Jira Setup Guide: How to Choose Your Version of Jira and Get It Up and Running

Even if you have already used Jira before, configuring it from scratch may present you with some difficult choices if you are unprepared. 

In this blog post, we guide you through the complete configuration flow. In addition to our step-by-step instructions, you will find all the information you need to select the correct parameters for your project. To help you further optimize your work in Jira, we have also included Jira setup best practices and hands-on tips.

What Does Configuring Jira Involve?

This process implies creating and adjusting several essential elements. The first step to begin with is installing Jira software, which is referred to as a Jira instance. After this, you will configure your first project. Then, this project can contain various epics, representing big bulks of work or high-level tasks. Inside each epic, you can add multiple smaller issues, or individual tasks. It’s also possible to create various issues directly in the project, skipping the epic level.

Apart from this, you will need to set up a workflow, which is a sequence of stages each issue should go through. The last step is configuring a Jira board, which visually represents all your issues.

Now, let’s examine these main elements in more detail to better understand the configuration process.

The Key Jira Concepts Crucial For Jira Setup

• Project: This is a space where you work with issues (tasks) united by a common theme. Jira allows you to have multiple projects. For example, if a company has several products and a separate team working on each one, it makes sense to organize their tasks in separate projects with different settings.
• Epic: This is a major task with a specific goal, consisting of many smaller tasks. Epics are widely used by agile and DevOps teams and are important for organizing work within a project. An example of an epic is “Migrating to the Cloud,” and individual issues within this epic would be “Prepare a migration strategy,” “Configure the cloud environment,” and so on.
• Issue: Individual work items, or simply things to be done, are called issues. Most commonly, an issue is a smaller task within a broader collection of tasks (epic). As teams use Jira for different purposes, an issue can also be a bug, a helpdesk ticket, a travel request form, or a story, which is a task formulated from the user’s perspective.
• Workflow: This is a sequence of stages describing the lifecycle of an issue. For example, after an issue is created, it can be “In progress,” “Under review,” “In testing,” and “Completed.” Teams can set up custom workflows that reflect their processes and allow them to track the status of each issue.
• Board: A Jira board is a visual representation of your tasks. It shows them as cards placed into columns, each column corresponding to a specific workflow stage. A Jira board can be used as a planning tool, an instrument for task management, and an organizer for daily work.

Which Jira Plan To Choose?

Jira offers several tiers of pricing. They range from a free plan for small teams to an enterprise-grade solution that costs tens of thousands of dollars:

Jira Setup Example: How To Configure Jira Cloud

Begin Jira Setup by Creating Your First Project 

What Jira project template to choose?

Jira offers many project templates adapted for different industries and purposes. However, as I mentioned, they are all built upon the four project types we’ve explored above. Understanding this will help you make the right choice. 

Each template includes pre-defined issue types, pre-configured workflows with tailored statuses, a pre-set Jira board and views, custom fields and forms for request submissions, and built-in reports and dashboards.

Here are some of the most popular project templates grouped by category:

• Software development: Kanban, Scrum, Bug tracking template
• Marketing: Marketing service management, Project management, Go-to-market
• Sales: Sales service management, Sales pipeline, Lead tracking template
• Finance: Budget creation, Month-end close, Finance service management
• Legal: Document approval, Legal service management, IP infringement
• Pet project: Project managing, Task tracking, Personal task planner

There’s also an option to choose a blank project and configure it from scratch.

Where to set up a Jira project?

In your Jira instance, go to Projects -> Create Project. Choose your project template or a blank project, and select either the team-managed or company-managed type. Name your project and finish the creation process. Now, you can add your first issue to your new project. 

Create a Jira Issue and Add Users

Before you fill your project with issues, you need to understand the hierarchy of issues in Jira. By default, there are three tiers:

• Epic issue: A high-level task that includes multiple smaller issues
• Standard issue: An individual task that can be a part of an epic. Apart from a task, it can also be a bug, a story, or any custom issue type defined by the user.
• Subtask issue: Smaller chunk of work that is a part of an issue

To add your first issue, open your project and press the Create button in the top menu. 

Then, you will need to fill out the details. Some fields are mandatory: Project, Issue Type, Summary, and Reporter.

Other fields are optional: for example, Description, Status, Due date, Assignee, Attachment, and Priority. 

