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.10.126. 

• Enhancements and features
• Defect fixes

Enhancements and features

These features for 10.126 were released to environments on the continuous release track on October 27, 2023, in version 10.126.0. The features will then be released to environments on the bundled release track on November 10, 2023, in version 10.126.2:

Introducing the capacity feature

We are excited to introduce the capacity feature in Jira Align, which replaces the plan capacity modal on the forecast page. The new feature helps you build a detailed capacity plan for every program increment using either a points or member weeks estimation system. You can now visualize capacity in a whole new way and enjoy a spreadsheet-like editing experience that makes planning flexible, efficient, and accurate. All you need to do is input basic information, and Jira Align will calculate the capacity for each team and aggregate data to the program, solution, and portfolio levels.

Tailored to your estimation system

In the past, capacity planning only supported the weeks-based system and calculated capacity based on team allocations. This posed a significant challenge for many of you who had to resort to creating complex spreadsheets and manually adjusting velocity data.

Now, you can build a capacity plan using either the points or member weeks estimation system, depending on what you have selected in your portfolio settings. If you use the team weeks or t-shirt system, it will default to the member week system and convert data for you.

Actionable insights at a glance

With our innovative plan summary, you can now instantly determine if you have enough available capacity to commit to forecasted work for the program increment. To keep it all connected, this data is displayed on the forecast page at the program and team levels. The plan summary displays all the aggregated data and even provides a glimpse into data from the previous plan.

Flexible and customizable with filters

We know a lot of different team members may need to contribute to the capacity plan. So we made it possible to access the page from a portfolio, solution, or program context, and if needed, filter down to the programs that are relevant to your specific role and situation.

Spreadsheet-like editing experience

The plan details table allows you to make edits efficiently with bulk actions and helpful data options, while also giving you flexibility and control with single-cell edits, custom values, and informative tooltips.

For example, as a leader overseeing multiple programs, you can quickly update all programs at once by applying one of the available data options. To avoid potential conflicts, you might check the audit log or review past activity with tooltips specifying the author and timestamp before you confirm the update. You can then continue editing teams individually, applying data options, or entering custom values as needed.

Available data options include:

• Values from the previous plan. For example, you can repeat the capacity percentage for each team in a few clicks, even if they all have different values.
• Defaults established by leaders. For example, you can set a default of “10 members per team” or “20 points per sprint.”
• Data sourced from Jira Align. For example, you may want to simplify things by using the same number of team members set in the team’s allocations.

Notes:

• Capacity plans lock and become view-only 30 days after the end of the PI. This allows you to review previous plans and gain insights, without accidentally making any changes.
• We've removed the ability to name and create multiple buffers per team, and replaced this with a simplified experience in the spreadsheet. Use the Buffer column to represent the total buffer needed for the team in member weeks or points.
• We also removed the ability to create specialists, as this new feature is focused on determining available capacity for a team instead of individuals. 

Seamless transition to the new experience

We’re so excited for you to enjoy this new feature that we’ve brought over your data from previous program increments (PI), so you can easily reference it.

Related updates to the forecast page

• You can now access the forecast page from the main sidebar, right above the new capacity page. We believe forecasting should have better visibility in Jira Align.
• Points-based system users: bid farewell to the Manage velocity button. We removed the option to override a program PI velocity because the capacity page now provides a more accurate calculation.
• Weeks-based system users: say goodbye to the Plan capacity button—because now you have a dedicated page for capacity that is more intuitive, accessible, and accurate.
• Regardless of which estimation system you use, we are providing tooltips on the forecast page to help you quickly understand data coming from the capacity page.

Stay tuned for what’s coming soon

• In future releases, you will see data from our innovative bar graph in more locations within Jira Align, including the program room, portfolio room, and backlog.
• This will replace the program PI velocity calculation and overrides in the forecast page and the Team Load card from the program room.

Get started today

The capacity page is becoming the source of truth for estimation activities, so we recommend you get started today! Check out our video demos and comprehensive three-part guide:

• Video demos
• Understand the capacity page
• Build your capacity plan
• Review your capacity plan

New navigation improvements

Several reports were available directly from the dependency and objectives grid pages. When accessed from the global version of the pages, these reports opened without the new sidebar navigation menu, so they could not be filtered by a team. Now, these reports are only available from the Reports section of the sidebar menu.

