The Jira Align support guide provides an overview of the various help resources available for Jira Align, as well as guidelines for creating and monitoring support tickets, feature requests, and test instance refresh requests. We recommend reading this guide to assist you in creating better cases and getting issues resolved as quickly as possible.

Check it out in the Atlassian Community here.

The Atlassian Jira Align team is pleased to announce Jira Align v.10.114. 

• Enhancements and Features
• Defect Fixes

Enhancements and Features

These features for 10.114 were released to environments on the continuous release track on November 18, 2022, in version 10.114.0. The features will then be released to environments on the bundled release track on December 2, 2022, in version 10.114.2:

.NET 6 now required for on-premise instances

As previously announced, Microsoft will soon be ending support for .NET 3.1, which is required to install an on-premise instance of Jira Align. Please upgrade your environments to version .NET 6, no later than December 7, 2022, to ensure your infrastructure can support Jira Align version 10.114.2 and beyond. 

Jira connector: Bidirectional t-shirt sync

We’ve added the ability to sync t-shirt size estimates bidirectionally between Jira Software and Jira Align. This change provides more options and consistency with other mapped Jira fields. Previously, t-shirt estimates only synced in one direction, from Jira Align to Jira.

To enable bidirectional sync, change the Sync direction dropdown found at Admin > Jira Settings > Jira Setup > T-Shirt from Jira Align to Jira sync to Bidirectional sync. Before doing so, please review the warning and example about unintentional overwrites at the bottom of this section. Bidirectional sync will be the default setting for any newly-created Jira connectors. Existing connectors will continue using the Jira Align to Jira sync direction until manually changed.

A third option for sync direction, Jira to Jira Align sync, is coming soon.

We’ve also added the ability to map Jira Align’s No estimate value for t-shirt estimates with a custom Jira value.

You have two options for using this mapping:

• If you would like blank values in Jira to represent an unestimated t-shirt size, leave the mapping for the No estimate size blank in the settings window.
• If you would like to use a value such as “not estimated”, etc, for representing unestimated items, you may enter that value for the No Estimate size in the settings window.
  • Note that when you map a Jira custom value to the No estimate Jira Align value, blank entries in the Jira field will be ignored during sync, to prevent your Jira Align value from being changed.

Important! If you’re enabling bidirectional t-shirt sync for the first time, you must take care to avoid an accidental overwrite that could occur when Jira data is synced to Jira Align. This situation may be rare, but it could occur if Jira t-shirt size estimates have been set as blank, and the corresponding Jira Align features have not been updated. Consider this example:

Jira connector: Restricted Process Step and State fields when synced with Jira’s Done status

As part of resolving a reported defect, JIRAALIGN-3705, we’ve made a change to available selections in the State and Process Step fields for features and stories that are synced with Jira. When a synced Jira Align work item is updated with a state or process step value that is mapped to Jira’s Done status, you will only be able to select different values that are also mapped to Jira’s Done status. This is because the Jira connector can't remove the resolution of a Jira issue. To remove a Jira resolution, change the status inside Jira.

Jira connector: Changes to Default User settings

To help administrators avoid potential issues such as typos when entering a value, the Default User field found at Admin > Jira Settings > Jira Setup has been changed from a text field to a dropdown. You can search inside the field to locate the account you want to use as the default user. Additionally, to prevent sync issues, the field is now required.

Jira connector: Enforcing 1:1 mapping between Jira and Jira Align sprints

To prevent sprint mapping issues, we’ve removed the ability to manually map multiple Jira sprints to a single Jira Align sprint on the Admin > Jira Management > Jira Sprints settings page. Jira Align sprints that are already mapped to a Jira sprint will not be selectable and will display an error message.

