Administrator's Guide (v 1.0)

Table of Content

Introduction

How does it work?

User Anonymization is done by removing all references to a Jira user and replace them with a new anonymous technical user.

You should first create an anonymous technical user in your Jira instance. Then you can use our “User Anonymizer for Jira” app to change the references of a user to your new anonymous user. Optionally, you may delete the user or remove the user from an external user directory sync after the anonymization process, depending on your requirements.

Where does Jira store personal data?

There are plenty of places where Jira does store personal information. The following elements are supported to be anonymized by “User Anonymizer for Jira”.

Issues	Creator	Replace by anonymous user
	Reporter	Replace by anonymous user
	Assignee	Replace by anonymous user
	Vote	Remove user
	Watcher	Remove user
	Attachment Creator	Replace by anonymous user
	Change History Author	Replace by anonymous user
	Change History Summary	Replace by anonymous user
	Description Mentions	Replace by anonymous user
	Environment Mentions	Replace by anonymous user
Comments	Comment Creator and Updater	Replace by anonymous user
Comments	Comment Mentions	Replace by anonymous user
Worklogs	Worklog Creator and Updater	Replace by anonymous user
Worklogs	Worklog Mentions	Replace by anonymous user
Custom Fields	Single User-Picker	Replace by anonymous user
	Multi User-Picker	Replace by anonymous user
	Custom Text Field Mentions (Single Line)	Replace by anonymous user
	Custom Text Field Mentions (Multi Line)	Replace by anonymous user
Projects	Project Lead	Replace by anonymous user
	Component Lead	Replace by anonymous user
	Project Role	Remove user

Preparation

Installing the add-on

The add-on is available on the Atlassian Marketplace. To install the add-on, log in as a system administrator and navigate to the add-on management in the administration console (choose Cog icon > Add-ons at top right of the screen or use the keyboard shortcut: press 'gg' then type 'Find new add-ons'). In the menu on the left click the “Find New Add-ons” link. Search for “user anonymizer for jira” to display our add-on “User Anonymizer for Jira (GDPR)”. Click the Buy Now or Free Trial button to install the add-on.

If the installation was successful, a new section “User Anonymizer” appears in the administration. This is where the anonymization of users takes place. If this section is not visible, please ensure that all required modules of the add-on are enabled. For this, you should select the “User Anonymizer for Jira (GDPR)” from the list of installed add-ons.

Licensing

The add-on needs a valid license to have all the provided features working. Valid licenses include full licenses, renewal licenses, or 30-day trials and are available on the Atlassian Marketplace. The license model is the same as the one Atlassian uses for its products – for further information, see Atlassian’s documentation on app licensing.

To get a license and provide it for the plugin, please carry out the following:

Go to the license settings page (Administration > Add-ons > “Manage add-ons”: Extend “User Anonymizer for Jira (GDPR)”)
Use the links to create a new license at the Atlassian Marketplace (use “Free Try” to get a new trial license or “Buy Now” to purchase a full license), or copy a license you got from Actonic.
Enter the license key in the license screen.

Without a valid license, the user anonymizer shows the message “Invalid or missing license key” instead of the user anonymizer configuration screen.

Prepare your Jira system

To use “User Anonymizer for Jira (GDPR)” you should first create a technical anonymous Jira user. Go to Jira User management and create a user, for example with the username “anonymous”. Once created, please edit the user properties and set the user inactive.

You may choose the name freely, but it should clearly be identified as an anonymous technical user. It is also possible to create more than one anonymous user with different names.

But remember, every anonymous user should be set inactive to avoid logins. Anonymous users may have advanced permissions (for example, if set as project lead by the anonymization process).

Anonymization process

You can access the configuration in the Jira Administration (choose Cog icon > Add-ons at top right of the screen) via the menu item Anonymizer Management -> User Anonymizer in the panel on the left side. Alternatively, you may use the keyboard shortcut: type “gg”, then “User Anonymizer”.

Image 1: User Anonymizer User Interface

Configure User Anonymizer

Please enter one or more users you want to anonymize (1) in the User Anonymizer form (see Image 1).

Set the technical anonymous user (2) you created manually before.

Optionally, you may enter any JQL query (3) to limit the anonymization process to a subset of Jira issues.

Anonymize project settings

You may enable the checkbox (4) to anonymize all project settings. Using this feature will not only anonymize issues, but also anonymize project lead, component lead and project roles for all Jira projects (regardless of what subset of Jira issues were selected by the JQL query in step (3)).

Test anonymization

Click “Test anonymization” (5) to test the anonymization with the currently selected options. In this step no personal data will be changed, it is safe to click this button.

As a result, you get a list of the elements that matches your selected users and will be anonymized (Image 3).

Image 2: Result table of “Test anonymization”

Execute anonymization

The result table of “Test anonymization” (Image 3) gives you an overview of the elements that will be anonymized. Click “Execute” (6) to anonymize the personal data.

Anonymization cannot be undone. You will not be able to restore previous personal data. Please check your settings twice.

As the anonymization process may take a while depending on the number of issues, the current progress will be shown and updated automatically.

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