Object Dependencies Report

Owned by Rosen Marinkov
Last updated: Apr 24, 2023 by Comala Publishing for Confluence Cloud
3 min read

From version 3.0.8 of Project Configurator, the Used By Report has been renamed the Object Dependencies Report. The report’s purpose and output remain unchanged.

The Object Dependencies report shows you where objects are used or referenced by other configuration objects in your instance. When analyzing your instance, you may need to know:

  • if the custom field Technology is used in any workflow.

  • the relation between a custom field and a project.

  • where a group is referenced, including role members, permissions, issue security schemes, workflows, etc.

The report provides a quick answer to questions like these and more. This applies to all objects whether directly or indirectly part of the configuration of any project in your instance. This allows you to run the report for different purposes:

Source instance: Run the report on your source instance to see a mapping of how your instance is set up and where relationships exist between objects. This is useful if you want to better understand any instance that you may have inherited, or when planning changes to your instance before an export.

Target instance: Following an import, you can run the report to see a mapping of instance dependencies and help you identify where changes are required if you encountered any errors.

Usage

  1. To generate an Object Dependencies report, select Manage Apps from the Jira Administration menu, then select Object Dependencies Report under Project Configurator in the left sidebar.

  2. Click Launch in the Object Dependencies Report screen. The analyzed objects are displayed on the left of the report and grouped into tab links according to their type for easier navigation.

  3. Click an object type link to display the tab for the corresponding objects, e.g. Workflow. The objects with dependencies are then displayed on the right side of the report. Any dependencies are displayed as links allowing you to easily navigate and track chains of interdependencies, and help you make informed decisions about your migration tasks. When a referencing object appears more than once, that object contains more than one reference to the used object.

In the example below, Workflow, PROJ987: Project Management Workflow, is used by Workflow Scheme PROJ987: Project Management Workflow Scheme, which is used by Project PROJ987.

The Workflow section of an example Object Dependencies Report. The Used By field is highlighted.
The Workflow Scheme section of an example Object Dependences Report. The Used By field is highlighted.

Limitations

  • Inactive objects (those that are not used by any project, for example, inactive workflows or workflow schemes) are ignored. They will not be considered as objects that use or are being used by other objects.

  • Projects are never shown as used by other objects. This is not true in all cases in Jira, but in most practical cases it is convenient to treat projects as the roots of your configuration, i.e. the objects where one can start looking for the rest of configuration objects that are being used.

  • Filters, dashboards, or software boards are not included in the analysis of dependencies, therefore, none of these objects will be identified as using other objects.

  • Objects (for example a custom field) that are used only by filters, dashboards, or software boards will not be included in the report.