Dependency reports:

• Maps
• Story link report
• Orphan report

Objective reports:

• Objectives tree
• Progress by objective
• Action items report

Finally, view objectives in the backlog!

Prioritizing work just got easier with the introduction of objectives in the backlog. To view them, select Objectives in the Columns Shown menu in the backlog. Quickly see more details by selecting an objective to open its details panel.

By viewing objectives in the backlog, you can ensure your work is prioritized and contributing directly to strategy.

OKR hub is now more accessible!

We’ve added keyboard navigation to the OKR hub, making the page even more accessible.

Column re-ordering:

• Use Tab to navigate through the table headers
• Pressing Space on a header will start reordering mode
• Arrow keys left and right move the column
• Pressing Space again ends reordering
• Pressing Enter on a header will sort the column if it is sortable

Dropdown menus:

• Use Tab and then arrow keys to navigate through a dropdown
• Enter to select an option in a dropdown

Open the objective details panel:

• Tab through the OKR hub table and open details panels for objectives and goals by pressing Enter

Enable the sync of additional Jira Align feature fields

To reduce the effort of manually copying data from Jira Align features to Jira epics, the Jira Connector now supports the sync of additional fields, including:

• Type
• Priority
• Single-select dropdown custom fields
• Text input custom fields

The Target completion date field has also been moved from the Jira Setup tab to the new Field management tab, as well as the Jira Software field it was mapped to.

This feature is available in a new Field management tab on the Jira Settings page, that all users with permission to view the Jira Settings page can access. The new design provides a dropdown list on the left-hand side with the newly available Jira Align feature fields (as well as an existing field, Target completion date) that can be synced to Jira Software. Once a Jira Align field is selected, a dropdown list on the right-hand side will display a list of available Jira Software custom fields.

For dropdown field types (i.e. Type, Priority, and single-select dropdown custom fields), the field values will need to be mapped in order for the records to successfully synchronize the data across the two tools. This can be done by selecting Map field values from the menu on the mapped field row and filling out the Jira Align and corresponding Jira Software field values.

ADO Connector custom text area field sync

Building off of a previous release, the Azure DevOps (ADO) connector now supports the sync of Jira Align text area-type custom fields for features and stories. This data can be synced bidirectionally or from ADO to Jira Align only, depending on the sync direction configured for a corresponding work item type.

This feature is aimed to enable the sync of critical data between Jira Align and ADO. Also, it will improve the experience by syncing some required ADO fields that couldn’t have been synced earlier and, potentially, unblock the ability to use bidirectional sync.

Existing system fields configured in details panels settings will display on the ADO connector slide-out in the corresponding work item sections.

To make data sync, you’ll need to enter the exact name of the needed ADO field in the mapping text box. The system doesn’t force users to map any specific ADO field type.

The ADO connector will now support the sync of rich-text fields (RTF) data, and feature and story slide-outs will now support RTF data for text area custom fields.

If a Jira Align custom field is not set as Active for any of the portfolios whose child programs are mapped in your connector, a warning icon will be shown next to this field mapping on the connector slide-out panel. Make sure that the custom field is activated for the needed portfolios. This will allow you to see the field on details panels of individual work items and have the data synced by the connector.

Changes to status reports

To support the changes provided by Jira Align’s new navigation, we’ve made the following updates to the status reports page:

• The status reports landing page that displayed in old navigation has been removed from new navigation. Now, a status report will immediately load, based on the context you selected from the top navigation bar: portfolio, solution, or program. You can access the status reports from any of these contexts. We’ve also removed some versions of status reports that are not compatible with new navigation:
  • The Organization Structure, Release Vehicle, and My Reports versions of status reports has been removed
  • The Theme version can be accessed by navigating to the status reports page from a portfolio, solution, or program context, and selecting a theme filter from the Extra Configs menu.
  • The Program Increment version can be accessed by navigating to the status reports page from a portfolio, solution, or program context, and selecting one or more program increments from the sidebar.
  • The Epic version can be accessed by navigating to the status reports page from a portfolio, solution, or program context, and selecting the name of a listed epic.
• Theme and Owner filters have been added to the Extra Configs menu.
  • Labels for these filters, as well as the Tags filter, now display at the top of the page when active.
• Linked theme names on the page will now open the details panel for the selected theme.
• Epics and stand-alone features will display in the page based on both primary and additional program associations. In a future release, we’ll be adding an option to the Extra Configs menu to filter only work items with a primary program association.
• Ranking of items on the page now respects the choices made in the new navigation top navigation bar and sidebar:
  • Portfolio / solution / program ranking is used when viewing a portfolio / solution / program with no program increments (PIs), or more than one PI, selected in the sidebar. This ranking is also used when switching off the Use program increment date(s) option at the top of the page and filtering by custom dates.
  • Portfolio PI / solution PI / program PI ranking is used when viewing a portfolio / solution / program with one PI selected in the sidebar.
• Status has been set as the default view when entering the page.
• In Financials view, we’ve removed duplicate totals rows at the bottom of grids.
• The Company row that displayed organization structure names at the top of portfolio-based and program-based status reports has been removed.

Quality module: Confirmed and upcoming object removals

In version 10.121.3, we removed the summary pages within the Quality module, while references to some objects remained. In this release, we’ve cleaned up the codebase and removed all references and links to test sets.

In version 10.127.1, we plan to fully remove references and links to test plans.

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

Production environments are set to use the bundled release track, while sandbox environments 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. 

The 10.126.3 maintenance release was deployed to environments on the continuous release track and environments on the bundled release track on November 17, 2023. Maintenance releases contain high-priority defect fixes and fixes for any features deployed in version 10.126.X.

Defect fixes

The 10.127 release of Enterprise Insights (EI) will not be deployed on December 1, 2023. We are canceling this deployment to ensure our releases meet our high standards for quality. Environments on the continuous release track will remain on EI version 10.126 until December 20, 2023, when we plan to deploy EI version 10.128. Environments on the bundled release track will remain on EI version 10.126 until January 5, 2024. 

Note: This article has been republished. This method is used to provide notification emails to users subscribed to Enterprise Insights release notes updates. This article has been updated to include the mention of the Atlassian Analytics schema change and removal of the Test Suite Name column in version 10.127 announcements. 

Jira Align's Enterprise Insights (EI) was updated and deployed to 10.126.X instances on the continuous track on October 27, 2023, and will be deployed to instances on the bundled track on November 10, 2023. The following enhancements were made:

• Release highlights
• Announcements
• New tables

Release highlights

• New content/suggestions
  • New Metric Log views added in current_dw and export_dw schemas that contain key result audit log data.
  • Removal of HTML tags in values for Story Description in Story and Story History views in current_dw and export_dw schemas
  • Removal of HTML tags in values for Defect Description in Defect view in current_dw and export_dw schemas
• Defect fixes
  • JIRAALIGN-5404: Deleted feature records do not appear in export_dw Feature view when a feature was deleted in between Enterprise Insight refresh times. This fix only applies to new feature records.
  • For on-premise instances only - JIRAALIGN-6106: ETL job fails with a Sprint Short Name of 37 chars despite having Shortname datatype as nvarchar(50)

Announcements

• Atlassian Analytics schema change: In response to JIRAALIGN-5429, the following work item links tables are now available in the Enterprise Insights schema. The tables are not visible in the simplified schema.
  • current_dw.[Theme Link]
  • current_dw.[Epic Link]
  • current_dw.[Capability Link]
  • current_dw.[Feature Link]
  • current_dw.[Story Link]
    
    Notes:
    • You will need to sync the Enterprise Insights schema in Atlassian Analytics to see the new tables.
    • If you have removed any joins in the original schema configurations, they will be added back after syncing the schema, and you will need to remove them again. Before syncing the schema, we recommend that you document any original joins you've removed.
    • The schema file for EI 10.126 has been updated to include this change.
    • The release of these changes was made to environments on the continuous and bundled release tracks during the week of November 27, 2023. This deployment occurred earlier than intended. We will investigate the cause of this to ensure unexpected changes do not occur in the future. 
• For on-premise instances only: Once the on-premise 10.126.3 Jira Align release is installed, the SSIS ETL job will take a few minutes longer to run, depending on the data volume the instance has. This longer running job is part of correcting the errors found in JIRAALIGN-6106.
• In version 10.127, the following changes will be made:
  • The Test Suite Name column in the Test Case views (current_dw and export_dw schemas) will be removed.
    • This removal is a result of the work done in Jira Align to remove the Quality module. In preparation for this upcoming change, please make updates to your reports and dependencies, i.e. ETL, that use this field. 
  • The Feature Type column in the Epic views (current_dw and export_dw schemas) will be removed.
    • The column name is inconsistent with the Epic History view where the column name is Epic Type.
    • Please update your reports and integrations to use the new Epic Type column in the Epic views (current_dw and export_dw schemas) available in release 10.123.