You can select which fields to include and which to skip. To do this, click the three dots in the upper right corner of the issue creation page and select Configure fields. Jira also allows you to configure custom fields if needed. 

Another important step is adding users: 

• If you have a team-managed project, click Project Settings -> Access -> Add People. You will be able to add your team by providing their email addresses. Alternatively, contacts can be imported from Gmail, Slack, or Microsoft account. With a paid plan, you can assign users different roles and customize their access rights. For a company-managed project, select Project Settings -> People -> Add People.
• Once this is done, you can add assignees and reporters to the task and mention people in task descriptions and comments. Your teammates will receive email notifications about any activity related to them. 
• Apart from that, people can be added to an issue as watchers. In this case, they will receive notifications about any events related to this issue, even if they are not mentioned directly, such as status changes or edits in the description. To add watchers, click the eye icon on the issue page. 

Set up a Workflow 

As we have already mentioned, a Jira workflow is a standard process your tasks should go through. These processes can differ depending on how your organization and team manage their work. A typical workflow includes stages such as “To do” or “Backlog,” “In progress,” “Under review” or “In Testing,” and “Completed.”

Once you create your first project and task, you will have a simple workflow out of the box. This can be used as a basis for further modification unless you want to build a new workflow from scratch. 

Each workflow consists of:

• Statuses: These are stages through which your issue goes step-by-step, from creation to completion.
• Transitions: Actions that should take place in order to move an issue from one status to another. For example, the transition between the “To Do” and “In progress” statuses can be “start work.”

Before setting up a workflow, it’s necessary to map out the process and discuss it with your team. Once you know what the main phases and transitions should be, you can configure your first workflow. 

Here’s an example of a workflow for the Email campaign launch process:

The statuses and transitions are shown in rectangular and rounded plaques correspondingly. The “Any” label next to a phase means that it’s allowed to transition to any stage after that phase. Depending on the process, you can limit the permitted transitions. For example, prevent transferring an issue to the “Approved” stage unless the “In review” stage was completed, and so on.

The workflow statuses are important for correctly visualizing your issues on the Jira board. You can configure the board to reflect the workflow stages, which makes task management easier.

Here’s how to add a workflow:

• In your Jira project, go to the Project Settings and select Issues -> Workflows -> Add Workflow -> Create new. In the workflow editor, add the necessary statuses and connect them with arrows to create a step-by-step flow. You will need to name the transitions between the statuses to do that.
• Assign your workflow to the workflow scheme. Go to Settings -> Issues -> Workflow schemes. Find your new workflow under the Inactive tab. Select Edit -> Assign. Select the issue types you want to apply your workflow to. For example, epic, task, and subtask. It’s also possible to add a workflow to all issue types.
• Finally, associate a workflow with the project to apply it to the specified issue types within that project. Go to Settings -> Issue -> Issue type schemes, then click the three dots in front of the scheme you need, click Associate, and select your project.

After this, you can create test issues and check if everything works as intended.

If you need to make simple changes to your workflow (such as adding one more stage), this can be done directly from your Jira board. Adding a new column to the board will automatically create a new status in your workflow.

Configure Your Jira Board

In software development, agile boards are an important instrument for managing issues, planning work, and collaboration. By default, each Jira project has a preset board, which you can customize later.

If you have a relatively simple workflow, its stages can be exactly reflected in your board, with each column corresponding to a specific step. However, the situation is different for more complex workflows. For example, you can assign several statuses to one column or decide to hide tickets with certain statuses.

When setting up a new board, you are offered to choose from the two main types:

• Scrum board: For teams that organize their work as a series of fixed-length sprints. Issues are only displayed for the current sprint; the rest of the tasks are accumulated in a separate backlog.
• Kanban board: For teams that organize their work as a continuous flow. A kanban board visually presents the work to be done. It can also limit the allowed number of issues in progress, which helps you identify bottlenecks.

To customize your Jira board, open it and click the three dots in the upper right corner. Then, select Configure board. In particular, you can:

• Configure columns: Add and rename columns, rearrange their order, and hide unneeded statuses from the board. You can also assign multiple statuses (stages) to a column for a more focused view.
• Add custom filters: Create a set of reusable filters to quickly search your issues and display focused results. To do this, you will need to write queries using JQL (Jira Query Language). 
• Use swimlanes: Organize tasks on the board horizontally by grouping them according to various criteria. For example, cards for tasks with the same assignee will be shown together. 

