Jira Align Reviews

The tool helps with product planning and strategic road maps. Unfortunately, it is too wedded to the quarterly planning model of the Scaled Agile Framework. If you want to do continuous planning, or plan work that spans multiple quarters, it's extremely difficult. You must artificially split work across quarters rather than, for example, start work in the last month of a quarter and finish the same work in the next quarter.  Also, dependency management is like throwing work over the wall.

It was a huge learning curve for dozens of teams. It didn't work, and we are abandoning the solution.

The product has good visualization capabilities and helps to see the different dimensions of a plan. 

The tool's corporate pricing is expensive.

Continuous planning is non-supported. Only the quarterly "PI Planning" model is available for many of the most useful road mapping features.  

Dependency management is like throwing work over a wall from one team to another and does not help with engineering-level orchestration of work in delivery.

I have been working with Atlassian products for six years. 

The product's stability is pretty decent. There are some issues when you try to integrate with Jira and Align. The data that goes back and forth creates data management issues due to delays in synchronization.

The product is scalable. 

The support goes through corporate support hence I didn't have much interaction with the support team. 

There was a negative ROI.

I would rate the product a two out of ten. 

We use Jira for scrum-related activity and 80 people use this solution within our company. 

In my current organization, there are limited features that we have adopted. In my previous experience, the Portfolio and Structure feature in Jira is really valuable because it assists with forecasting for projects. 

We have experienced errors with the internal server that occurs frequently. 

I have been using this solution for eight years. 

This is a stable solution. I would rate it an eight out of ten. 

In my previous organization, I contacted the Jira support team for a particular feature and they suggested that we upgrade Jira because there was a bug in that particular version. After upgrading, the issue was resolved.

Jira offers very good GUI. The solution is easy to learn and there is a lot of functionality related to boards and project management-related activities that is offered. There is also good synergy between all the Atlassian products which is why we decided to switch to Jira. 

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten for pricing. The price of the solution depends on the number of people using it and the projects you are working on. 

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten. 

I mainly use Jira Align for planning apps in the department.

Jira Align's most valuable feature is the view of strategic control reports for high-level directors.

Jira Align's setup process could be more straightforward, and they could make training and educational documentation more accessible. In the next release, I would like to see an improvement to the navigation system.

I've been using Jira Align for two to three months.

Jira Align is stable.

Jira Align is scalable.

Jira Align's technical support is good but limited - there are people in my department with more experience.

The initial setup was of medium difficulty, and I needed to find support documents to complete it.

I would give Jira Align a rating of nine out of ten.

I primarily use Jira Slight to perform agility at scale, a method where you connect businesses with operations, which helps connect the enterprise strategy to the operations. 

Jira Align's most valuable features are the roadmap, the program board, and the reports.

One area for improvement is that Jira Align's double menu and multiple menus can be difficult for new users. They could also improve their search function.

Jira Align is stable and improving all the time.

Jira Align is scalable, with special policies for licenses so you can have a lot of people using it.

Jira's technical support is really helpful, available, and quick to respond.

Positive

The initial setup can be straightforward, but it depends on the availability of Atlassian for technical support. The time required for deployment depends on the user's requirements, taking anywhere from one to six months.

Jira Align is quite expensive for small-to-medium companies, but it's quite reasonable for larger ones.

Jira Align is good for project owners and managers and Release Train Engineers because it offers them more visibility. I would recommend Jira Align for those with scale agile use cases and advise getting some training on the tool in order to get the best use from it. I would give Jira Align a rating of nine out of ten, as it's one of the best tools for scaling agile use cases.

The epic linking part is the most valuable aspect of the solution. Of course, the story point where we give and it really gets displayed in the scrum board. It helps us a lot.

The reporting structure is great. It has a good burndown chart. Those are really good.

It's quite straightforward to set up. It's very user-friendly.

Support responds very quickly.

I remember in my previous engagement, there was a plugin we enabled to add features. One is the epic, and then comes the feature, and then comes the user story. If you go with the standard version, you have an epic and try to do a user story. I also remember we used the feature using a plugin in the previous project. If that can be made available not as a plugin but as a standard way of doing things. That feature kind of category is missing.

What happens with the plugins, is that not every customer will agree to install a plugin. Some are paid and they come back asking, "Why do you need this plugin? You have to pay an extra cost." Rather, if you make it as a built-in functionality, it would be better. It should be part of the standard solution, not as a plugin.

There is some capacity planning kind of a feature out there. I tried to use it, however, it was really not clear how to use it, how it gets reflected and all. It would be helpful if they had something for capacity planning that was simpler to understand. 

I've used the solution for six or seven years. 

The solution is stable and reliable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. 

If there is any scale from one to five, it's really good. I would give it five out of five.

The entire team uses the Jira board. The scrum master or the project manager is given additional privileges to configure the swimlane, configure the team, and all those things. 

We are given an email ID. I'm not a Jira admin, however, I am an owner of a few projects within the Jira in the customer instance. However, whenever there is an issue, we do send out an email. Ultimately, internally, it is aligned to one of the Atlassian support people. I have hardly seen them taking more than an hour or two to get back to us. 

Recently, we had an instance where the Jira was completely down, and we were worried about all the stand-up calls, how to run, them, et cetera. However, within an hour, it was all back up and running again. The support is good. they are very quick.

