Team-managed space permissions

Two main settings determine a person's permissions in your team-managed space:

1. The space's access level.

2. Their role in the space.

Space access level

The space's access level gives any logged in Jira user a certain role in your space.

Team-managed software spaces have three, simple access levels:

• Open: When a space is open, anyone on your Jira site can view, create and edit work items in your space. With this access level, Jira gives anyone who logs into your Jira site the Member role in your space.

• Limited: When a space is limited, anyone on your Jira site can view and comment on work items in your space. But, they can't edit them or create new ones. With this access level, Jira gives anyone who logs into your Jira site the Viewer role in your space.

• Private: When a space is private, only Jira admins and people you add to the space can see it in their space directory or its work items in search results.

Jira administrators (anyone with the Administer Jira global permission) always have access to your space's settings. More about adding people to your team-managed space.

Your space’s access level sets general permissions for people across your Jira site. You can give specific access or additional permissions to individual people by creating your own space roles. Read more about roles.

Space permissions granted to default roles

When a user is added to a team-managed space, they automatically gain the following permissions:

• Browse space

• View space

• View work items

The default roles grant additional space permissions, as outlined below.

Space permissions

Here’s a list of the permissions you can fine-tune in your team-managed software space by creating custom roles. Read more about roles.

Access development tools

This permission allows people to see linked code commits, reviews, and build information on any work item in your space if your Jira admin has connected a distributed version control system (DVCS) tool like Bitbucket or Github.

Add attachments

This permission allows people to attach files to any work item in your space. Your Jira admin may limit what you can attach and how big your files can be.

Typically, any team member or collaborator may need this permission to help describe their work. Find out more about attaching files and screenshots to work items.

Add comments

This permission allows people to comment on any work item in your space.

Typically, any team member or collaborator needs this permission.

Add or remove work item watchers

This permission allows people to add or remove people from a work item’s watch list.

Administer the space

This permission allows people access to your space’s settings.

They can:

• edit other people’s access to the space

• configure work types and their fields

• enable and disable agile features like the roadmap or sprints

• delete a service space and its work items outright

• move software spaces to trash

Jira administrators (anyone with the Administer Jira global permission) always have access to your space's settings.

Assign any work item

This permission allows people to change the value of the Assignee field on any of your space’s work items.

This permission allows team members to hand over tasks at different stages of the work.

Create work items

This permission allows people to create work items in your space.

Open organizations can benefit from allowing anyone to create work items in your space. For example, they may find and report bugs when using your team’s products. Some teams may restrict this permission to the core members of a team to keep their backlog tidy. Organizations with strict compliance or security needs may allow only Scrum masters or other leaders to create work items for their team.

Collaborate on work items (a set of permissions)

This set of permissions is typically granted to team members who don’t play a central role in your space. Your team may involve them in answering questions to progress work on a work item. Depending on your organization, you might give these permissions to designers, technical writers, consultants, or other supporting roles.

Granting this permission set grants the following bundled permissions:

• Add attachments

• Add comments

• Edit their own comments

• Delete their own attachments

• Delete their own comments

You may grant these permissions to anyone with log in access to your Jira site. For example, if you have multiple Jira apps on the same cloud site, a Jira Service Management agent can be given this set of permissions and collaborate on work items in Jira. 

Delete any attachment

This permission allows people to remove any attachments added by anyone on any of your space’s work items.

While some teams may reserve this permission for management roles, open organizations can benefit from granting this power to autonomous team members. For example, if the work item requires images from a designer to help describe the work, it might be beneficial for team members to keep attachments up to date, even if they aren’t the owner of the original attachment.

Delete any comment

This permission allows people to remove any comment added by anyone on any of your space’s work items. It’s a bit of a superpower.

For traceability and historical investigations, we recommend preserving all work item comments. They can help you trace how a project went, or how an interaction could be improved in the future. For that reason, you may reserve this permission for team leaders, human resource managers, or other management roles.

Delete any work item

This permission allows people to delete any work item in your space, including its associated field data, comments, and work log entries.

This permission is typically reserved for team leaders or project management roles. We don’t recommend deleting work items as a practice. Changing a work item’s status to a done-category status is a much better way of clearing up unneeded work items. Changing a work item’s status notifies the work item’s reporter, assignee, and watchers of the action your team has taken on the task.

Delete any work log entry

This permission allows people to remove any work log entry added by anyone on any of your space’s work items.

Typically, removing other people’s work log entries is a permission reserved for team leaders or other management roles.

Delete their own attachments

This permission allows people to remove any file or image they attached to any work item in your space.

Typically, anyone who can attach files to a work item (by having the Add attachments permission) should be able to remove their own attachments. This practice can help clarify work where many versions of a file or image are uploaded throughout the course of working on the work item. Organizations with strict compliance or traceability requirements may consider restricting this permission to preserve an accurate historical record throughout a work item’s lifecycle.

