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JIRA Interview Questions

Last Updated: Jan 03, 2024

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What is JIRA

JIRA is a work management tool for different types of use cases, right from requirements and test case management to agile software development. It is a product or a software tool for bug and issue tracking developed by Atlassian. It is commonly used for project management, bug tracking, and issue tracking - based completely on these three aspects. Wide applications of Jira are found in the software field. 

The Jira family comprises of the following 3 products:

  • Jira Core: This is used for general-purpose task management.
  • Jira Software: This is used in teams where agile methodologies, such as Scrum and Kanban are needed.
  • Jira Service Desk: This is used as a support ticketing system.

JIRA Interview Questions for Freshers

1. Explain the workflow of Jira.

Since Jira is used to track the issue and transitions in the development life cycle of the software, the workflow is like a set of software-related activities which help in performing these operations. The link between these 2 states is called a transition. The issue moves from one transition state to another state. The status is used to define the nature of the work that is completed by the tester.

In the JIRA workflow, the important phases that occur are given below:

  • To Do
  • In progress
  • Finally done
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2. What are some of the benefits of using Jira?

The following are some of the benefits of using Jira:

  • It is easily customizable and extensible.
  • It runs almost anywhere as it is platform-independent. It is recognized by quite a few well-known companies.
  • We can get the latest update on the progress of projects via Jira.
  • It has an upfront and fair licensing policy.

3. What is the use of a Dashboard in Jira?

The dashboard is the first display that we see once we login to the Jira. The Jira admin can change the view of the dashboard. Along with this, they can also change the things that are visible on the dashboard. A dashboard shows tools and applications that assist the team members to track the progress of a project. The dashboard also contains useful information such as the issues assigned to the user that is logged in along with the user's activity information.

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4. What are the agile methodologies supported by Jira?

Jira Software supports the following agile methodologies: Scrum and Kanban.

  • Scrum: Scrum is an agile methodology in which the development team works in an iterative manner to complete a given project. Every sprint or iteration has some set scope and timeline for the project. For software development projects, Scrum is most suitable.
  • Kanban: Kanban is an agile methodology that focuses on just-in-time delivery. It accomplishes this by visualizing the workflow and the tasks in progress. Kanban is mostly suitable for operation teams.

5. What do you mean by Agile board?

The main user interface that an end-user will use on a daily basis for projects is called an agile board. The agile board allows us to visualize the various tasks in a project and also the available steps in the workflow of the project. Along with that, it also gives us an interactive way to transition tasks through the workflow. There are also additional features that provide a variety of functionalities depending on the type of board we are using. For instance, some boards may allow us to provide visual cues to highlight potential bottlenecks, manage a backlog of features, and a lot more.

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6. What are the issue types in a Scrum project in Jira?

An individual unit of work in Jira is referred to as an issue. This issue could be a unit such as a story or an epic. Every issue has a field called issue type, which represents the type and use of the issue. For instance, in a Scrum project, one would have the following types of issues by default:

  • Story: A story in Jira represents a single feature that is to be implemented. It is generally used in order to get the requirements from the end user's perspective. For this purpose, stories are often written in non-technical language. These are used for focusing on the end results of the feature.
  • Epic: An epic means a big user story. This represents that the story has not been broken down into smaller and finer requirements. In Jira, epics are mostly used to define the "theme" for various stories that will be part of it, along with the modules or the major components in a big development project.
  • Bug: A bug in Jira represents a problem or a defect that needs to be fixed in a given product.
  • Task: This represents a generic task that is neither a bug nor a story, but it needs to be completed.

7. Explain the configuration of project template in Jira.

Project templates allow us to create new projects based on certain predefined settings. This is important so that when the project is created, it will have all the necessary configurations set for us, including the following:

  • Issue type scheme: An issue type scheme that contains only the relevant issue types for the selected template, such as stories and epics for Scrum.
  • Workflow: A specially designed workflow that makes it easier to work with the issues on an agile board.
  • Screens: A set of screens that contain the necessary fields for working with agile, such as epic links to link stories to epics, and sprint for when tasks are added to Scrum sprints.
  • Agile board: If the template is either Scrum or Kanban, an agile board is dedicated to the new project.
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8. What are some of the popular add-ons for Jira?

Following are some of the popular add-ons for JIRA:

  • JIRA Toolkit Plugin
  • JIRA Charting Plugin
  • Portfolio for JIRA
  • Suites utilities for JIRA
  • Zephyr for JIRA – Test Management
  • ScriptRunner for JIRA
  • Atlassian REST API Browser
  • Tempo Timesheets for JIRA
  • JIRA Misc Workflow Extensions

9. What is the role of validators in Jira?

Validators check that any input to the transition by a user is valid before the transition is performed. The role of validators in JIRA is to verify exactly this. The issue will not progress to the destination status of the transition in case a validator fails.

10. What is an Event in Jira?

In Jira, an event gives information about the status, the default template and the notification scheme and workflow transition post function associations for the event. Basically, the events are classified into these two categories:

  • A System event (Jira defined events)
  • Custom event (User-defined events)

JIRA Interview Questions for Experienced

1. What are the report types that are generated in Jira?

In Jira, there are a number of reports generated that are used to showcase different project statistics throughout the entire life cycle of the project. There are general reports available for analyzing issues in Jira. Along with this, there are also some reports for Scrum and Kanban projects.

