Managing shared teams
This page discusses the usage of Portfolio for Jira live plans (any version from 2.0 to 2.27). If you're using the redesigned planning interface, see this page instead.
Portfolio for Jira lets you share teams across multiple plans so you only have to define your teams in one place.
When working in Portfolio for Jira, you may encounter the need to have a team across multiple plans. When this happens, that team becomes a shared team. Portfolio for Jira lets you define a shared team in one place, so you won't have to define the same team across multiple plans over and over again.
To illustrate shared teams:
You have two (2) plans, Mobile expansion and Web expansion, and both plans use the same feature team. In that feature team, one developer has planned holidays, and another developer has a paternity leave coming up.
In this case, you can then do the following:
- Make the feature team a shared team.
- Make sure the feature team is assigned to both plans.
With both plans now using the same team, if you update any details about the team in the Mobile expansion plan, the details in the Web expansion plan will be automatically updated as well.
Before you begin
Make sure that you have the shared team management permission in Portfolio for Jira.
Viewing shared teams
The teams tab will display the teams that are shared across all existing plans. By expanding each team, you can view the members of that team, and the weekly hours allocated to each member.Note that any configured weekly hours will not have any effect on capacity in plans with the improved interface.
Creating a shared team
Note that any changes made to shared teams will affect all the plans that these shared teams belong to.
- This will display the Shared teams and people page.
Go to Portfolio (in header) > Manage Shared Teams. This will display the 'Shared teams and people' page.
- Click the Teams tab, if necessary.
- Click Create team. This will display the Create shared team dialog.
- Give the new team a name > click Create. This will create the new team in the Shared teams and people page.
To delete a shared team, go to the corresponding team in the Shared teams and people page. Click the x icon for the team you want to delete.
Adding members to a shared team
- Go to the Shared teams and people page > click the Teams tab, if necessary.
- Expand the team to which you want to add members.
- Click + Add person.
- Start typing the name of the person you want to add. A list of matches will appear.
- Select the person you want to add. This will add the person to the team.
If the person doesn't appear in the list, you can still choose to add that person as a virtual user by clicking Create virtual user. A virtual user exists only in Portfolio for Jira, and can be used to play with scenarios when planning work.
To remove a member from a shared team, go to the corresponding team in the Shared teams and people page. Click the Remove link for the member, then click Remove in the confirmation message.
Configuring members of a shared team
You can add members to a shared team, or modify the weekly hours of the members of a shared team as necessary.
- Go to the Shared teams and people page > click the Teams tab, if necessary.
- Expand the team that contains the member you want to configure.
- Specify the weekly hours of the member.
Adding a shared team to a plan
To add a shared team to a plan, the shared team must already be an existing one.
- Go to your plan via Portfolio (in header) > View Portfolio > click your plan.
- Click the Teams tab to display the teams section below the timeline.
- Click + Create team. This will display the Create team dialog.
- From the team type, choose Use existing shared team.
- From the Team menu, select a shared team.
- Click Add.
Sharing an existing private team
You can convert a private team (a team that's not a shared one) into a shared team. This is helpful when you already have an existing team assigned to a plan, and you want to assign the same team to another plan.
- Go to your plan via Portfolio (in header) > View Portfolio > click your plan.
- Click the Teams tab to display the teams section below the timeline.
- Go to the team you want to convert into a shared team.
- Click
> Share.
Sharing skills across plans
Much like Portfolio for Jira lets you define a shared team in one place, so you won't have to define the same team across multiple plans over and over again, you can also define skills that are shared across plans in one place.
For example, let's say a developer with the frontend development skill is working on Plan 1, and Plan 2 requires the same developer with the same skill. Sharing skills across plans then makes sense, so any shared requirements in Plan 1 will be automatically added to Plan 2.
Sharing a skill
- Go to your plan via Portfolio (in header) > View Portfolio > click your plan.
- Click more () next to the plan name > Configure > Stages and skills.
- Click + Add skill > enter a name for the skill > Create skill.
- Go back to your plan.
- Commit the changes back to your Jira instance.
- Click more () next to the plan name > Configure > Stages and skills.
- Go to the newly added skill > click the icon > Share. This will add the shared skill in the Shared teams and people page, in the Skills tab.
Sharing a skill across plans
- Go to your plan via Portfolio (in header) > View Portfolio > click your plan.
- Click more () next to the plan name > Configure > Stages and skills.
- Click + Add skill > select one of the shared skills. This will add the skill to the selected plan.
If the shared skill has already been assigned to a certain team member, note that all plans that have that skill will inherit both the skill and the team member that has that skill.