Atlassian ACP-620: Managing Jira Projects in Cloud Before the 2027 Transition

ACP-620 is Atlassian's Managing Jira Projects for Cloud professional certification. It validates the ability to create and configure Jira Cloud projects for software teams, shape Scrum and Kanban boards, manage project-level settings, build useful automation and interpret reporting. In late September 2026 the exam is still available, but its lifecycle now has a defined endpoint: Atlassian plans to retire ACP-620 in early January 2027 and move selected project-administration content into an updated Jira Administration for Cloud exam.

That timing changes how the page should be read. ACP-620 remains a current exam for the remainder of 2026, so its objectives are still relevant to candidates with an active plan to sit it before retirement. At the same time, anyone beginning a long certification roadmap should understand that the credential will soon be replaced by a broader cloud administration path. The underlying project-administration skills remain useful even when the exam code changes.

ACP-620 tests project administration rather than full Jira administration

The Atlassian certifications catalog distinguishes people who administer individual projects from those who administer the wider Jira site. ACP-620 is aimed at project admins who configure a Jira project according to team requirements and manage the settings that shape day-to-day work.

Current preparation material organizes the exam around five weighted domains: project creation at 13%, board configuration at 29%, managing projects at 25%, automation at 14% and reporting at 19%. The weighting makes the emphasis clear. Almost three quarters of the assessment sits in board configuration, project management and reporting, so the exam is not a general tour of every Jira setting.

A broad Jira foundation is still essential. Issues, projects, workflows, fields, filters, versions and permissions are the building blocks. ACP-620 then asks candidates to use them in the constrained role of a project administrator.

Project creation is about choosing a workable starting model

Creating a project is more than naming it. The administrator must understand the project type, template, team needs and configuration model that will govern the work. Company-managed and team-managed projects offer different administration experiences and scopes, and exam scenarios usually provide clues about which model fits.

Project details such as the key, lead and access model affect how people interact with the project. Issue types, workflows, screens and fields determine what information is captured and how work progresses. Some configuration is inherited or controlled beyond the project, so the project administrator should also recognize when a site admin is required.

The best design is usually the simplest one that satisfies the team's actual process. Creating multiple issue types, workflows or custom fields without a clear reason increases administration cost and reporting ambiguity. ACP-620 scenarios reward candidates who can translate requirements into a coherent project rather than reproduce every available Jira feature.

Board configuration carries the greatest exam weight

Scrum and Kanban boards turn filtered Jira issues into a planning and execution surface. Board configuration determines which issues appear, how statuses map to columns, how quick filters segment work, how swimlanes group it and how estimation or ranking behaves.

The underlying saved filter is crucial. If the filter excludes a project, issue type or status, no amount of board-column editing will make those issues appear. If the filter spans multiple projects, board behavior may depend on permissions across all of them. Candidates should be comfortable reading JQL and predicting the result set before changing visual board settings.

Status-to-column mapping also affects workflow interpretation. Several statuses can map to one column, and the rightmost column has special significance for completed work in many agile reports. A board that visually looks reasonable can produce misleading sprint or control-chart behavior when statuses are mapped poorly.

Scrum and Kanban require different administrative judgment

Scrum projects organize work into a backlog and timeboxed sprints. Administrators need to understand ranking, sprint permissions, estimation, versions and the reports that use sprint history. Kanban teams may focus more on continuous flow, column constraints and cycle-time interpretation.

The exam does not require candidates to become agile coaches, but it does expect them to know how Jira's board features support the chosen method. For example, a sprint report answers a different operational question from a cumulative flow diagram. A backlog configuration that is central to Scrum may not be the primary planning tool for a Kanban team.

Scenario questions therefore combine product knowledge with process awareness. The administrator should recognize what the team is trying to accomplish and configure the board accordingly instead of assuming every software project should look the same.

Managing projects means controlling configuration without exceeding scope

Project administrators work with issue layouts, roles, permissions, versions, components, workflows and other project settings, but not every object is safely editable at project scope. A shared scheme can affect multiple projects, and some changes require a Jira administrator. This boundary is inherited from the older project-administration tradition represented by the retired ACP-600 Project Administration in Jira Server. The products are different, yet the governance principle is the same: know what is local, what is shared, and what requires escalation.