The general reports available for analyzing the issues includes:

  • Time Tracking Report
  • Version Workload Report
  • Workload Pie chart Report
  • Created vs Resolved issue Report
  • Average Age Report
  • User Workload Report
  • Resolution Time Report
  • Pie Chart Report
  • Recently created Issue Report

For Scrum projects, the following types of reports can be generated:

  • Sprint Report
  • Version Report
  • Control chart
  • Velocity chart
  • Cumulative Flow diagram
  • Release Burndown
  • Burndown chart
  • Epic Report

For Kanban projects, the following types of reports can be generated:

  • Control chart
  • Cumulative Flow diagram

In order to generate reports for your project, the steps given below can be followed:

  1. Go to the desired ‘project dashboard’ for which you want to generate a report
  2. From the left-hand side click on the Reports tab to view the different types of reports.
  3. Click on the Switch report button to view the different reports.

2. How can we modify a bulk issues?

In order to modify a bulk issue, we need to use the bulk change options - tool menu - then select all issues on the current page that can be used for the bulk operations.

We get the following details when we perform bulk operations:

  • Workflow transition
  • Delete
  • Move
  • Edit
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3. Explain the three colour indicators to show time spent in Jira and their significance.

In Jira, for a particular issue, three colours namely Blue, Green, and Orange are used to show how much time is spent on that particular issue. You can go to the section of ‘Time Tracking’ to view this information. The significance of each colour is as follows:

  • Blue: The blue colour is used to show the ‘Original Estimate’. This is the estimate of time to be spent in resolving an issue. You can see this field shown as ‘Estimated’.
  • Orange: The orange colour is for the time left to resolve an issue. You can see this field shown as ‘Remaining’.
  • Green: The green colour shows the actual time that has been spent in solving given the issue till now. You can see this field shown as ‘logged’.

4. What are some of the configuration fields of an agile board?

The following are some of the configuration fields of an agile board: 

Field Description
Board name This gives the name of the agile board.
Administrators Administrators are users who can configure the settings of the agile board. We can add more administrators by either selecting the users directly or by selecting a group.
Saved Filter

This controls which issues will be included on the agile board. If you have created your board using the agile templates, then the filter here is automatically created for you to include all issues in the project.

You can select a different filter to use or click on the Edit Filter Query link to change the current filter.

Shares Access to the filter is controlled by this field. In practice, the filter should be shared with the same users who have access to the board.
Filter Query The filter query shows us the actual filter query that is used by the Saved Filter.
Ranking This shows whether the ranking is currently enabled. We should have the ranking enabled in order to rank issues and create sprints.
Projects in board These are the projects that are a part of the board. These projects are automatically determined on the basis of the Saved Filter that is used by the board.

5. For an Agile project, how are user stories created in Jira?

For an Agile project, the user stories are created in the following way in Jira:

  • Issue type -> Epic and Issue type –> Story linked to it. To do so, on the ‘Create Issue’ page, go to “Configure Fields”. Then select the “Epic Link” field to be included in the issue creation screen.
  • Alternatively, you can also have a product backlog by creating one main User story and having multiple sub-tasks under it.

6. What are some ways in which you can customize the agile board?

As the administrator, we can further customize the agile board in the following ways:

  • Scope of the agile board: This signifies what issues and projects will be added on the agile board.
  • Permission of the agile board: This entails who will have access to the agile board.
  • Layout of the agile board: This signifies the agile board's vertical columns and horizontal swimlanes.
  • Customized filters: These provide additional ways to filter out the content on the agile board.

7. After a transition is executed, what types of Post functions are carried out?

After a transition is executed, the following types of Post functions are carried out:

  • Create an event in order to trigger email notifications.
  • Add a comment to a given issue.
  • Update the fields of an issue.
  • For an issue, generate the change history.

8. What all are included under change history for a given issue?

For a particular issue, the change history section shows various activities of modifying any records. The change history displays information about the old and new field values in the case of the change in any field. This also includes data of the particular person who has made the change and also the time at which those changes were made.

The change history has these records of the changes as given below:

  • Issue field changes
  • Creation and deletion of a given comment.
  • File attachment changes
  • Creation and deletion of a given issue link.
  • Deletion of a Worklog.

9. Why are the issues in Jira labelled?

The issues in Jira are labelled in order to categorize an issue within a particular section. This can help to easily search with the help of labels. Label for a given issue can be initially set at the time of creating the issue. It can also be edited within the issue.

10. What does the Jira Schema consist of?

The Jira Schema consists of the following:

  • Notifications: This indicates what email someone receives when an issue is changed.
  • Workflows: This indicates which workflow is used for each issue type.
  • Permissions: This indicates what changes can be made to an issue by someone.
  • Issue types: This indicates what issue types like Bug, New Feature etc. can be used in a given Jira project.
  • Screens: This indicates where the fields are displayed in an issue’s screen.
  • Field configurations: This is used to define which Field Configuration is used for each issue type.

