Configuring Self-Service Assignments

Before we start configuring Self-Service Assignments, let’s briefly talk about what happens under the hood when a user requests their next task by pushing the “Get next task” button either in User Console / Assignments or in a Jira Dashboard Widget.

Step #1

Task selection starts by identifying all work queues available to the user. If the “Default Queue” is enabled, it is available for all users to pull from. Any other queue

Step #2

In order to select the next most important task, Skills for Jira compares Top 1 tasks from each of the work queues available to the user using the following rules:

1. Higher priority tasks always go first

2. Given the same task priority, tasks from higher-priority queues go second

3. Given the same task priority and queue priority, the work queue is selected at random

Step #3

Skills for Jira will update the Assignee field to the current user

Step #4

The assigned task will be transitioned to one of the statuses specified in the queue configuration as “In Progress”

Work Queue configuration

Administrator needs to enable Self-Service Assignments and configure the work queues in Skills for Jira - Administration Console / Assignments:

Creating Work Queues

Skills for Jira ships with a “Default Queue” that applies for every user in Jira. Administrator can define any number of additional Queues to model assignment scenarios of any complexity. Queues can represent tasks of a specific Team, or Product, or Sprint, or any other scope of work.

The additional queues created by Administrator can be restricted to specific user groups:

Configuring Work Queues

Scope (JQL)

“Scope” is the most important part of queue configuration. It defines both the scope and the order of tasks in the queue.

Scope is defined in the form of a JQL query: you can select one of the existing filters or specify JQL directly on the configuration screen.