Customizing Linking Mode

To reach the Linking Mode setting, log-in as an administrator and click on Jira project administration. Then, locate the OSLC Connect section and click on Project Associations.

Having configured associations on your project, Jira will be capable of linking with those remote projects in the registered associations. It is expected that both the Jira server administrator and the OSLC Remote Application administrator enable the linking in the opposite direction, meaning not only outgoing links (from Jira to the OSLC Remote Application) but also incoming links (from the OSLC Remote Application to Jira) will be possible to create.

There are scenarios where creating a link from a remote application to Jira won't only create the expected backlink from Jira to the remote application but also to other artifacts linked on the remote artifact with the intention of increasing the traceability [1]. If these extra links are not desired for whatever reason, enabling the strict linking mode is a way to prevent them.

In the strict linking mode, the OSLC Remote Application is restricted to create incoming links only for those applications that Jira is configured to create links to. Strictly speaking, and in order to create an incoming link in Jira having the strict linking mode enabled, next conditions must be met:

  1. There must be a Friend registered in Jira targeting the remote application the incoming link belongs to.
  2. There must be a Project Association registered in the Jira project that encloses the type of the incoming link.

As a Jira project administrator, you control the Project Associations and therefore the second condition when enabling the strict mode; first condition is controlled at server level and it is responsibility of the server administrator. It is worth to mention that the server administrator have a mean to configure the global linking mode used by Jira, but in this section you will learn how to customize/override whatever configuration made at server level if your project needs are different.

The opposite to the strict linking mode is the standard linking mode, this is the out-of-the-box and strongly recommended linking mode of OSLC Connect for Jira, please refer to the Setting Up Linking Mode topic in the Configuring Jira Server section to get an explanation of why this is the highly recommended linking mode to use.

Customizing Linking Mode.

  1. Locate the Linking mode footer on the right panel.
  2. Click on the link highlighting the current linking mode set.
  3. In the opened dialog, click on the Customize button to enable the radio buttons above.
  4. Choose the required linking mode by either selecting the Standard mode or Strict mode radio button.
  5. Click on the OK button to save the selection.

The chosen configuration will override the previous (server) selection.

Restoring Linking Mode.

If at some point you want to return to whatever configuration is at server level:

  1. Locate the Linking mode footer on the right panel.
  2. Click on the link highlighting the current linking mode set.
  3. In the opened dialog, click on the Restore button to disable the radio buttons above.
  4. Click on the OK button to save the restoring.

[1] For a concrete example of this scenario, please refer to the Setting Up Linking Mode topic in the Configuring Jira Server section.