I'm a product manager, so I create entries covered for two products that are developed by the engineering team.
Works at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
A powerful tool which is very reliable and stable
Pros and Cons
- "The status update function is the most valuable feature."
- "The data query language needs improvement."
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
The status update function is the most valuable feature.
What needs improvement?
The data query language needs improvement.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using JIRA Portfolio for ten years.
Buyer's Guide
JIRA Portfolio
December 2024
Learn what your peers think about JIRA Portfolio. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2024.
824,067 professionals have used our research since 2012.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Jira is a highly stable solution. I would rate the stability a nine out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
One thousand users are using the solution at present.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is straightforward. The integration with Slack is very good.
What other advice do I have?
Jira Portfolio is a powerful tool which is very reliable and stable. I highly recommend the solution. Overall, I would rate the solution a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Last updated: May 29, 2024
Flag as inappropriateTechnical Manager at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Makes it easy to collaborate but needs better integration with other tools
Pros and Cons
- "The product makes it easy to collaborate even though it can use some improvement in that area."
- "Some key features like integration, big data warehousing and data modeling need work."
What is our primary use case?
I work in hybrid technologies. Right now I work in service management. Our software disc space uses JIRA Portfolio. I've got a DevOps team and a team that works with operations. There are different elements within service management that we use JIRA to build team plans.
What is most valuable?
The number one feature is that the product makes it easier to collaborate. I think that is the most important point even though it is not perfect. Another point is that the interface is not exactly rocket science and it is fairly easy to learn. It is very much driven towards use like Microsoft or any of the other core applications available. For project and portfolio management and in terms of incident management — things like that — it is not that complex. To rate it on a scale of one to five as to what it needs to do in this category, I'd give it a four-out-of-five.
It is easy to get help from the community. So that is also a bonus. But that is like the situation with most software now.
What needs improvement?
I think to improve the product they need to work on integration. I think what I call heterogeneous integration into other tools will be important. It would be nice to work with data modeling from any tool. From an enterprise reporting perspective, you definitely want to be able to take core data, put it into any sort of raw database and be able to manipulate it to get the information you are looking for. I think the reporting side is probably where JIRA is not the strongest product in my view. Needed improvements just boil down to an improved integration.
I know it is always going to be a challenge to add new features, but I think better integration around Microsoft or other core applications would help. I think big data warehousing is important. Enabling RPA for the benefits that can offer would help as well.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with the product for the last five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Stability is debatable because you are not doing a lot of batch management. It depends on your operating system. The benefit of using a cloud implementation is that in an on-prem solution you are always responsible for maintaining your own infrastructure, hardware, backups, doing maintenance — all of those components. But that is not really a major issue for stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
If a product is a true enterprise product, then scalability should never be an issue. If you are not working with an enterprise then you are doing a cloud-based solution and it is definitely scalable as well.
There are probably teams of around 50 in our organization, mostly made up of end-users. Obviously we have admin people and we had OEM support. But the solution is scalable to meet our needs.
How are customer service and technical support?
We have mostly been satisfied with our customer support experience. Customization is a bit tricky, so you have got to really understand what you are trying to achieve. Technical support was able to help us through some issues.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
If I look at just on your ITSMs (IT Service Management) side, I've used ServiceNow. Also, HP Service Manager.
How was the initial setup?
I do not think the initial setup was complex.
What about the implementation team?
We got maintenance support from our vendor. It included time and material when we made the contract for support.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
When considering the product solutions, I was looking for functionality comparisons between an SDM (Service Desk Management) BMC (Baseboard Management Controller) remedy. I'm sort of interested to understand what are the major benefits or differences between those two. I think that was really where I was trying to just get some help. I've got a team of about 169 people in the project and I was just trying to see where I could get information very quickly without having to go to the vendors. A lot of resources just house people with more questions than answers.
What other advice do I have?
If you are looking for collaboration, then I would definitely recommend the product. It is one of the easiest and not very expensive.
On a scale from one to ten where one is the worst and ten is the best. I would rate the products overall as a seven. It could not get a ten. Seven leaves room for improvement.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Buyer's Guide
JIRA Portfolio
December 2024
Learn what your peers think about JIRA Portfolio. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2024.
824,067 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Data Engineer at a media company with 10,001+ employees
Reliable with great features and helpful technical support
Pros and Cons
- "The initial setup is simple."
- "If you want to generate a report for individual usage, it's difficult."
What is most valuable?
The initial setup is simple.
It is very scalable.
The product offers good stability.
Jira has many features that companies can explore to see which ones are best for them and their internal needs.
Technical support has been good so far.
What needs improvement?
I haven't seen many drawbacks on the Jira side.
If you want to generate a report for individual usage, it's difficult. The reporting can be improved.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using the solution for almost two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Its stability is great. We don't deal with bugs or glitches and it doesn't crash or freeze.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The product can scale if you need it to as a company.
How are customer service and support?
We are satisfied with the technical support. Overall, I find them to be quite helpful. They are good.
