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Thanks for choosing Backbone Issue Sync to synchronize your JIRA projects, letting you collaborate across departmental and B2B borders.

In a few simple steps, this article will show you how to synchronize issues between two Jira Cloud projects.

There are two separate guides – one for synchronizing projects in the same Jira instance, and another for synchronizing projects in separate Jira instances. This is because the steps needed for both processes are slightly different.

Watch the video

You can also watch our get started video explaining features on a high level view as well as showing the exact setup steps.

Synchronize 2 projects in the same Jira instance

1: First steps

Firstly, let's create two Jira projects to synchronize issues between.

Create two new Jira projects called Project A and Project B

2: Establish a connection between the projects

Let's establish a connection between the two projects, so that they can communicate with each other.

Open Project A and select Project settings > Issue synchronization > New synchronization > Synchronize with another project on this instance:
Choose the project you want to synchronize issue data with – select Project B, then click Next
Assign a name and description. For now, let's stick with the default name and description – just click Next
On the settings overview screen, check the configuration settings then click Send Request
Now, any user with the Administer Projects permission for Project B can accept the synchronization request to establish the connection between the projects. To accept the request, open Project B and click Project settings > Issue synchronization > in the Actions column, click ... > View Request > Accept Request.

Now we've connected the projects, it's time to configure some synchronization settings.

3: Configure synchronization settings

In this step, we'll configure the synchronization, telling Backbone what data it should synchronize between the projects.

To start editing the synchronization, click its name
Open the Issue Types tab, and click New Issue Type Mapping > Each other to synchronize the issue type in both directions between Project A and Project B
Next, map the issue type Task in Project A to Task in Project B:
Now, map which fields should be synchronized at Fields - Mappings > Suggestions
1. Check Summary and Description, and click Create
2. Click Publish Draft to save the configuration, then click Start to start the synchronization

Well done – you've configured your first synchronization! Now, all new issues with type Task will be synchronized between Projects A and B, and the Summary and Description fields will be synchronized between those issues.

4: Use the synchronization

Now for the fun part: let's use the synchronization by creating an issue in Project B, and watching as it is automatically synchronized to Project A.

Create a new issue with type Task in Project B, and enter some content in the Summary and Description fields
Now, open Project A – you'll see that the issue has now been synchronized
Open the synchronized issue in Project A, and edit the summary and description
Go back to the issue in Project B, and the edits have now been synchronized back over

That's all there is to it – you have successfully created and tested your first synchronization.

Next steps

Now, you can try out more configuration options, such as different issue/field types, or comments and attachments.

Synchronize 2 projects in separate Jira instances

In this guide, we'll configure Backbone to synchronize issues between projects in two separate Jira instances (which we'll refer to as instance A and instance B). Please make sure that you have installed Backbone in both Jira instances.