Configuration Guide

Configuration and Maintenance Guide

Introduction

The "Anonymized Project View" application helps you anonymize user communication when customers and contractors work in the same Jira projects. The application anonymizes names of other company users in all project views on the fly, without database changes.

Features

The application features are as follows:

  • Anonymizing user communication in Jira projects automatically in real time
  • User-friendly setup for anonymization
  • Compliance with the Fremdarbeitskräfte (FAK), Germany standard for working with contractors
  • Anonymization by replacing real names with configured company names
  • Easy assignment of users to companies
  • Using Jira in full functionality, despite anonymization
  • Anonymization on the fly, without changing values in the database
  • Easy non-personal communication between companies

Anonymization Examples

Project board view for an Administrator or "True-Sight" User (no users are shown anonymized):

Project board view for a Customer's User (contractor's users are shown anonymized):

Project board view for a Contractor's User (customer's users are shown anonymized):

Issue view for a Customer's User:

Issue view for a Contractor's User:

Issue view for a Contractor's User, where:

  • Contractor User 2 is assigned to "Contractor Company"
  • Contractor User 3 is assigned to "Contractor Company B"
  • "Contractor Company" and "Contractor Company 2" are configured to be mutually de-anonymized (see Configuring De-Anonymization Parties)


History view for a Customer's User:

History view for a Contractor's User:

Configuring Users and Groups

Before configuring project anonymization, you must configure Jira users and user groups.
It is assumed that the customer and contractor companies work in the same Jira projects.

Creating Users for Companies

Create one company user for each company that works in the anonymized Jira projects. Company users are shown instead of the original users at project views for users of other companies. For company name anonymization, use made-up names.

  1. Navigate to the "User Management" page.

To access this page, click Jira Administration -> User Management.

  1. Click "Create User".

  1. Enter details for a company user.
  2. Click "Create User".

The user appears in the user list.

TIP: You can have one or more company users for a company. For example, use several users when you need to distinguish contractor company offices, such ContractorLondon or ContractorParis.

Creating an Anonymization Group for Company Users

For anonymization, create a group and add all company users to this group.

  1. Navigate to the "Group Management" page.

To access this page, click Jira Administration -> User Management > Groups.

  1. In the "Name" field, enter the name of the group for anonymization.

  1. Click "Add Group".

The group appears in the group list.

  1. Click "Edit Members" for the group.
  2. In the "Add members to selected group(s)" box, add company users that were created before.

  1. Click "Add selected users".

The users appear in the "Group member(s)" box.

Creating a "True-Sight" Group

Regardless of the configuration, the anonymization does not affect system administrators. Their names are anonymized as the other names, but system administrators see original names of all users.
In addition to system administrators, you can configure a "True-Sight" group whose members must not be affected by anonymization (for example, top managers). At the same time, their names will be anonymized as the other user names.
Create a "True-Sight" group and add users to this group, as appropriate.

Granting Administrator Permissions to the Anonymization Group

Grant permissions for modifying all anonymized projects to the anonymization group. We recommend to add the anonymization company group to the Administrators project role.
Note: Granting Administrator permissions to the anonymization group does not raise security issues because no real users work from the company users.

  1. Navigate to the "Users and roles" display for an anonimyzed project.

To access this page, click Project Settings -> Users and roles.

  1. Click "Add users to a role".
  2. In the "Users or groups" field, enter the anonymization group name.

  1. In the "Role" field, select "Administrators" the anonymization group name.
  2. Click Add.
  3. The group appears in the Administrators list.

  1. Repeat the same steps for all anonymized projects.

Installing the Application

We assume that you already have the Anonymized Project View application installed. Otherwise, install the plugin from https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1219392/anonymized-project-view?hosting=server&tab=overview
In addition, you need to patch Jira as follows:

  1. Download a patch archive for your operation system from Patches.
  2. Extract the archive to a folder.
  3. Back up Jira's WEB-INF folder (for example, C:\Program Files\Atlassian\JIRA\atlassian-jira\WEB-INF)
  4. Copy the path contents to the Jira's WEB-INF folder.
  5. Confirm overwriting a number of files in the Jira's WEB-INF folder.
  6. If you using Service Desk: install patched Servicedesk Notifications Plugin from Patches page via Universal Plugin Manager or copy it directly to server to installed-plugins directory and restart the server.

