on Add new Project Group.
- In order for the Project Group Lead field to be shown, the user has to be a Jira administrator.
- Projects added to a Project Group are not displayed for selection in the Stop Delegation screen.
At this point, the user can create a new group and select the projects that should be contained within it. The configuration of the first project added to the group will be the configuration that the other projects will be migrated to.
Only projects that are currently in Self-Service mode will show up in the Project(s) dropdown. The Project Group Lead is filtered down to the users that have project administration rights across those projects.
Announce project group ownership
As a way to communicate to Project Administrators that may not be able to administrate the project through Delegated Project Admin Pro for Jira, we have introduced an announcement viewable to the project administrators. This announcement shows who is managing the configuration of the project:
The Jira administrator can configure the text in this banner in the administration area shown below:
