Working With Custom Fields
The Connector allows for exchanging of custom field data between JIRA and Microsoft Project. To use this function, you will need to enable the option under the configuration screen.
For demonstration purposes, we've created some custom fields in JIRA. One for a Customer Email, which we will store the customer email address and a Start Date which will be used to enter the Start Date for a task.
NOTE: Microsoft Project has 30 custom text fields that The Connector uses, but you can mix and match the values you wish to use. There are 5 mappings that are required but all of the others can be assigned as you wish.
The Custom Fields tab of the Project Information screen will allow you to add the Custom Fields to the project and specify the text fields that they will be mapped to.
Clicking on the Add Custom Field will open a window with all available custom fields from JIRA for the initialized project. Select each one that you want to have available for the project plan. To remove a custom field from the mappings click on the red X to the left of the field name.
Click here for information on setting up Enterprise Custom Fields
Once these values are configured, you can right click on the header of the Microsoft Project plan and choose the Insert Column function to add these custom fields to your task list in Microsoft Project.
You'll notice that our task list in Microsoft Project has two columns for our custom fields.
You can now enter those values into the project. These values can be edited right inline or through the Issue Editor. By selecting the task and choosing the "Issue Editor" option under the tools menu, we can display the issue editor dialog. In the Issue Editor there is a Custom Fields tab that will list these fields and allow you to enter appropriate values.
Next we'll send this data to JIRA using the Send to JIRA function. You will need to make sure that you have checked to include your custom fields. This is done in the Customize screen on the Custom Fields tab, be sure that the fields have check marks in front of them.
Without these options checked, The Connector will skip over the custom field's values.
Once the information is sent to JIRA, you'll notice that the values you have provided are displayed under the issue.
If we edit the issue through JIRA and alter one of the values, we can do an Update from JIRA and pull this information back into Microsoft Project. Again you will want to verify that the custom fields are included in the update. This is done in the Customize screen on the Custom Fields tab, be sure that the fields have check marks in front of them.