Leading on from our popular first part – Get on track with roadmaps in Jira Software (Cloud), we wanted to go deeper on the subject and explain the difference between classic and next-gen projects. If you have been using Jira Cloud you will more than likely have noticed the new next-gen Projects that are now available. They are a new feature created by Atlassian to help empower users of Jira, to give them more control over their work and to make setting up a project an easy task…. not for a Jira Admin, but for a project admin. So where does this leave the classic projects? And what is the difference between the two?
Power to the smaller teams
Prior to the release of next-gen projects, if a team wanted to set up a project in Jira they would need to get it set up by an admin. Depending on the organization you work for, the process could be anything from painless to painful. Atlassian has addressed this by giving users the ability to set up their own small projects – with certain limitations. They have done this by redesigning the project settings, the main difference an admin will notice is that schemes have been removed. In fact, the whole project settings area has had an overhaul.
Say goodbye to schemes
No more issue type schemes and issue type screen schemes in next-gen. In fact, no schemes at all. Instead, the new interface allows the project’s admin to simply click and add a new issue type into the project, add or remove the desired fields from the screen, and save the changes. You can even create your own custom fields to add to the issue type screen – if you need something a little more specific to your project.
Fantastic Agile features
The other big area of difference in the project settings is the features page, where the project’s admin can enable or disable various project features such as the roadmap, a new built-in feature available only in the next-gen projects. Other features such as Reports, Backlog, and Boards can also be enabled by the project admin. All areas of the project settings in the next-gen project are easy to use and contain helpful linked guides to assist newer project admins.
One workflow, one vision
Next-gen admins will notice that they can not change the workflows in their projects, so if you are looking for something other than the three-step To Do, In Progress, Done workflow, you will have to consider a classic project. But a workflow is one of the more difficult aspects of setting up a project, get it wrong and you can create chaos – hence its exclusion from the project setting. Also, admins can not make changes to select permissions, instead, they can control the access to the project and select from three tiers of access. You can however make changes to notification settings, there are not as many events and you can not create any additional project roles though.
In short, the settings have been stripped back to a similar level to that of the Project Admin role in a classic Jira project – with some additional extras and, at least in Atlassian’s eyes, a more user-friendly layout.
A new direction for users
This does not mean the end of classic Projects or the Jira Admin role for that matter. As with many features in Jira, it is an option for the users, and as such one that the Administrator can remove if the organization calls for it. This can be done by managing the Global Permissions and removing the necessary user groups from the Create next-gen Projects permission. Larger organizations may generally find that they want their projects created by admins – especially on larger instances, as many projects could end being created and never used. There may also be a risk of creating work silos, a common issue in all organizations, and one that Jira has always aimed to resolve.
This is also most likely why next-gen projects are not available on Data Centre deployments, as these are being aimed at large scale organizations, and Jira Cloud is looking at the smaller – mid-range size organizations. The kind of organizations whose teams want to get a project launched with minimum fuss, and perhaps do not have specialist Atlassian Admins and SME’s amongst their staff.
Finally, cloud users will also notice that it is only available in the Jira Software cloud deployments, and not in Jira Service Management, and that is simply because the next-gen projects are packed with Agile features, and therefore designed with teams that work in Agile way in mind.
As an Atlassian Platinum Solution Partner, Valiantys can help you simplify your handling of Jira especially with your projects. Thanks to the Atlassian suite and apps, your teams can gain agility. We are here to accompany you from the conception of the solution to its hosting to the coaching of your team thanks to training and daily support.
