Use shared teams in your plan

What are teams in plans?

Teams in your plan are different from the teams found in the rest of Jira Software Cloud. In your plan, they act as a label applied to issues that designates which team will eventually pick up the work on your timeline. By adding the Team field to your Jira issues, you can save this value back to your Jira issues, which makes sprint planning easier.

The Team field is a way to use features like capacity management without assigning issues to individuals, which happens in sprint grooming or planning sessions.

You can also use the view settings in your plan to focus on work assigned to a specific team. For example, you can choose to color issues based on the team to which they’re assigned, group issues by team on your timeline, or hide teams from your view.

Within your plan, you have two options when making a team:

• A shared team will be visible in all plans across your organization. Anyone can add this team to their plan, and begin to model future work based on its capacity, overall availability, and the members of the team.

• A plan-only team lives only within your plan. If someone else in your organization makes a plan, they won’t be able to use this team. This is helpful if you’re planning for a team that doesn’t yet exist. You can always convert a plan-only team to a shared team at a later date.

Add a shared team

To add a shared team to a plan:

1. In the Teams view, navigate to + Add team

2. Select the Add existing shared team option, then start typing to find the team you’d like to add.

3. Save your selection with the Add shared team button.

Create a team

All new teams begin life as plan-only teams. Once you’ve set up the team to your liking, you can then convert it to a shared team. Learn how to convert plan-only team to a shared team.

To create a team in your plan:

1. In the Teams view, navigate to + Add team

2. Select the Create a plan-only team option, then fill out the following fields:

   1. Team name

   2. Associated issue source

   3. Team type

   4. Velocity (average capacity for this team)

   5. Iteration length

   6. Members

3. When you’re happy with your team, select Create.

Your team will now be available in your plan. Any changes you make won’t be finalized until you save your changes in Jira.

Convert a plan-only team to a shared team

1. Navigate to the Teams view using the view selector menu.

2. On the team you’d like to convert, open the menu, then choose Share.

   1. If the Share button doesn’t show in the menu and your team has an orange bar on its side, you’ll need to save the team first using the Review changes button. Learn more about reviewing and saving changes in your plan.

3. Select Share in the modal that pops up.

View and edit teams in your plan

On the Teams page, each included team will have an entry that includes:

• the issue source associated to the team (board, project, or filter)

• the capacity and iteration length (capacity information will vary depending on whether it’s a Scrum or Kanban team, as well as how their work is estimated)

• team member avatars

• A lozenge in the upper right corner indicating whether this is team is shared or plan-only

• team type (only if all teams in the plan use time-based estimates)

You can also Filter issues by this team to view only the issues assigned to the specific team in your plan.

Edit team information

To change any of these values:

1. From the Teams view, find the team you want to edit, and select more ().

2. Choose Edit, then modify the details of the team.

3. When you’re done, select Save.

Remove and delete teams

When a team is no longer needed, you can remove them from your plan.

Shared teams can be removed then re-added back to your plan. However, once you delete a plan-only team, it can’t be recovered.

To remove or delete a team:

1. Navigate to the Teams view, find the team you want to remove, and select more () > Delete. Removing a team adds the change to your list of changes in the Review changes modal.

2. Use the Review changes button to save your changes to your plan.

Associate a team to an issue source

To associate a team with an issue source in your plan:

1. Navigate to the Teams view, find the team you want to edit, and select more ().

2. Choose Team settings to modify the details of the team.

3. Under the heading Issue source, select which source you’d like to associate with this team.

4. Select Done to confirm your changes.