🆕Comparison & Snapshots
Comparing Jira project configurations, and creating Snapshot milestones
Last updated
Comparing Jira project configurations, and creating Snapshot milestones
Last updated
Comparing Jira project configuration feature is designed to help users understand differences between configurations on the project level, without administrator access.
The new Comparison menu is available in Glass menu next to Export:
While comparing two configurations, all information that is available in Glass will be taken in account. Information currently not supported by Glass will not be part of the comparison.
In comparison, multiple options are available as Baseline (left side):
This project's any saved previous version (see more in Snapshots)
Any other project's any Snapshot (where you have both Browse & View Glass permission)
Any uploaded Snapshot (see more in Download Snapshot)
Baseline can be compared to (right side):
This project's Current Version
This project's any previous version (see more in Snapshots)
The purpose of high level comparison is to quickly validate if there is any difference, point out where the differences are, or just to confirm the configuration is untouched as expected. To deep dive into details we implemented low level comparison as well.
After pressing the compare button a high level comparison will be shown, where all the important project details are highlighted. Result is shown in the middle line on the object level. For example, if everything is the same, all markers are going to be green.
When there is any difference detected, there will be a red indicator in the middle for that:
On the high level view you can only detect significant changes - like using a different scheme or a removed a workflow. For more details you can dig deep with the low level comparison when needed.
High level comparison actually does a complete analysis, which means we deep dive into the lower levels, while showing only the final verdict and main objects.
Basic Summary - Project main values (from General tab)
key, type, instance name, category, url, components, versions
Issue Type Scheme - Issue Types
Issue Type Screen Scheme - Screen Schemes
Screen Scheme - Issue Type assignments
Screens in Screen Schemes
Fields in Screens
Field Configuration - Field Confiruation Scheme
Field Configurations
Workflow Scheme - Workflows
Workflow - Issue Type assignments
Workflow statuses, transitions, actions
Custom actions are highlighted in order of Conditions, Validators, Post Functions
Any changes in workflow actions
People - People in the project
All people, number of groups, project roles and people in roles
Security Scheme - Security Scheme
Levels and Actors in the scheme
Permission Scheme - Permission Scheme
Permissions in the scheme
Notification Scheme - Notification Scheme
Notifications in the scheme
The purpose of low level comparison is to deep dive and understand project settings on the lowest possible level, when a difference has been identified, in a textual diff view.
This Low level comparison view can help understand even the smallest differences between project configurations, like
a workflow post function has been added or edited
a new component or version has been added
fields have been added to screens
the permission scheme has been modified
and more...
When the low level analysis ends up with findings, you can use Glass's overview feature to analyze and visually better understand the configuration details, still without administrator access.
When you see on the High Level that the 2 configration are radically different, the Low Level Comparison usually adds low/no value. In this case pressing Low Level a warning will be shown, and load time can take several minutes. Although when there is only a small change in every section, the pop up will shown, but there will be no extra load time.
The Snapshot feature is an powerful extension for project configuration comparison. The purpose of Snapshots is to be able to save configuration checkpoints which can be used for comparison baseline, while files can be stored in Jira securely.
Only project admins can Create snapshots. 20 snapshots can be created per project for now.
New snapshots have the following inputs:
Name - which will appear in the comparison list
Description - note to self, to be able to summarize changes in the project settings
When selecting 2 snapshots, the Compare Selected button become available to be able to quickly compare snapshots.
Current configuration can be downloaded, to be able to move the file to another instance (especially useful when moving from server to cloud, or from sandbox to live instance)
Snapshots can be
Edited (for Admins only)
Downloaded
Deleted (for Admins only)
Compared to Current configuration
Check what has changed since your last Snapshot.
Search for your latest Snapshot (on top), and press Compare to current
Compare 2 configuration and analyize recent changes
Note that this comparison may take some time, since Current Version will be downloaded real-time with the latest project configuration.
Validate what has changed in your project by time.
Create Snapshots regularly when you do major changes in project configuration
Select any 2 snapshots and press Compare Selected
Compare 2 configuration and analyze changes by time
Validate if project A has the same configuration as project B within the same instance. Can be useful when projects created with shared configurations, or looking for resued schemes.
Create a new Snapshot for project A
Open project B, Select project A and the new Snapshot you just created
Press compare
Note that it is usually creates no value of comparing totally different projects, especially on the lower level.
Validate if cloud migration was complete and look for differences.
Do cloud migration
Open your Server/Data Center project
Download current Snapshot from Snapshot menu
Open the same project on Cloud instance
Upload the old downloaded snapshot and press compare
Note that Atlassian migration tool renames most configuration elements, so don't expect to have a complete green result. Although High Level comparison can be really useful to overview differences.
Compare dev and prod instances before and after going live with it.
Export a snapshot from your project on the prod instance
Navigate to the dev instance, open your project
Upload the downloaded snapshot from your project and press compare
All the changes become visible which are not live on your prod
