Configuring Issue Linking

To reach the Issue Linking page, log-in as an administrator and click on JIRA ADMINISTRATION > Manage apps in the banner. Then, locate the OSLC Connect section and click on Link Type Mapping.

Often in the users' daily work, they create the same Collaboration Link type over and over for the same Issue Type; for example, an Affects Requirement link is very likely to be created from a Bug issue type, or an Implements Requirement link is very likely to be created from a Feature issue type. By using this configuration, you can define a default Collaboration Link type per Issue Type (on an Issue Type scheme), so the next time users start the creation of a Collaboration Link, the chosen type will be preselected depending on the user's working issue type.

Be aware that setting this configuration overrides the default behavior of preselecting the last Collaboration Link type created; once set, the default link type chosen will be preselected always for the configured Issue Type, no matter what was the last Collaboration Link type created. This overriding feature applies obviously only for the configured Issue Types, if one user starts creating a Collaboration Link for an Issue type that is not mapped, the last Collaboration Link type created will be preselected.

Finally, you must know that having defined a default Collaboration Link type does not prevent users from changing it once it is preselected. There is another configuration to restrict the Collaboration Link types available, for an Issue Type, so users can't create meaningless links with unexpected remote artifact types.

It is worth saying that both configurations above work in the boundaries of a given Issue Type Scheme. This means that whatever default or available link types are chosen for a given issue type, such configuration apply for all Jira projects sharing the same Issue Type Scheme. This is really important to have in mind, especially when it is considered that the available Collaboration Links types, for a project, depend primarily on the remote project associations defined at the project-level configuration. In other words, the following server-level configurations will apply as long as the scoped project has, indeed, the associations providing the chosen default or available link types; otherwise (and for that project only), the connector will not preselect a link type (in the case of a missing Default Collaboration Link type) or it will just ignore the selected available link types, if they are missing by the project associations.

Setting Default Collaboration Link Type.

  1. Select the scheme for which you want to define a default Collaboration Link type in the Scheme combo.
  2. A table with three columns will be rendered. In the first column are the Issue Types of the scheme and in the middle column, you can customize or restore the default Collaboration Link type. To customize a link type, click on the Customize link to enable the combo next to it and you can choose an available Collaboration Link type [1].
  3. Repeat last step for other issue types until you have defined all required mappings.
  4. Click on the Save button located at the top right corner of the page.

To restore (remove) a default Collaboration Link type:

  1. Locate the Issue Type whose default Collaboration Link type you want to restore.
  2. Click on the Restore button located in the second column.
  3. Click on the Save button located at the top right corner of the page.

Editing the available Collaboration Link types.

  1. Select the scheme for which you want to define a default Collaboration Link type in the Scheme combo.
  2. A table with three columns will be rendered. In the first column are the Issue Types of the scheme and in the last column, you can edit the available Collaboration Link types for those issue types. By default, all Collaboration Link types are available for all Issue Types and the legend Any link type of project associations is displayed in the corresponding column. To edit the available link types, click on the Edit link to display a pop-up window with all Collaboration Link types.
  3. In the opened window, all Collaboration Link types are grouped per OSLC domain and you can disable them completely, by selecting the Disabled option, or partially (only selection of existing artifacts is available, users won't be able to create new artifacts while linking) by selecting the Selection only option [2].
  4. Repeat last three steps for other issue types until you have defined all required selections.
  5. Click on OK when your selection is complete [3].
  6. Click on the Save button located at the top right corner of the page.

To restore a link type with the default behavior, select the Selection and Creation option. Be aware that some link types, by nature, do not allow linking through new artifacts and the selection of existing ones will be the only option available despite this configuration [4].

For the record, when at least one Collaboration Link type is disabled for an Issue Type, the corresponding Any link type of project associations legend is changed; a list of all OSLC domains having at least one Collaboration Link type selected will be displayed instead. Next to the OSLC domain name, the actual number of selected link types will be displayed over the total number of link types in the domain. If you chose the Selection only option for at least one link type, the legend Some link types have restrictions is displayed below the previous one and, in the extreme rare case of disabling all link types, the legend None will be displayed instead.

[1] Available Collaboration Link types at this stage depend on the next configuration. [2] You can also use the Selection and Creation, Selection only and Disabled links on the top for quicker actions. [3] Be aware that, if a Default Collaboration Link type has been chosen for the picked Issue Type, this one cannot be disabled. [4] To restore all link types at once, click on the Restore Defaults button at the bottom.