Getting started

1. Create a "Skillset" custom field

• 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

2. Configure skills relevant for your organization

• Open the "Skills for Jira" administration console (“Apps / Manage your apps” menu)

• 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

3. Configure your team members' skill sets

• Open the "Skills for Jira" app configuration section

• Open the "Users" tab

• Search for users you want to update

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

  • Note: Changes to user's skills do not immediately propagate to all issues. Propagation might take 1 hour or more, depending on the size of your Jira instance.

4. Enable self-service assignments

• Open the Settings / Apps / Skills for Jira - Administration Console

• Open the "Assignments" tab

• Configure the Default Queue with Self-service assignment method 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

5. [OPTIONAL] Enforce expert-only transitions

• 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

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

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