Jira connector: Renamed settings and options

We’ve made some updates to the names and tooltips inside Jira connector settings to help administrators better understand the behavior of each setting:

Settings found at Admin > Jira Settings > Jira Setup

Settings found in the Team-managed project settings tab (Admin > Jira Settings > Manage Projects > [Name of project])

Sync dropdowns (Admin > Jira Settings > Jira Setup)

We’ve also changed the values found in dropdowns that control sync direction to be more clear. Instead of Yes and No, administrators can select either Bidirectional sync or Jira to Jira Align sync for the following settings:

• Permission to Edit Initiative Name
• Permission to Edit Epic Name
• Enable Epic Sync
• Enable Feature Sync
• Enable Story Sync
• Enable Defect Sync
• Enable Task Sync
• Enable Epic State Sync
• Enable Feature State Sync
• Enable Story State Sync
• Enable Defect State Sync
• Allow Jira Align to create Jira issue web links

Administrators can select either Bidirectional sync or Not synced for these settings:

• Allow release vehicles to sync with Jira Fix Versions
• Enable Rank Sync

API 2.0 support for the DELETE method

We’ve added API 2.0 support for the DELETE method for the following items:

• Cities
• Customers
• Goals
• Ideas
• Products
• Regions
• Risks
• Snapshots
• Sprints

Objectives tree (new experience): Status counts

We’ve added status counts to the four quick-filter status cards displayed at the top of the new objectives tree experience.

These counts show the total number of objectives or milestones with a specific status. The counts are tied to the selections made in the Configuration bar and page-level filters. 

Defect Fixes

The list of defect fixes will be updated to reflect changes in weekly maintenance releases. You can see the contents of individual maintenance releases in the Supplemental Release Notes section.

Below is our upcoming release schedule. Sandbox and production environments will be unavailable during our maintenance window, which starts at 11:00PM EST on the day listed below and ends at 2:00AM EST on the following day.

Release tracks

By default, production environments are set to use the bundled release track, while sandbox environments (previously known as test instances) use the continuous track. We recommend using this default setup for your environments, as it allows you to test new features released in a .0 feature release for two weeks in your sandbox environment. Those changes will then deploy to your production environment in a .2 maintenance release. 

You may change the release track from bundled to continuous in your production environment by submitting a request to our Support Team. Note that we do not guarantee a timeframe to make a release track change, but will strive to complete the request as quickly as possible. 

The 10.114.1 maintenance release will not be deployed due to national holidays and no changes scheduled for this version. Environments on the continuous release track will remain on version 10.114.0, while environments on the bundled release track will remain on version 10.113.3.8. Environments on both release tracks will be updated on December 2, 2022, when we plan to deploy version 10.114.2.

Due to the nature of continuous software development, some changes are applied to environments outside of our normal release schedule. In order to urgently remedy a reported issue, the following changes were added to version 10.113.3.8 via a hotfix, which was deployed to environments on the bundled release track on the evening of Tuesday, November 22nd. The fix was also deployed to environments on the continuous release track on Friday, November 18th, in version 10.114.0.

Defect fixes

Jira Align's Enterprise Insights (EI) was updated and deployed to 10.111.X instances on the continuous track on September 17, 2022, and will be deployed to instances on the bundled track on September 23, 2022. The following enhancements were made:

• Release highlights
• New tables
• Updated tables

Release highlights

• New content:

  • JIRAALIGN-4022 - Added Skill request estimate (allocation) for Epic/Feature work items.

  • JIRAALIGN-4142 - Added Jira Connector Logs.
  • JIRAALIGN-4227 - Added [Audit Log Detail] object for Program Increment changes on work items.

  • Added Creator Full Name and Flag values to ideas.

  • Feature Skill object added.

• Defect fixes: 

  • JIRAALIGN-4309 - Corrected Owner Full Name mapping.

  • JIRAALIGN-4310 - Corrected Owner Flag & FK User Owner ID field mapping for external owners.

  • Corrected FK Split Epic/Capability ID.

  • Corrected Deletion Flag logic for MAP Goal to Snapshot.

