Support for Atlassian Server Products (and apps like BigPicture) has ended in February 2024.

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BigPicture security and permissions in Jira

Introduction

Jira global permissions are system-wide and granted to groups of users. Site admins or Jira admins define global permissions per instance. If a company has two instances, global permissions are set separately for each instance.

Global permissions BigPicture needs

Site admins or Jira admins can configure global permissions on the Jira settings > System > Global permissions page.

There are six global permissions available in Jira:

  • Administer Jira

  • Browse users and groups

  • Share dashboards and filters

  • Manage group filter subscriptions

  • Make bulk changes

  • Create team-managed projects

BigPicture needs three global permissions to operate in Jira:

  • Administer Jira

  • Browse users and groups

  • Share dashboards and filters

The table presents global permissions BigPicture needs in Jira and their explanation. Learn more about global permissions in the Manage global permissions article.

Global permission

Explanation

Global permission

Explanation

Administer Jira

Create and administer projects, issue types, fields, workflows, and schemes for all projects. Users with this permission can perform most administration tasks, except managing users, importing and exporting data, and editing system email settings.

Users with the Administer Jira permission can log in at any time but may be restricted depending on their application access.

Browse users and groups

View and select users or groups from the user picker. Users with this permission can see the names of all users and groups on your site, provided they have the Browse Project permission granted. They can also @mention people on issues.

Share dashboards and filters

Share dashboards and filters with other users.

BigPicture has access to three listed global permissions through membership in groups:

  • atlassian-addons-admin

  • jira-service management-users. 

  • jira-software-users

  • jira-workmanagement-users

If BigPicture is removed from one of the groups (e.g., atlassian-addons-admin), it does NOT mean BigPicture loses access to Jira. BigPicture can still access Jira through membership in the remaining groups.

BigPicture has to be removed from all groups to lose access to Jira.

Security

In BigPicture, you can grant security roles to individual users or Jira user groups. The roles can be defined for each box separately or automatically inherited when creating sub-level boxes.

BigPicture always respects Jira permissions and security settings.

Learn more about security on the Security configuration page.

Technical user

When BigPicture cannot indicate the real user responsible for an action, a technical user is used for data synchronization between BigPicture and Jira. That includes background synchronizations or situations requiring higher permissions to maintain data integrity.

For BigPicture to work correctly, the technical user must have full access to all Jira issues handled by BigPicture (in the scope of all boxes).

Jira Cloud

The technical user is created automatically when BigPicture is hosted on Jira Cloud. The technical user defaults to the anonymous user and cannot be changed.

Jira Data Center

The technical user defaults to the anonymous user on Jira Data Center, but this can be changed. You can create a user that will be used by the App (for example, "BigPicture") to know that the App itself was responsible for changes.

Learn more about the technical user on the Technical info page.

What BigPicture can affect in Jira

Due to global permissions BigPicture acquires in Jira, BigPicture can create and change Jira issues and their fields, sprints, and versions.

BigPicture CANNOT make changes to:

  • All Jira settings

  • Jira projects (name, key, avatar, permissions, and other configurations)

  • Boards configuration

  • Filters configuration

  • Users