Versions are especially important for release-oriented teams because they connect issues to planned releases and power release reporting. Project roles provide a maintainable way to assign permissions by responsibility rather than hard-coding individual users. Issue layout helps surface the information that team members need without changing the underlying field model.

Permissions and project roles affect every configuration decision

A user may be able to see a board but not rank issues, create a sprint or modify project settings. Permissions can depend on project roles, groups, application access and the schemes controlled by site administrators. Candidates should therefore read every scenario for the identity and authority of the person performing the action.

The practical question is often not “Can Jira do this?” but “Can this project administrator do this with the current configuration?” If the requirement needs a global permission, shared scheme or site-level change, the correct response may be to involve the Jira administrator rather than invent a project-level workaround.

Good administration also avoids granting broader access than the requirement needs. Using a project role can be safer and easier to maintain than assigning a permission to a large global group when only one project is involved.

Automation should be read as an execution path

Automation rules combine triggers, conditions, branches and actions. The exam can present a rule and ask what will happen, or provide a requirement and ask which rule structure satisfies it. Candidates should be able to trace execution in order rather than recognize isolated components.

Scope matters. A project rule should not be expanded to multiple projects unless the use case needs it. Rule actors need permission to perform their actions. Branches change the context in which conditions and actions run. Smart values can reference issue data dynamically, but the candidate needs to know which issue or branch object is in scope.

Automation also has operational consequences. A rule that changes a field can trigger another rule. A transition can fail if required conditions are not met. A notification action can create unnecessary noise if the trigger is too broad. ACP-620 rewards predictable, maintainable automation rather than clever complexity.

Reporting connects configuration choices to team behavior

Reports are not interchangeable. Burndown, sprint, velocity, cumulative flow, control chart and version-oriented views answer different questions. The candidate should know which data each report relies on and how project or board configuration influences what appears.

For Scrum teams, sprint boundaries and estimation determine how several reports behave. For flow-based teams, status mapping and cycle time are more central. A report that appears wrong may actually be exposing inconsistent workflow use, incomplete estimates or a board filter that includes an unexpected population.

ACP-620's reporting weight means candidates should practice interpreting charts, not only locating them. The useful skill is to connect a visual pattern to the configuration and work history that produced it.

ACP-620 and service-project administration solve different problems

The current ACP-420 Managing Jira Service Projects for Cloud shares fundamentals such as permissions, fields, automation and reporting, but it adds a different operating model: customers, agents, request types, portals, queues, SLAs and knowledge management. ACP-620 is centered on software project administration and agile boards. That distinction matters because Atlassian has said the January 2027 retirement of ACP-620 does not affect ACP-420. The service-management credential remains active, while project-administration content is being reorganized into the Jira Administration for Cloud path.

Candidates should therefore choose based on the role they actually perform. Someone who configures Scrum and Kanban projects needs different depth from someone who designs a customer-facing service project, even though both work inside Jira Cloud.

The January 2027 transition should shape preparation decisions

Atlassian announced in September 2026 that ACP-620 and Jira Administration for Cloud will be merged into a single updated Jira Administration for Cloud exam in January 2027. ACP-620 will then retire, while important project-administration content will move into the broader credential.

For candidates already prepared and planning to sit ACP-620 before the cutoff, the current objectives remain the correct target. For candidates only beginning, it is sensible to monitor the official Atlassian schedule and decide whether completing the existing exam before retirement fits their timeline. The technical skills do not become obsolete when the code retires; they simply move into a different certification structure.

The transition also reinforces the value of learning the product rather than memorizing an exam. Board filters, role-based permissions, workflow behavior, automation execution and report interpretation remain part of competent Jira administration regardless of how Atlassian packages them.

Preparation should alternate configuration with diagnosis. A good study environment includes at least one company-managed software project where the candidate can experiment safely. Configure a Scrum board, then a Kanban board. Change the saved filter and observe which issues disappear. Map statuses differently and inspect reporting. Create project roles, versions and automation rules. Test actions using accounts with different permissions.

Then practice the reverse direction: start from a symptom and find the control. An issue is missing from a board. A user cannot rank work. A sprint action is unavailable. An automation rule produces no change. A report contains unexpected issues. Each symptom should lead to a short diagnostic path rather than random setting changes.

ACP-620 is ultimately a test of project-level judgment in Jira Cloud. The exam code is approaching retirement, but the ability to build predictable projects, boards, automation and reports will remain central to the broader administration credential that follows it.

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