New tables

Updated tables

To comply with Microsoft’s upcoming end-of-support status for .NET 3.1, we will be updating Jira Align’s .NET version requirement for customers managing their own on-premise instance. The new version requirement is .NET 6.

With this in mind, Jira Align version 10.114.0 and above will require .NET 6. Before upgrading to Jira Align 10.114.2, which will be available to on-premise users on December 7, 2022, you must ensure that the infrastructure that hosts Jira Align has .NET 6 installed.

You may upgrade your infrastructure as soon as desired, as versions 10.112.2 and 10.113.2 will support both .NET 3.1 and .NET 6 simultaneously.

Thanks in advance, and please don't hesitate to reach out to the Jira Align Support Team for further clarification if you have any other questions.

Note: This article has been deleted and re-published to send a new notification, as the release timeframe for these changes has been updated.

For versions 10.100.1 and later, we'll be making some big changes to objective statuses that will also affect the API:

What’s coming in version 10.100.1

In this release, we will be adding three new statuses to objective tracking in Jira Align. These statuses will provide more nuance to the status of objectives than our current option (In Progress) allows. The new statuses will be:

• On Track: Indicates that an objective is likely to reach its desired outcomes.

• At Risk: Indicates that an objective has uncertainty around reaching its desired outcomes. For example, work needed to complete the objective may be behind schedule, or risks might pose a future threat to completion.

• Off Track: Indicates that an objective is unlikely to reach its desired outcomes if action is not taken.

In version 10.100.1, the new statuses will become available in the Jira Align UI, and will not change any existing status values. API users should also note that the status endpoint will include the new statuses, and no statuses will be removed or changed for this release.

We strongly recommend that you review your in-progress objectives and update any objectives that are at risk or off track, as the In Progress status on objectives will be migrated in a future release.

What’s coming later

In a future release, any remaining In Progress objectives will receive the On Track status. At this time, the API status value for In Progress will also be removed.

What this means for the API

Any objectives with the In Progress value will now return as On Track. There are also two new values: Off Track and At Risk. In any scenarios where the In Progress value is specified, there would need to be a change to specify On Track and depending on the use case, include the new status values as well. Otherwise, there is no action needed with this change.

Why are we making this change?
This change is in preparation for a new end-to-end objective experience including a new creation workflow, a cleaner Details panel, and a more powerful objective tree experience. As we continue to respond to feedback, it has been evident that we need the ability to provide better status updates around objectives.

For our customers utilizing OKRs, the objectives often appeared to be “at risk” when they had low scores, even if it was just too early in measuring. These new changes, along with the updates to the objective tree around the corner, will provide a much clearer picture of which objectives need attention (and which don’t) when reporting on status.

You can subscribe to three Help Center sections to receive notifications the instant release note articles are published:

• Main Release Notes: These articles contain compiled information on a Jira Align version, initially published for the 10.X.0 feature release and updated each additional release through 10.X.3.
• Supplemental Release Notes: These articles contain information on individual supplemental releases, published each release from 10.X.1 through 10.X.3.
• Enterprise Insights Release Notes: These articles contain release notes specific to Jira Align Enterprise Insights (EI).

We recommend subscribing to both the Main and Supplemental Release Notes sections to get weekly notifications on the latest Jira Align version.

What you need to do

To receive real-time release notes publication notifications, you'll need to create a Help Center account and follow the section or sections you want to receive notifications about. Please note, this will most likely be a different username and password than your Jira Align and Atlassian username and password. 

 To create an account (or reset your password if an account already exists), click the SIGN IN button on the Help Center (see the pink arrow).

Next, click the Sign up link, enter your name and email, and then click the Sign up button. You'll receive an email to finish setting up your account. If you receive a message that says a user has already signed up with the given email, click the Forgot my password link to reset your password.

Once logged in, from the Help Center home page, click the WHAT'S NEW section (bell icon).

Then click the header for the section you want to follow. Finally, click the FOLLOW button and then the New articles link.

That's it! As soon as we publish new release notes, you'll receive an email notification with a link!