How-to

Jira permission scheme audit: what to check

Go through every permission scheme your projects use and ask who gets each permission. Four problems cause most of the trouble: projects open to the public, edit or delete rights for every logged-in user, single people named in schemes, and deactivated accounts left in project roles.

The audit by hand

  1. List the schemes. In Jira settings, open the permission schemes page. Write down each scheme and the projects using it. Schemes no project uses can wait. With dozens of schemes, /rest/api/3/permissionscheme?expand=permissions returns them all with their grants in one call.
  2. Public access. Check who has Browse Projects (BROWSE_PROJECTS in the API). If it goes to the public, anyone can read those projects without logging in. You might want that for a public help project. Usually it's a leftover.
  3. Wide grants. Look at the edit, move and delete work item permissions and Administer Projects (EDIT_ISSUES, MOVE_ISSUES, DELETE_ISSUES, ADMINISTER_PROJECTS). If they go to every logged-in user, anyone with a Jira seat can change or delete work there.
  4. Named people. Grants to one user at a time are hard to review and outlast job changes. Move them to a group or a project role.
  5. Project roles. Open each project's role assignments and remove deactivated accounts. They can't log in. The entries come back to life if the account is reactivated, though.
  6. Keep notes. Write down what you changed and the date. Next quarter you'll only check what's new.

Faster with the Findings tab

Access & License Audit reads every scheme your projects use. It lists these problems with a severity and the projects affected: public access, sensitive permissions for every logged-in user, people named directly, deactivated accounts in roles, and unused groups. Nothing gets changed. You decide what to fix.

Findings tab with sample data: public access through a scheme, every logged-in user able to edit and move work items, people named directly and unused groups
Findings tab, sample data.

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