Release notes for 11.2.X

The Atlassian Jira Align team is pleased to announce Jira Align v.11.2. 

• Coming soon
• Enhancements and features
• Performance improvements
• Bug fixes

Last updated: August 30, 2024 to include bug fixes delivered in bug fix release 11.2.1.0830

Coming soon

Future removal and migration of Portfolio Ask field

We’re removing the Portfolio Ask field from themes, epics, capabilities, and features in Jira Align. Although we do not have exact timing for removals yet, the field will remain until at least November 22, 2024, when we first deploy version 11.6.X to test environments. We are letting you know now so that you have ample time to prepare, and will provide another notice once an exact version for removal is confirmed.

For more details on why we’re making this change and how we plan to migrate portfolio ask data to milestones, see our full announcement.

End-of-support status for legacy functionality in 11.5

The following functionality will be designated with end-of-support status as of the 11.5.X releases, which will first ship to test environments on October 25, 2024:

• Work in progress by step report (also known as WIP by step board)
  • Related to the Additional options > Reports > WIP by step board system role permission
• Value engineering functionality and report
  • The report can be accessed from the Value tab of epic, capability, and feature details panels, as well as the Reports section of the navigation sidebar after selecting a portfolio, solution, or program. 
  • Related to the Portfolio > Track > Value engineering report system role permission

Once version 11.5.X is deployed, Jira Align Support will no longer file new defects for these capabilities, and we’ll prepare to remove the functionality in the future. We’ll provide at least 30 days notice when a timeline for removal is set.

Early access program for program board performance improvements

We’re offering a preview of upcoming performance improvements to the program board through an early access program (EAP). This program will begin in the next few weeks, independent of Jira Align release versions. Participating in the EAP will give you the ability to test these improvements to page loading time and responsiveness, and provide us feedback that we can use to further enhance these changes. We’ll be reaching out to some organizations through your Atlassian Advisory Services (AS) representative with an invite to participate. If you don’t have an AS representative and would like to participate in the preview, please raise a support ticket with the title “Program board EAP”.

Enhancements and features

These features for 11.2 were released to environments on the continuous release track on August 2, 2024, in version 11.2.0. The features were then released to environments on the bundled release track on August 16, 2024, in version 11.2.1.

Hide accepted features from the backlog

To help your team focus on work that has not been completed yet, and to enhance backlog performance, we’re launching a new platform setting that allows you to automatically hide features once they are accepted. If you enable this setting, accepted features will no longer appear in the List and Kanban > Column views, but will remain visible in the Kanban > State and Kanban > Process Flow views.

To enable the setting:

By default, this setting is disabled in existing environments to avoid disrupting your team's workflow. The setting will be enabled for any new Jira Align environments created after this release.

To activate the setting, navigate to your instance's portfolio settings and select Manage here next to the Accepted items in backlog option. A panel will display, allowing you to specify if features are hidden depending on program increment selection:

• Program increments selected: Features are hidden when viewing a backlog with one or more program increments selected in the navigation sidebar.
• No program increments selected: Features are hidden when viewing a backlog with no program increments selected in the navigation sidebar. The sidebar's dropdown will display All time.

You have the flexibility to configure this setting either at the platform level or for a specific portfolio. Changes made at the platform level will apply to all portfolios except those with a custom configuration. For example, if you deactivate this setting for Portfolio-A and subsequently enable it for the platform, Portfolio-A will maintain its custom configuration.

Frequently asked questions:

• Which work items can I hide? Currently, you can only hide features.
• What are my configuration options? You have the flexibility to hide features based on various filtering scenarios. This includes hiding work items when all program increments (PIs) are selected or when specific PIs are chosen in the navigation sidebar. For example, you can opt to hide accepted items when all PIs are selected and show them when only some PIs are chosen.
• How does this affect ranking? Hidden items will maintain their ranking to ensure consistency across Jira Align. In cases where two items share the same rank and one is accepted while the other is not, the accepted item will be ranked higher.
• How does this affect load calculations? This setting will not influence estimated and actual workload calculations.
• How can I communicate this change to my team? When you enable this setting, a dismissible banner will appear on the relevant backlog views to notify your team.

For detailed instructions on managing this new setting, refer to our updated help documentation.

Customize default column settings on work item grid pages via API

You now have the ability to specify what fields display as default column selections on grid pages for themes, epics, capabilities, and features. Setting column defaults ensures new users see key fields, and promotes common language and views across your organization. Default columns are displayed when selecting the Restore Defaults button from the Columns Shown menu.