It’s also possible to add several boards to one project. This is useful when several teams are working on different aspects of a project. Another possible use case is when there are multiple workstreams within one project.

Teams working on several projects in parallel can set up cross-project boards. Such a board can display issues from multiple projects at once. This can also be useful for leaders overviewing the work of several teams.

Install Additional Apps To Optimize Your Workflow

Once you’ve set up all the basic components, the next logical step for Jira setup is to expand the functionality with external applications. Atlassian Marketplace features hundreds of additional tools. They can help you tailor Jira to your team’s specific processes, provide you with features you miss in Jira, and more.

We recommend starting with installing Smart Tools for Jira by TitanApps. These tools help you to easily automate repetitive processes:

• Smart Checklist for Jira: Utilize this tool to create reusable ToDo lists for recurring tasks. It allows you to break issues down into a set of clear steps and ensure that every stage of the process is completed. With Smart Checklist, you can set custom statuses, mention people, and add deadlines. ToDo lists can be structured with headers and other rich formatting options.

When combined with Jira automation, Smart Checklist allows you to automatically add actionable checklists to your issues. It also has a Validate Completion feature, which allows you to mark certain checklists as mandatory. In this case, an assignee won’t be able to move the issue to the specific status until the checklist is completed.

• Smart Templates for Jira: Use this tool to save an issue hierarchy as a template. Smart Templates help you optimize repetitive processes and save time when creating issues. They allow you to add variables for dynamic parameters, which makes one template applicable for the entire workflow. Apart from that, you can prefill fields, automatically mention responsible team members, and more. It’s also possible to schedule automatic issue creation from a template and optimize your work in Jira even further. 

Here’s an example of a Smart Template for a Jira epic:

• Other Smart Tools for Jira: We recommend trying other Smart Tools: Smart Issue Hierarchy, Smart AI Release Notes for Jira, Smart Productivity & Team Performance Dashboard for Jira. All these apps are easy to use and can tangibly improve your experience with Jira, even on a free tier.

Take a look at some hands-on examples of utilizing Smart Checklists and Smart Templates for different use cases:

• Epic Template for Jira
• Task Template for Jira
• Bug Template for Jira

Add Smart Tools to your Jira

• Automate repetitive tasks
• Check progress at a glance
• Ensure that the delivered work meets compliance standards

Try it free

Best Practices For Jira Setup

Here are some things to keep in mind when setting up Jira and further adjusting it to your team’s processes and goals:

• Keep workflows simple and lightweight. It’s best to start with default statuses and add more once you see there’s a need to. Offer your team clear transition rules and conditions. Make sure everyone understands the definitions of the statuses and uses them correctly.
• Integrate Jira with other tools your team uses. This will help you build more efficient processes and automate various tasks. For example, an integration with Slack allows you to create a Jira issue automatically from a Slack message. Other popular integrations include GitHub, Microsoft Teams, Confluence, and other Atlassian products. 
• Explore built-in reporting. Jira offers you various reports available out of the box and optimized for your project type. You get insights and sprint reports for scrum teams, as well as control charts, average age reports, time-tracking reports, and more.
• Build tailored dashboards. In addition to default reports, Jira allows you to set up fully customizable dashboards adjusted to your team’s needs. Visualize key metrics, track progress, and present the results to leadership in an analysis-ready format.
• Use JQL, which is a query language unique to Jira. It enables you to search issues, apply complex filters, and narrow down data on your dashboards and reports to focus on custom metrics. Other useful applications are cross-project search and advanced backlog management. By utilizing JQL, you can extract relevant insights and organize your team’s work better. 
• Collect feedback. Make a test project and review different scenarios to understand how your team would work on it. Present this configured project to the team, collect feedback, and update the settings to match their needs better.

Setting up Jira is pretty straightforward, but you will need to work with many different components and make informed choices every step of the way. Hopefully, this tutorial helped you configure Jira and kick-start your work with this project management tool.

Article by Olga Cheban

Content Writer at TitanApps. I love it when my writing helps people find smarter ways to manage their time. Whether for individual professionals or large companies, even small changes in managing daily tasks can have a huge impact. My goal is to share practical advice that promotes efficiency and facilitates growth.