Managing Versions

Versions are points-in-time for a project. They help you schedule and organise your releases. Once a version is created, the following reports are useful:

Road Map report — gives you a view of upcoming versions
Change Log report — gives you a review of released versions

The Change Log and Road Map reports are driven by the 'Fix For Version' field on each issue.

Versions can be:

Added — create a new version against which issues can be aligned.
Released — mark a version as released. This changes the Road Map report, Change Log report and some issue fields' drop-downs. If you have integrated JIRA with Bamboo, you can also trigger builds when releasing a version.
Rescheduled — re-arrange the order of versions.
Archived — hide an old version from the Road Map and Change Log reports, and in the JIRA User Interface.
Merged — combine multiple versions into one.

On this page:

Managing a project's versions

Login to JIRA as a project administrator. (A project administrator is someone who has the project-specific permission 'Administer Project', but not necessarily the global permission 'JIRA Administrators'.)
Click the 'Administration' link on the top bar.
This will display the Administration page, showing a list of projects which you have permission to manage. Click the project of interest.
You will now see a page displaying the project details. On this page all the configurable actions available on the project are easily accessible. On the lower right, a summary of the versions is displayed along with the link to the version management interface. The summary indicates the version status and the scheduled release date for that version.

Note

If you have created a new project and have not assigned a permission scheme with it on creation, then you will not see the above display. Instead under versions it will say "There are no versions at the moment".
Click the 'Manage' link to display the 'Manage Versions' screen, which shows a list of versions and each version's status. From here you can perform the operations described below.

Version status

Each version can have any of the following four statuses:

Released — a bundled package
Unreleased — an open package
Archived — a semi-transparent package
Overdue — the release date is highlighted

The status affects where the version appears in drop-down lists for version-related issue fields ('Fix For Version' and 'Affects Version').

Adding a new version

The "Add New Version" form is located at the bottom of the 'Manage Versions' screen.
From here, you enter the name for the version. The name is treated as a plain string by JIRA, so it can be simple numeric, e.g. "2.1", it can be complicated numeric, e.g. "2.1.3", or it can be something zany like the project's internal code-name, e.g. "Memphis".
Optional details such as the version description and release date can be also be specified.
Note that leaving the description blank may result in issues with the Road Map report, if you are using an Oracle database — please see http://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRA-19893
It is also possible to 'schedule' the new version by selecting its position in the version list. The new version is added after the selected version - or it can be placed at the start of the list by selecting 'First'.
Click on the "Add" button. The version management list is updated immediately, with the newly created version added in the specified position.

Note

At present, the version release date is only used to indicate the scheduled release date for a version. Currently JIRA only uses the release date for reporting purposes, but in future releases it is intended to add further functionality to take advantage of this data.

Releasing a version

Before you begin:

If you have integrated JIRA with Atlassian's Bamboo, you can trigger a Bamboo build to run automatically when releasing of a version in JIRA. The JIRA version will only be released if the build is successful. See these alternate instructions: Running a Bamboo Build when Releasing a Version.

On the 'Manage Versions' screen, click the 'Release' link available in the 'Operations' column for the version you are interested in.
If there are any issues set with this version as their 'Fix For' version, JIRA allows you to choose to change the 'Fix For' version if you wish. Otherwise, the operation will complete without modifying these issues.
This operation immediately updates the specific version as 'released' throughout JIRA.
The version list indicates the version 'released' status with the bundled package icon. The 'Unrelease' operation replaces the 'Release' operation in the 'Operations' column.
To un-release a version, simply click on the 'Unrelease' link in the 'Operations' column.

Archiving a version

On the 'Manage Versions' screen, click the 'Archive' link available in the 'Operations' column for a version you are interested in.
This operation immediately updates the specific version as 'archived' throughout JIRA.
The version list indicates the version 'archived' status with a semi-transparent icon. The list of available operations is replaced with the 'Unarchive' operation. No further changes can be made to this version unless it is un-archived. Also it is not possible to remove any existing archived versions from an issue's affected and fix version fields or add any new archived versions.
To un-archive a version, simply click on the 'Unarchive' link in the operations column.

Merging multiple versions

On the 'Manage Versions' screen, click the 'Merge' link available in the 'Operations' column for a version you are interested in.
This will take you to the 'Merge Versions' page.On this page are two select lists - both listing all un-archived versions. The specified version is highlighted in the 'Merging From Versions' select list on the left. It is possible to select further versions you wish to merge from. Versions selected on this list will be removed from the system. All issues associated with these versions will be updated to reflect the new version selected in the 'Merge To Version' select list on the right. It is only possible to select one version to merge to.
Click on the 'Merge' button. You will be shown a confirmation Page. Click on 'Merge' to complete the operation.
On completion of the merge operation, you are returned to the version management interface. The version list has been updated to reflect the changes that occurred in the merge operation.

Editing a version's details

On the 'Manage Versions' screen, click the 'Edit Details' link available in the 'Operations' column for the version you are interested in.
This will bring you to the "Edit Version: <Version>" page. Here, you can edit the version's Name, Description and Release Date:
Click the 'Update' button to save your changes.
On completion of the update operation, you are returned to the 'Manage Versions' screen — with an updated version list reflecting the changes made.

Deleting a version

On the 'Manage Versions' screen, click the 'Delete' link in the 'Operations' column for the version you wish to delete.
This will bring you to the "Delete Version: <Version>" confirmation page.
From here, you can specify the actions to be taken for issues associated with the version to be deleted. You can either associate these issues with another version, or simply remove references to the version to be deleted.
Click the "Delete" button.
On completion of the deletion, you are returned to the 'Manage Versions' screen — with an updated version list reflecting the changes made.

Rescheduling a version

On the 'Manage Versions' screen, re-scheduling operations are available through the 'Schedule' column.
It is possible to move a version up/down a position or to the start/end of the list by clicking on the specific arrow icon associated with the specific version row.
The version list is updated immediately with the selected version now occupying the specified position.

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