You are viewing documentation for Structure Server and Data Center version 5.6 and patch releases. For other versions, see Version Index or [Structure Cloud].
When introducing Structure in an organization, it may make sense to limit the use of it to a pilot project or some specific group of users. This can be done via the Structure Administration page (Administration | Structure).
On this page, you can configure the following:
Projects with Structure. You can enable structure for all projects, or you can limit its exposure to a number of specific projects. If Structure is not enabled for a certain project, issues from this project cannot be added to structures, and users who only have access to such projects will not see Structure at all.
If you create a new project in Jira that should be using Structure, don't forget to add it to the list of enabled projects (unless you have selected the All Projects option).
Users of Structure. To define which users have access to Structure (on top of any restrictions by projects), you can use Jira Groups and Project Roles.
When Structure is enabled for anyone, even anonymous visitors will have access to Structure. This means that even if they don't have access to projects and will not see any issues in a structure, they will still see the structure name and may see the Automation settings. To make Structure accessible to only logged in users, restrict access to the jira-users group.
Users who can create structures. By default, any logged-in user with access to Structure can create new structures of their own. Using this setting, you can restrict this permission.
Permission to create Synchronizers. By default, any logged-in user with Control access level for a particular structure can manage Synchronizers of that structure. Using this setting you can restrict this permission.
Synchronizers were a mechanism for building self-updating structures in older versions of Structure (pre 3.0). In version 3.0, Automation was introduced to replace them, and synchronizers are gradually being faded out. Starting with version 5.0, synchronizer functionality is no longer visible if there were no synchronizers installed on the instance previously. To access synchronizers, they must first be enabled using the Structure Dark Features and Fine Tuning Interface.
If you do see synchronizers on your instance, it might be best to restrict this permission to admins only, to prevent users from creating new synchronizers, and encourage the use of Automation instead.
- Permission to manage Automation settings. By default, any user with Edit Generators access level for a structure can add and configure generators. Unlike synchronizers, generators cannot cause any unexpected changes to Jira data (see Automation and Synchronizers), so from this point of view, it's safe to let users work with them. Automation can, however, affect the server performance if they are used to build very large structures (see General Performance Considerations). This is especially important in large instances. In version 4.6 we introduced the Automation Timeout mechanism, which will stop a generation process if it is taking longer than a certain period time; however, it may still be a good idea to introduce the Automation feature gradually. A good practice could be to identify a set of power users to start using Automation immediately, and then organize some use-case-based training or create instructions for less experienced users.