Syncing Jira projects to Forecast projects

The integration between Jira Cloud and Forecast allows for an in-depth level of project management by utilizing both platforms and ensuring optimal project progress and delivery. This is achieved by Forecast's ability to seamlessly sync projects and their components between the two platforms. This article presents a guide to the various ways that Forecast projects can be synced to Jira as well as information on the Jira settings and how they affect the integration.

This article includes:

• Synchronizing an existing Forecast project
• Syncing Jira projects right after the setup
• Synchronizing issues between synced projects
• Synchronizing phases between synced projects
• Changing Jira prefix settings
• Synchronizing Jira issues' date fields to Forecast

Synchronizing an existing Forecast project

Considering that projects might exist in Forecast before the integration with Jira takes place, it is possible to sync existing Forecast projects to existing Jira projects without having to create a new project in Forecast. To be able to do this process manager permission is required in order to be able to view the project settings. The steps below explain the process: 

How to synchronize an existing Forecast project to Jira:

1.  Access any project by clicking on its ID or name from anywhere on the platform or from the Projects tab.
2. From within the project, click on the three dots next to the Nova Insights tab.
3. Click on Settings
4. From the Settings menu, click on the Integrations tab.
5. If the integration was successful one of the options available will be Jira
6.  Click on Sync Jira project or Sync to Jira Epic
7. From the pop-up that will appear, select the Jira project that this project should be synced with from the dropdown menu
8. (Optional) Change the dates and the color of the project.
9. Choose the settings that best fit the project. Those are:
   • Synchronize Sprints: This will synchronize the sprints between the two projects across platforms and any change made on one platform will be reflected in the other. Select the sprint board that should be synced from the Jira project.
   • Estimate Type: This choice is important as the project will either make use of hour estimates or will make use of Story points. If the estimate type differs between the platforms for this project then the information will not synchronize properly. Make sure that both projects use the same estimate type (!)
   • Sync Forecast phases as: This choice will determine how the phases from the Forecast project are synced over to the Jira project. The options are either to be synced as Epics or as Versions/Releases.
   • Create Jira sub-tasks as: This choice can determine how subtasks that come over from the Jira project will be shown in the Forecast project. The options are for the sub-tasks to appear as tasks or subtasks (which can be decided also from the Task tab in the project settings) or they can appear as To-Do lists.

Once the above process is completed click on Sync project for the process to be complete. All of the information will be synced between your projects on both platforms.

Syncing Jira projects right after the integration setup

It is also possible to sync projects between Forecast and Jira once the integration setup is finalized. When the connection is verified the below message will appear presenting an opportunity to begin syncing Jira projects in Forecast. 

By clicking on the "Sync Jira Projects", the process to begin syncing projects may begin. The only difference with the previous method is that from this page, it is possible to create a NEW Forecast project to sync with an existing Jira project.  This process as it takes place on the integrations page requires Admin access. The steps below go over this process:

How to sync existing Jira projects to newly created Forecast projects

1. Click on Sync Jira Project
2.  From the pop-up that appears fill in the required information
3. Select the Jira project from the dropdown menu
4. Name the Forecast project under the Project Name field
5. Set the dates
6. Select a client from the client dropdown
7. Choose the settings that best fit the project. Those are:
   • Synchronize Sprints: This will synchronize the sprints between the two projects across platforms and any change made on one platform will be reflected in the other. Select the sprint board that should be synced from the Jira project.
   • Estimate Type: This choice is important as the project will either make use of hour estimates or will make use of Story points. If the estimate type differs between the platforms for this project then the information will not synchronize properly. Make sure that both projects use the same estimate type (!)
   • Sync Forecast phases as: This choice will determine how the phases from the Forecast project are synced over to the Jira project. The options are either to be synced as Epics or as Versions/Releases.
   • Create Jira sub-tasks as: This choice can determine how subtasks that come over from the Jira project will be shown in the Forecast project. The options are for the sub-tasks to appear as tasks or subtasks (which can be decided also from the Task tab in the project settings) or they can appear as To-Do lists.
      Note: If using the Task Hierarchy feature in Forecast and you want to see the full task hierarchy when syncing Jira projects you need to:

     1. Sync Phases as Versions/Releases: Epics will be synced as normal tasks and will be part of the task hierarchy
     2. Create Jira Sub Tasks as Tasks: This will create Jira Subtasks as regular tasks in Forecast and will be part of the task hierarchy.
     3. If you are syncing one or more Jira Epics to a Forecast project then those Epics will always be synced as Phases, but you can still choose to sync Subtasks as Tasks to see the common issue to sub-task hierarchy.

• Click More Settings to unfold the additional options necessary to create a Forecast project.
• Add project labels.
•  Select your budget type.
• Choose the rate card.
• Click on Sync Project to complete the process.

Once this process is completed, a new Forecast project populated by data from the Jira project that it is synced with will appear in the account.

Synchronizing existing issues in Forecast to Jira

If a project in Forecast existed before the integration with Jira took place, then tasks (issues) that predate the integration will not be automatically moved to Jira in the project that was synced with the Forecast project. It is possible however to manually move Forecast tasks to Jira. The steps below go over this process: 

How to move Forecast tasks to Jira

1. Access the project from the Projects page
2. Click on the Scoping page tab
3. Find the task that needs to be moved to Jira and click on the three dots at the end of its line
4. Click on Move to Jira
5. From the pop-up that will appear, select the type for this issue
6. Click on Create

The task will now be moved to Jira as an issue. To confirm this, click on the task and open the task module, there will be a JIRA issue link just above the task description if the move was successful.

Synchronizing phases between synced projects

Like with tasks, it is also possible to move phases from Forecast projects to Jira. The process is the same as with the tasks. The steps below go over this process:

How to move Forecast phases to Jira

1. Access the project from the Projects page
2. Click on the Scoping page tab
3. Find the phases that are not moved to Jira and click on the three dots at the end of their line
4. Click on Move to Jira
5. Name the phase so that you can find it in Jira
6. Click on Create

It is important to note that synchronizing a phase will not synchronize tasks under that phase automatically and it will require to be synced manually. When successfully synced, the phases in Forecast will have the Jira icon next to them.

Changing Jira prefix settings

Once the Jira integration setup is completed, it is possible to set the Jira prefix settings to match your needs. The prefix settings will determine how the task (issues) title will appear in Forecast. This process requires Admin access. The steps below provide a guide on how to access this setting.

How to access and change Jira prefix settings

1. Click on the profile icon in the upper right-hand corner
2. Click on Admin
3. Once in the Admin panel, click on the Integrations tab
4. From the Integrations tab, click on Jira Cloud
5. Select between None, Simple, or Full Jira prefix on the issues in Forecast, i.e. Tasks

By default, the prefix setting will be set to None. These settings are exclusive to one another and will need some time to take effect, this depends on the number of synced tasks. The difference between these three options is shown in the screenshots below

• None: 
  
• Simple:
  
• Full: 
  
  

Synchronizing Jira issues' date fields to Forecast

With the Jira Cloud integration, Forecast allows for the synchronization of the start dates of the Jira issues into Forecast. The information is taken from the Jira date field that has been created in Jira and will determine the start date of an issue. Some important things to note:

• Synchronizing start dates will override start dates on already existing Forecast tasks with the start dates on the associated Jira issues if these are not already identical
• Existing task start dates in Forecast will only get synchronized to Jira when they are updated in Forecast.

How to change the start date

1. Click on the profile icon in the upper right-hand corner
2. Click on Admin
3. Once in the Admin panel, click on the Integrations tab
4. From the Integrations tab, click on Jira Cloud
5. Click on the Change button under the Start Date Settings
6. Select one of the three available options
7. Click on change

This will set the start date of tasks (issues) in the Jira synced Forecast projects to start based on the field of your choosing.