You can modify the column defaults by using the following new endpoints in the Jira Align API:

• Themes: GridConfigurations/theme/ColumnConfigurations
• Epics: GridConfigurations/epic/ColumnConfigurations
• Capabilities: GridConfigurations/capability/ColumnConfigurations
• Features: GridConfigurations/feature/ColumnConfigurations

Note that you will need Super Admin permissions to edit these endpoints. Review our community announcement for more details on how this customization option can help your users collaborate better and onboard faster.

New warning when attempting to export more than 500 records

We’ve added a warning to the modal that displays when attempting to export more than 500 records from grid pages for epics, capabilities, features, and stories. This warning advises you to use page filters to reduce the amount of records for export, in order to ensure successful download of the export file.

While investigating reports of some export requests timing out or providing an incomplete file, we’ve determined that 500 is a safe maximum. We’ll continue working to improve export performance in the future and may consider raising this recommendation when possible.

Improved tooltip behavior on grid pages

We’ve made improvements to the display of tooltips on grid pages for epics, capabilities, features, stories, tasks, and defects. Previously, hovering over a work item name would display a tooltip containing the ID of the work item. Now, the full work item name will display in the tooltip. This lets you view lengthy work item names that are truncated in the grid.

Improved tooltip behavior on roadmap

We’ve made improvements to the display of tooltips for roadmaps. The tooltips now display more rapidly, and have an updated design.

Risk ROAM report new experience enabled for all

The new experience of the risk ROAM report has been enabled for all environments, and the old experience has been removed. See the risk ROAM article for more information on using the new modernized version of the report.

API: Create, edit, and delete milestone categories

We've added the Milestone Category type to the platformDropdown endpoint, allowing you to create, edit, and delete category values for work item milestones.

API: More consistency with the self property appearance

As part of refactoring our API to be more performant, we’ve made GET results more consistent in displaying the self property. Collections in an expanded GET will include the self property if the entity has a public GET endpoint. Self will also display on GET-by-id commands for the following endpoints that did not display it previously:

• costcenters
• workcodes
• anchorsprints
• domain/{domainId}/health
• divisions

Note that any results prior to this change were not affected, so backwards compatibility will continue to work as expected.

Performance improvements

Backlog: Faster load times in feature kanban column view via pagination

We’ve enhanced the Kanban > Column view of the feature backlog by introducing pagination. Previously, the entire contents of the view would attempt to render, resulting in lengthy load times when viewing large counts of features. Now, the page displays the first 100 features, and will load more as you scroll to the bottom of the list. Through this change, we’re seeing the page load 20%-60% faster.

Bug fixes

Last updated: August 30, 2024 to include bug fixes delivered in bug fix release 11.2.1.0830

User-reported issues

This list of resolved bugs will be updated weekly to reflect changes from maintenance and bug fix releases. You can see the contents of individual bug fix releases in the Bug fix release notes section.

Internally-found issues

We’ve corrected the following bugs that were discovered while investigating related issues, building new enhancements, and performing maintenance:

11.2.0

• Some users were able to view work items they did not have permissions to view through global search.
• Regional Allotment and Program Allotment fields inside program increment details panels allowed negative values to be saved.
• Some users could experience a HTTP 500 timeout error when performing a GET command on features and program increments in the API.
• Inaccurate errors were logged in the ADO connector when a program was incorrectly mapped.
• Jira connector logs were not respecting custom terminology selections.
• A blank panel displayed after selecting a capability’s Forecasted Spend value from the forecast page.
• Tooltips displayed the incorrect work item name for capabilities when hovering over a Forecasted Spend value from the forecast page.
• Users without objective permissions were able to view objective details from the roadmaps page.
• Inconsistent values were calculated in the scope line of the program increment progress report’s Drill Down > Burnup chart when filtering by release vehicle.
• After copying a story, the incorrect details panel would display.
• Incorrect values were set for team/member weeks estimates when creating new features from epic or capability details panels.
• After dragging a story to a new sprint swimlane in the story backlog, the audit log would state the program increment was changed instead of the sprint.
• Negative values could be saved in feature estimate fields when using the team/member weeks estimation system.

11.2.1

• Some pages experienced slightly slower load times due to old navigation checks running in the background.
• Features with stories tied to kanban teams with 0 throughput incorrectly displayed red or orange status.
• Script vulnerability potential related to the program room was identified and closed.
• Script vulnerability potential related to the customer visits page was identified and closed. 

11.2.1.0830

• SQL injection vulnerability potential related to the program increments page was identified and closed.
• SQL injection vulnerability potential related to checklists was identified and closed.