11. How does a service desk work in Jira?

In Jira, the service desk works in the following way:

  • The client expresses a demand for the service agents through an entryway. This can also be done via email.
  • Then, a service desk sees the demand in their Jira Service Desk line. They further investigate the issue.
  • The client and different members can use the entry or email to discuss about the demand with the assigned service desk agent, who works in the Jira Service Desk.
  • Finally, the specialist finishes the task and the client demand is fulfilled.

12. What is a Kanban board in Jira?

In Jira, when the prime focus of teams is to visualize the workflow and to manage the work in progress of the projects, Kanban boards are created. An important aspect of the Kanban board is that it is given in work mode as the work planning of the projects is not done yet.

Following are the steps in order to create a Kanban board:

  1. Log In to the Jira app with your credentials and go to the dashboard section.
  2. Select the option of ‘Create Project’, on the Project dropdown.
  3. Then, select ‘Kanban Software development’. After that click the Next button.

13. What do you mean by JQL?

JQL stands for Jira Query language. It is an advanced explicit way to search for issues within Jira. This consists of a field, operator, value and keyword. It is quite a flexible and powerful way to search for issues.

14. What is Jira Core?

Jira Core is a workflow management system. This allows us to create unique processes that suit our needs. 

Workflows are the root of the system, moving packets of work from one place to another. Jira Core allows us to make our workflow as easy or as complex as we need. It does this by giving us the freedom to concentrate on the work, and not on the process. The only constraints on your workflow are your processes.

15. What can be configured for the Jira project and issue type?

For each pair of the Jira project and issue type, we can configure the following things:

  • Project accessibility.
  • Which custom fields and system an issue can use.
  • The order of custom fields appears on an issue screen.
  • The workflow of an issue including the statuses.
  • Versions and components available for an issue.
  • Permissions for what a user can do with an issue.

16. What are the limitations when editing an active workflow in Jira?

Following are the limitations when editing an active workflow in Jira:

  • If a workflow is active, we cannot edit the workflow name, only the description can be edited.
  • We cannot delete the workflow steps.
  • We cannot edit a step associated status.
  • We cannot add a new outgoing transition in the case a step has no outgoing transitions Here, global transitions are not considered.
  • We cannot change a step’s Step ID.

17. What is the d​​ifference between Jira Kanban and Jira Scrum ?

  • For Kanban boards, the process flow is tracked. The work in progress (WIP) activities are maintained. Here, the team plans on increasing and decreasing the number of issues that are to be shown in the status of the workflow.
  • In the Scrum board, the progress of the sprints along with tracking of its work is carried out. It is the work mode, where the team decides the different types of issues that have turned backlog which is then moved to sprints as per the plan.

18. What are some of the common Jira add-ons?

Some of the common and useful Jira add-ons are as follows:

  • Slack
  • Github
  • Tempo Timesheets
  • PagerDuty
  • Jenkins-CI
  • Usersnap

19. What do you mean by Cloning an Issue in JIRA?

Cloning an issue basically means copying an issue. This allows us to quickly make a copy of an issue inside a similar project. The clone issue is a mirror image of the original issue. It contains similar data that is put in the original issue like the Summary, Components, Affects Versions, and so on. A clone issue is a different element from the original issue. The clone issue can similarly be connected to the original issue. 

The tasks on the original issue have no impact on the clone issue and also the other way around. If a link is made between the original issue and the clone issue, that serves as the main connection.

Cloning an issue retains the following:

  • Project
  • Summary
  • Issue Links
  • Description
  • Assignee
  • Environment
  • Reporter
  • Attachments
  • Components
  • Affects Versions
  • Fix For Versions
  • Priority
  • Issue Type
  • Security

20. Which issues cannot be cloned?

The following are the issues that are cannot be cloned:

  • Time tracking
  • Issue history
  • Comments and
  • Links to Confluence pages

Conclusion

Jira is a software that allows agile project management and bug tracking. This defect tracking tool is not only used for convenience-related features like recording, reporting but it is also integrated directly with the code development environment.

Jira is an efficient tool that has the capability to track any kind of issue. Agile projects are also supported by Jira. Jira helps teams report, assign, track, plan, and manage work. Thus, everything from agile software development and customer support to start-ups and enterprises is done.

References and Resources:

  1. Jira 8 Essentials - Fifth Edition by Patrick Li
  2. Jira Software Essentials (Second Edition) - Published by Packt Publishing
  3. Automate Everyday Tasks in Jira - by Gareth Cantrell
  4. Agile vs Scrum
  5. Software Testing
  6. Manual Testing

JIRA MCQ

1.

Which of the following is/are agile methodologies in Jira?

2.

Which of the following are report types available in Jira?

3.

Which of the following configurations do project templates in Jira have?

4.

Which of the following is/are bulk operations in Jira?

5.

Which of the following are types of Jira Schemes?

6.

The backup data in Jira includes which of the following?

7.

Which of the following are issues in Jira?

8.

Which of the following does an Issue Change History include?

9.

Which of the following is true about Jira?

10.

Which of the following actions is a part of the Jira workflow?

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