1. Create a "Skillset" custom field

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQnIRU89evA
  • Create a "Skillset" custom field

    • The Skillset field is where you will be specifying skill requirements for your issues.

    • Qualified experts will be identified automatically and shown to you directly on the issue screen along with the skills

    • You can create multiple Skillset fields to model your use case

    • You can customize the skill tree on a field, project, or issue type level with custom field contexts

note

An additional field “Skillset-Experts” will be created and maintained automatically by Skills for Jira to let you reference experts in other applications or in Jira features that do not support Skillset fields.

An additional field “Skillset-Experts” will be created and maintained automatically by Skills for Jira to let you reference experts in other applications or in Jira features that do not support Skillset fields.

You can rename your “Skillset” field at any time, however you must rename the sidecar “Skillset-Experts” field as well, maintaining the naming convention (i.e. “New Skillset name-Experts”)

Check out this article for more details: Skillset Fields

2. Configure skills relevant for your organization

  • Open Skills for Jira - Configuration

  • Open the "Skills" tab

  • Modify/delete the default skills, add your own, and organize them into categories as you see fit

    • You can export your skills configuration for backup or migration purposes

    • You can also always reset your skills configuration to the out-of-the-box defaults

Skill Tree size limitation

Due to the platform limitation, your skill tree can not exceed 32kb in JSON form. If the current limitation is insufficient for your needs, please contact Support.

You can override your skills on the Project or Custom Field Context levels. It can be done in the respective configuration sections:

3. Configure your team’s skill sets

  • Open Skills for Jira - Configuration

  • Open the "Users" tab

  • Search for users you want to update

  • Use the "Modify Skills" button to configure user's skills

note

Updates to your team’s skills will be reflected in Skillset fields of every unresolved issue. However, propagation might take 1 hour or more, depending on the size of your Jira instance.

Updates to your team’s skills will be reflected in Skillset fields of every unresolved issue. However, propagation might take 1 hour or more, depending on the size of your Jira instance.

4. Enable self-service assignments

  • Open Skills for Jira - Configuration

  • Open the "Assignments" tab

  • Configure the Default Queue or create specialized work queues, prioritize and assign them to user groups

  • Configure your work queues:

    • Scope

      • JQL filter that represent the scope of issues the relevant user groups will work on

      • The JQL filter must include issues waiting to be pulled as well as issues in progress

      • The JQL filter must be shared with your users

    • Ready for work (statuses)

      • Issues in these statuses will be pulled by your users when clicking “Get next task” in their dashboards

    • In progress (statuses)

      • When you users pull assignments, they will be transitioned into one of these statuses, depending on your workflow configuration

    • Qualification (field)

      • This field defines the skill requirements for workers. Only issues for which the user has all the necessary skills show up in user’s work queue.

Once Self-service assignments are enabled, your users will gain access to their personal Apps / Skills for Jira - User Console / Assignments dashboard as well as the Self-service assignments gadget that you can add to your existing dashboards

  • The dashboard will allow them to get their next most important task in one click

    • Skills for Jira will inspect all work queues relevant for the user and assign the highest priority task to the user

Check out this article for more details: Self-Service Assignments

5. [OPTIONAL] Enforce expert-only transitions

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDt_SXl_jz8
  • Open your Jira Workflow for editing

  • Select the Transition of interest

  • Configure workflow conditions as on the screenshot below:

    • “Any of the following conditions” should be true:

      • Add a standard workflow condition "User Is In Custom field"

        • Use the "Skillset field name-Experts" field as a target

      • “All of the following conditions” should be true (condition group)

        • “Skillset field name” is empty

        • “Skillset field name-Experts” is empty

note

Workflow conditions in the demo are configured to restrict transition to “In Progress” to Experts only if the expertise requirements are specified. Otherwise anyone can work on the task.

The extra conditions are there to allow the transition when no skills are selected (in which case the Experts field will be empty as well).

Workflow conditions in the demo are configured to restrict transition to “In Progress” to Experts only if the expertise requirements are specified. Otherwise anyone can work on the task.

The extra conditions are there to allow the transition when no skills are selected (in which case the Experts field will be empty as well).

By attaching this Workflow Condition to transitions to "In Progress", you could prevent any user who lacks the required expertise from getting the issue

You can get much more creative with "Skillset" fields and Jira workflows if you are using Jira addons that offer custom workflow extensions like Script Runner for Jira Cloud.

For example, you could prevent transitions if there's another user with the required skillset, who has better availability. You could do that by reading the users property of the "Skillset" field and analyzing backlog for all qualified users.

6. Start specifying skill requirements for your issues

  • Make sure that your new Skillset field is added to your issue screens (i.e. Create, View screens)

  • Open any issue and click on your Skillset field. You will see your customized skill tree to choose skills from

  • Use search or tree navigation to find and select skills

  • Submit and wait while Skills for Jira finds the matching experts

Matching experts will take from 3 seconds to 1.5 minutes. The delay will be reduced or removed as the Atlassian Forge platform evolves.

note

These skill requirements are then used to show you qualified experts, give you your next most important task on demand, help you spot knowledge gaps or bottlenecks and more.

These skill requirements are then used to show you qualified experts, give you your next most important task on demand, help you spot knowledge gaps or bottlenecks and more.




Related pages