The initial setup is easy to set up. It's not complex or difficult. 

There is not too much maintenance needed.

The deployment is completely outside of Jira, except for putting it up for tracking purposes. No integration is done from Jira itself to handle any deployment activities.

I don't have visibility of the cost.

We have our own instance of Jira. That is not used for any customer project. It's more for our internal. When I work for a customer, the customer has their own instance and there is a license and we use their Jira. We don't expose our internal Jira instance to any of them unless they want to pay for a license and set up their board, which no customer would do.

We have a licensed version. It's the latest version, definitely. However, I haven't really checked it and therefore don't know the exact version number. On the customer sites, I don't have any information as to what version they use. 

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

Our use cases for Jira Align are particularly project-based. Whenever we go on a project, we utilize the solution, and at the end of the project, we drop that subscription. If needed, we go for a new subscription again.

Jira Align is an easy-to-use and user-friendly solution.

The solution’s stability could be improved.

I have been using Jira Align for four years.

I rate Jira Align an eight out of ten for stability.

More than 50 users are using Jira Align daily in our organization.

I rate Jira Align more than eight out of ten for scalability.

I rate the solution’s technical support a seven or eight out of ten.

Neutral

We also use Azure DevOps.

The solution’s initial setup is easy.

We implemented the solution through an in-house team, which had a couple of people.

We have seen a return on investment with Jira Align.

Jira Align is an expensive solution.

I am using the latest version of Jira Align. Jira Align is deployed on-cloud in our organization.

Overall, I rate Jira Align a nine out of ten.

Our clients use Jira Align for new development and defect tracking.

Defect tracking and dashboards are the most valuable features of Jira Align.

Jira Align should reduce the many information fields we need to provide while closing defects.

Jira Align should improve the ease of use for developers.

I have been using Jira Align for the last five years.

Jira Align is a stable solution.

I rate Jira Align an eight out of ten for stability.

Our clients are mostly medium-sized businesses.

I rate Jira Align an eight out of ten for scalability.

I rate Jira Align an eight out of ten for the ease of its initial setup.

Initially, Jira Align's deployment takes some hours. Otherwise, it is quick to deploy. Initially, to deploy the solution, we had to check the prerequisites on the server and connectivity. Based on these factors, we can install and set it up.

On a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate Jira Align a seven out of ten.

I suggest users go through the free training first, understand, and then start using Jira Align instead of using it right away.

Overall, I rate Jira Align an eight out of ten.

In my company, the solution is used for managing our day-to-day activities like kanban and scrum.

We have a scrum team in our company. We had adapted scrum long ago. We have been an agile team for a long time now. We do have many use-case stories and backlog items. As and when we get any backlog items, we record all those things in Jira and then build a kanban board and scrum board to take care of with our daily activities.

Jira Align has been quite a helpful tool for us because, without it, we would be juggling with all our story points or our backlog items, which would be difficult to manage. We were earlier managing all those things in Excel and other document tools. With Jira Align, everything looks quite organized since it gives us one place or acts as one solution for all our admin activities. Jira Align does not just help with the admin activity. Jira Align helps with the planning and helps its users know what was completed and is still pending. We can see all the backlog items and then analyze the workflow, which is quite helpful. We do have the reporting functionality in Jira Align, allowing us to take care of all the tasks and the backlog items from Jira and then build up some dashboards and other reports for senior management.

The most valuable features of the solution are Jira Align's dashboards and its ability to build customized reports because we have multiple teams here. Multiple people work on the same big chunk of activity, usually broken down into many tasks. With Jira Align, we get to know what task is assigned to which employee while analyzing the workload and identifying what is still pending, what is in process, and what or how many tasks were completed, which is helpful for us to manage a project. To manage our day-to-day activity, dashboard and reporting features are the most helpful.

An area of room for improvement is related to Jira Align's simplicity. Someone who is new to Jira or doesn't have many years of working experience in Jira Align gets easily lost because everything looks the same in the product. The navigational and other workflow features in Jira Align aim to provide ease of use that sometimes creates difficulty for a newcomer or someone new to Jira to get to know where they are once they are in the system. In Jira Align, the navigational feature or the ability to cross over to each screen should be made more precise, and then it would be much more helpful for someone new to Jira.

I have been using Jira Align for seven years. Our organization is a customer of Jira.

It is a stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

Scalability-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

In my workplace, we have 15 members, who are IT specialists, and mostly developers or architects working with Jira Align.

As of now, we haven't considered increasing the product's use.

I haven't had any experience with the solution's technical support since the tool was always intact and running.

I rate the initial setup a seven on a scale of one to ten, where one point is difficult, and ten is easy.

As a new user, I faced some difficulties when just starting to use Jira Align.

The deployment process takes around half a day, like four to five hours.

The installation phase was done in-house.

Two people, including the agile lead and product owner, are required for the maintenance of the solution.

I recommend Jira Align to those who do not have to handle a lot of backlog items because it gives you a one-stop solution to manage the workflow and then build insights, dashboards, or reports. Jira would be a much more enhanced option rather than using simple Excel sheets or other primary tools.

As a product, I am very much comfortable with it. My only suggestion related to its improvement would be simplifying its overall navigation.

Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.