Delete their own comments

This permission allows people to remove any comments they’ve added to any work item in your space.

Typically, anyone who can comment on a work item (by having the Add comments permission) should be able to remove their own comments. This practice can help clarify work if people leave erroneous or inaccurate comments. Organizations with strict compliance or traceability requirements may consider restricting this permission to preserve an accurate historical record throughout a work item’s lifecycle.

Delete their own work log entries

This permission allows people to remove the time they logged, the time they estimated as remaining, and the description of any work log entry they added to any of your space’s work items.

Typically, people who actively work and log time in your space need to delete their own work logs in case of data entry errors.

Edit any comment

This permission allows people to alter the content of any comment added by anyone on any of your space's work items.

Open organizations encourage teams to edit each other’s comments to correct minor problems like spelling errors or broken links, and generally keep the communication stream clean. Organizations with strict compliance or traceability requirements may reserve this permission for team leaders or project managers.

Edit any due date

This permission allows people to change the value of the default Due date field on any of your space’s work items.

Organizations with strict compliance or traceability requirements may reserve this permission for team leaders or project managers.

This permission is similar to the Schedule work items permission in company-managed spaces.

Edit any work item

This permission allows people to alter the summary and description, and change the value of fields that aren’t restricted by another permission (like the Assign work items or Edit reporters permissions).

Open organizations encourage teams to keep each other’s work up to date by adjusting fields when viewing tasks throughout the course of their work. The ability to clarify descriptions and update fields is especially handy for team members who may review tasks during shared rituals like standup meetings, planning meetings, board grooming sessions, or project kick-off meetings. Organizations with strict compliance or traceability requirements may reserve this permission for team leaders or project managers.

Edit any work log entry

This permission allows people to alter the time logged, time remaining, and description of any work log entry added by anyone on any of your space’s work items.

Typically, adjusting other people’s work log entries is a permission reserved for team leaders or other management roles.

Edit reporters

This permission allows people to change the value of the default Reporter field on any of your space’s work items. The Reporter field is automatically set to the work item’s creator at the time the work item is made.

Edit their own comments

This permission allows people to alter the content of any comments they’ve added to any work item in your space.

Typically, anyone who can comment on a work item (by having the Add comments permission) should be able to adjust their own comments and correct minor problems like spelling errors or broken links. Organizations with strict compliance or traceability requirements may consider restricting this permission to keep an accurate historical record throughout the course of a work item’s lifecycle.

Edit their own work log entries

This permission allows people to alter the time they logged, the time they estimated as remaining, and the description of any work log entry they added to any of your space’s work items.

Typically, people who actively work and log time in your space will need to adjust their own work logs in case of data entry errors or changes to the work’s scope or requirements.

Link any work item

This permission allows people to link work items in your space to one another, or to work items in other spaces on your site. To view the link properly, they need the same permission in the target space.

Log work on any work item

This permission allows people to interact with the time tracking field on any of your space’s work items.

This permission allows people to create a work log entry, where they can indicate the time spent and time remaining to complete the task, including a brief description of the work they did along the way.

This permission is called Work on work items in company-managed spaces.

Manage space work items (a set of permissions)

This set of permissions is typically granted to team leaders, project managers, Scrum masters, and other roles that generally oversee project work.

Granting this permission also grants the following bundled permissions:

• Add or remove work item watchers

• Edit any due date

• Edit any comment

• Edit any work log entry

• Edit reporters

• Delete any attachment

• Delete any comment

• Delete any work item

• Delete any work log entry

Manage sprints

This permission allows people to create, start, and complete sprints in your space. This includes adjusting the sprint duration and goal.

Sprints are a concept from agile methodology, specifically a way of working called Scrum. Typically, sprints are managed by team leaders or designated Scrum masters.

More about sprints, Scrum, and how to practice agile methods in Jira.

Move any work item

This permission allows people to move a work item to another space on your Jira site. To successfully move a work item, they also need permission to create work items in the target space.

Transition any work item

This permission allows people to view any work item’s underlying workflow and update the status of any of your space’s work items. They can move any work item through the workflow, triggering any board rules that may be associated with the transition along the way. They can also resolve and close any work items in your space.

This permission is a combination of the Transition work items, Resolve work items, and Close work items permissions in company-managed space.

View watchers

This permission allows people to see who’s watching any work item in your space.

You may grant this permission to anyone logged in to your Jira site.

Work on space work items (a set of permissions)

This set of permissions is typically granted to developers, product managers, designers, quality assurance engineers, and others directly working to accomplish your space’s goals. Typically, these permissions are meant for who you might consider members of the core team.

Granting this permission also grants the following bundled permissions:

• Assign any work item

• Edit any work item

• Edit their own work log entries

• Delete their own work log entries

• Link any work item

• Log work on any work item

• Transition any work item