Easy Agile Programs is designed to integrate with your existing Jira data.
We’ve prepared this guide to make it easy to identify any changes you might need to make in order for set-up to run smoothly.
What is a “Program” made of?
A Program is a single view of work across multiple teams or boards from Jira. This lets you plan and track work for a team-of-teams (or Release Train) and work together towards shared goals.
A Program will have:
A roadmap, split into a series of Increments. Each Incrementis a series of Sprints.
A set of Teams. Each team is a Scrum or Kanban board from Jira.
The Program board page shows all three levels of the hierarchy.
Team boards
Each team in the Program will need one Jira board.
Issues from this board can be scheduled from the board’s backlog on the Team planning page.
Scrum teams can sync Sprints and Estimates from their Jira board with Easy Agile Programs.
If you use a Jiraproject for each team, you’ll want to use the “main” or default Jira board for that Project. By default, new Projects have a single-project board with a simple board filter query project IN (ABC) ORDER BY Rank ASC.
You can change what issues are in this board at any time by editing the Board filter query in Jira. You can also switch to a different Jira board.
To make the order of issues sync between Easy Agile Programs and the Jira board, enable Ranking in Jira board configuration.
Quick Filters from that board will be available in Easy Agile Programs.
The Epic issue type and other issue types
Epics are a special issue type: they’re part of the default hierarchy. In many versions of Jira, Epics are the only issue type that can be “parent of” a standard-level issue like a Story or Task.
Renamed the “Epic” issue type?
If the Epic issue type has been renamed, Easy Agile Programs will still detect and use it the same way.
Not using Epics?
If you’re using a new or different issue type to build your Roadmap, you’ll need to select “Any issue types from a dedicated board” as your Roadmap issue source when creating a Program.
Since this can’t use the default Epic-child relationship, you’ll need to also specific a hierarchy link or link type that connects your roadmap issues to their team issues.
If you enable date syncing, date fields on your roadmap issues will be used and updated when making plans in Easy Agile Programs.
You can’t swap the Roadmap issue source later (e.g. from “Epics from team boards” to “Epics from a dedicated board“). You’ll need to create a new Program to change the source type.
If you’re using a dedicated board, you can change to a different board.
Higher-level initiatives (optional)
You can visualize a set of issues representing higher-level business initiatives on the Program board page. These will be the level above Epics/Features.
To use this, you’ll need:
All the higher-level issues for this Program in one Jira board
Standardized start and end date fields (see below)
A link type that connects the roadmap issues (e.g. Epics or Features) to your higher-level issues
Easy Agile Programs will show higher-level issues from this Jira board when the dates on the issues overlap with the period of the Increment. Clicking a higher-level issue will filter the page to only show children of that issue, based on the link type configured.
Yes: you can add, change or remove the higher-level issue configuration at any time.
Standardized fields
1 link type for Dependencies
Easy Agile Programs uses issue links from Jira to represent dependencies. The app will use these issue links to show dependency lines and generate reports.
Existing sprints from Scrum boards can be synced to the Increment, and will show the work that was planned/completed during that time.
In older versions of the app, completed sprints do not always appear when selecting sprints to sync. We recommend updating the app before creating a new Increment with dates in the past.
Kanban teams will not be able to schedule team-level issues on dates in the past; they will only be able to schedule future work or roadmap-level issues.
Can I use my existing plans from Jira’s Plans / Advanced Roadmaps?
To best synchronize with Plans / Advanced Roadmaps:
When configuring date syncing in Easy Agile Programs, select the same start date and end date fields that are used in Plans / Advanced Roadmaps.
If you have an additional level of hierarchy above the Epic issue type, configure Higher-level initiatives by selecting the “Parent Link” link type to use this hierarchy.
Next steps
Explore an existing Program on our sandbox demo site at demo.easyagile.com.
On this site, you’ll have Manage Programs permission. This will allow you to see and edit the configuration of Programs and Increments, and create new ones.
You’ll also be able to explore the Jira boards and issues that are used in these Programs to see how they fit together.