Configuring the Application

WARNING: Users that are included in the anonymization configuration will be anonymized in the entire Jira, not only in the specific Jira projects. Therefore, carefully configure users and anonymization settings for the anonymization to apply to the appropriate users only.

Configuring the Anonymization

  1. Navigate to the "Anonymized Project View" application's Anonymization Configuration page.

To access this page, click Jira Administration -> Add-ons -> ANONYMIZED PROJECT VIEW -> Anonymization Configuration.

  1. Select a company group that contains all companies intended for anonymization (defined in Creating an Anonymization Group for Company Users).
  2. Select a group where users are not affected by the anonymization (defined in [Creating a "True-Sight" Group|Creating_a]).

Users of this group, regardless of their companies, will see original non-anonymized names for all users in Jira. At the same time, their names will be anonymized as the other user names.

  1. Select Jira projects for which to run a health check to determine users that are not assigned to any of the companies in the User Configuration (see Assigning Users to Companies). Such users will be neither anonymized, not affected by the anonymization. For more details about the health check, see The Application Health Check.
  2. Click Save.

The anonymization starts immediately after you save the configuration.

Assigning Users to Companies

For anonymizing Jira project users, assign all the users to the appropriate company users (defined in Creating Users for Companies).
WARNING: Non-assigned users will be neither anonymized, nor affected by the anonymization.

  1. Navigate to the "Anonymized Project View" application's User Configuration page.

To access this page, click Jira Administration -> Add-ons -> ANONYMIZED PROJECT VIEW -> User Configuration.

  1. Click "Add" to assign a user to a company.
  2. Select users in the "User Names" field.
  3. Select a company in the "Company" field.

  1. Click "Save" to assign users to a company.


These users will now be anonymized using their company names.

Configuring De-Anonymization Parties

When several customer or contractor parties work in Jira, you can define clusters of sibling companies to be mutually de-anonymized. At the same time, these companies will be commonly anonymized for other companies or clusters.

  1. Navigate to the "Anonymized Project View" application's De-Anonymization Parties Configuration page.

To access this page, click Jira Administration -> Add-ons -> ANONYMIZED PROJECT VIEW -> De-Anonymization Parties Configuration.

  1. Click "Add" to create a cluster configuration.

The "Add joint company configuration" display opens.

  1. In the "Name" field, enter the configuration name.
  2. In the "Companies" field, select companies in a cluster.

  1. Click "Save".

The cluster configuration appears on the "De-Anonymization Parties Configuration" display.

The Application Health Check

The "Anonymized Project View" application's health check determines users that are not assigned to any of the companies in the User Configuration (see Assigning Users to Companies). Such users will be neither anonymized, nor affected by the anonymization, therefore it is recommended to assign these users to the appropriate companies.
To run a health check for projects:

  1. Select projects in the "Check Projects" field in the "Anonymized Project View" application's Anonymization Configuration page.

To access this page, click Jira Administration -> Add-ons -> ANONYMIZED PROJECT VIEW -> Anonymization Configuration.

  1. Click Save.
  2. The health-check warning appears in the upper-right corner of a Jira display.

  1. Click "Find out more".

Alternatively, if the health-check warning does not appear, navigate to the "Troubleshooting and support tools" page in Jira.
To access this page, click Jira Administration -> System -> Troubleshooting and support tools.

  1. Check for detected problems in the "Instance health checks" section.

  1. Click "How can I resolve this?".

The "User Configuration (Missing Companies)" page opens.

  1. Use the "Edit" option to assign not-assigned users to companies.

(Optionally, assign users to companies from the User Configuration page as described in Assigning Users to Companies)


These users will now be anonymized using their company names.