New tables

As part of the 10.130.0 release, we will be ending support for several Jira Align features, reports, and admin settings. This release is scheduled for February 16, 2024 and will mark the date that Jira Align Support will no longer file new defects for these capabilities. Our team will continue to support all other functionality in Jira Align, and is committed to our ongoing efforts to deliver and maintain a high-quality product.

The capabilities listed below have also been added to our pending removals list and will be removed from Jira Align over the next several quarters. Due to the volume of functionality that will transition into end-of-support status, we have not set a timeline for specific capabilities to be removed. Instead, we will work through this list incrementally, and prioritize a subset of these capabilities to remove each quarter.

We will provide at least 30 days advance notice prior the removal of a specific capability from this list. You can continue to find these notices inside of future release notes.

Why are we planning to remove such a large list of capabilities from Jira Align?

Today, Jira Align has a large number of features that have low usage and/or overlap with other Atlassian products, which causes confusion among our customer base. We often hear customers say that Jira Align is “complex” and has a high learning curve. Part of this is due to the sheer volume of functionality in the product. To move faster and improve our overall user experience, we need to remove low value features, clean up tech debt, and prioritize investing in our core value drivers – things like Objectives, Backlog, Dependencies, Roadmap, and Reporting + many more.

It’s very important to emphasize that Atlassian is investing more than ever into Jira Align. We hope you’ve noticed some of our most recent feature launches. including forecasting at the feature level, a new capacity experience, value stream management functionality powered by Atlassian Analytics, and more. Check out our public roadmap to see what’s coming next.

The table below is organized by category and lists the capabilities scheduled for end-of-support status beginning February 16, 2024. If you have any questions or feedback on these upcoming changes and removals, please reach out to Jira Align Support, your Jira Align partners, or your Enterprise Solutions Specialist.

List of functionality scheduled for end-of-support status

Later this year, Jira Software Cloud will begin rolling out the new Parent field in company-managed projects. For more details about these changes, review Jira's Introducing the new Parent field in company-managed projects.

As a result of this update, we’ll be making some changes in Jira Align for connectors integrated with Jira Software Cloud instances. You don’t need to do anything to prepare for these changes.

For more information about the Jira Align updates, check out the Upcoming changes to support a new Jira Software parent field article in the Atlassian Community.

Check out the latest news on new Jira Align features and development efforts we’re working on. Our Q4 2023 Product Roadmap presentation is now available.

Note that you will need to be logged into our Help Center site to be able to access the recording. If you don’t already have a login, select the Sign up link to create a new one. This account is not tied to your Jira Align user credentials.

Note: This article has been deleted and then republished, as the removal of the old navigation has been delayed. This method is used in order to provide notification emails to users subscribed to Announcements updates.

In version 10.131.2, we’ll be finishing our rollout of Jira Align’s new navigation. The old navigation will be permanently replaced and will no longer be accessible in all instances. Additionally, old navigation information will be removed from our Help Center articles.

Keep in mind that the old navigation may be removed earlier for some instances. For more information about the rollout process, check out the You spoke, we listened: an update on Jira Align's new navigation rollout article in the Atlassian Community.

To prepare for the removal, we recommend switching to the new navigation and trying it out for yourself. You can also check out our articles about the new navigation and homepage to get familiar with the changes.

We also recommend updating any internal Jira Align documentation you may have with new navigation details by version 10.131.2. We’ve added new navigation information to our existing Help Center articles to help with this, as well as a PDF for a quick reference of all page locations in the new navigation.

Select the attachment below to download the PDF:

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!