How was the initial setup?
The implementation is straightforward and simple. It's not difficult at all.
If you have a cloud-based solution, you only require four or five staff members to maintain the product.
What about the implementation team?
We had the assistance of an integrator when we set up the solution initially.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We pay a yearly licensing fee. Everything is included in that price. There aren't extra add-on fees to take into consideration.
What other advice do I have?
We are a customer and an end-user.
I'm using the latest version of the solution.
I would recommend the product. Companies can use it without having to worry about any hiccups.
I'd rate the product as a seven out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
Senior Engineering Manager at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees
Stable solution with great integration with JIRA products
Pros and Cons
- "Portfolio's best feature is integration with other JIRA products."
- "In the next release, Portfolio should include more metrics and develop their portfolio planning."
What is our primary use case?
I use Portfolio for project planning.
What is most valuable?
Portfolio's best feature is integration with other JIRA products.
What needs improvement?
In the next release, Portfolio should include more metrics and develop their portfolio planning.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using Portfolio for several years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We've had no issues with Portfolio's stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Portfolio is scalable.
How are customer service and support?
I haven't used JIRA's technical support personally, but I've heard from others that it's good.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is straightforward.
What about the implementation team?
We used an in-house team.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Portfolio is very expensive, costing on average $2000-3000 per user per month.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Portfolio eight out of ten.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Software Developer at a manufacturing company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Handled SDLC from end-to-end and fits well into an Agile environment
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable feature is that it fits very well into an agile framework, and it is especially helpful with the planning aspects."
- "Converting a task into an epic is very troublesome."
What is our primary use case?
I am a software developer and we use this product for end-to-end SDLC. It begins with the requirements gathering, then continues with tracking features and planning our sprints. We also use it for tracking bugs.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature is that it fits very well into an agile framework, and it is especially helpful with the planning aspects. For example, if you create a new ticket, issue, or feature, then you classify it accordingly and you can assign it to an ongoing sprint.
You can look at the sprint backlog to see what features are planned, how many are in progress, and how many have been completed. This helps during reviews because you can get information about the velocity of the team. If somebody should leave the team for a while, or are otherwise unavailable for work, then the velocity calculations are readjusted.
What needs improvement?
Converting a task into an epic is very troublesome. As it is now, if you make the mistake of creating the wrong thing then you just have to delete it and start again. If you could convert between things such as features and tasks then it would be helpful.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the Jira Portfolio for about four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We use Jira on a daily basis and I cannot recall having any issues with stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is easy to scale but of course, the problem is that it needs licenses. As the licenses fit into a plan, it can be kind of tricky. When you want to procure additional licenses, it is a long path.
For example, if you have licenses for 50 users and you see that you need a license for another 10, then you can't just purchase a small number. At a certain point, you have to move up to 500 users, which is quite a jump.
Currently, we have about 60 users.
How are customer service and technical support?
I have not been in contact with their technical support team, although I do go through the community forums. I get details on new features that are going to be released and other such information, but I have not had to contact support for any specific issue.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is pretty straightforward. Somebody who knows Agile well will have no difficulty with Jira. On the other hand, somebody new to Agile may face some problems in the beginning.
What about the implementation team?
We do not have any dedicated staff for maintenance. For the operation of it, we do have a facilitator and a scrum master who manages things for each project. However, maintenance is very straightforward. We don't need a full-time administrator working on it. A couple of people working part-time can take care of it.
Internally, people within a project may need some help when it comes to things like planning. In this case, they will get help from the scrum master.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We pay our fees annually, although monthly payments are also available.
What other advice do I have?
From a developer's perspective, this tool works fine and I don't have any complaints other than wanting to convert between features, tasks, etc, when a mistake has been made in creating one.
The only advice that I have for people who are implementing Jira Portfolio is to make sure that they manage their licenses properly.
I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Principal Technical Lead at Tieto Sweden AB
Provides a lot of plugins but it's not so user-friendly
Pros and Cons
- "The customized workflows we can define are very valuable. JIRA's private projects is very useful as well. There are also a lot of plugins that they provide."
- "I think their view needs to be more user friendly. The UI makes it difficult to find things. Secondly, the configuration is very complex. JIRA should help people find out what configuration they are using."
What is our primary use case?
We use JIRA for project management.
How has it helped my organization?
We were able to implement the Kanban and Scrum methods using JIRA. That was a really good argument. We had been using the waterfall method, so this really helped us to get that out there to our general way of working.
What is most valuable?
The customized workflows we can define are very valuable. JIRA's private projects are very useful as well. There are also a lot of plugins that they provide.
What needs improvement?
I think their view needs to be more user-friendly. The UI makes it difficult to find things. Secondly, the configuration is very complex. JIRA should help people find out what configuration they are using.
There are many issues, but I would say the UI needs to be improved most. Also, some training documents need to be there with respect to their configuration. They don't have training documents easily available. You really need to figure it out by yourself. That is something they must improve.
For how long have I used the solution?
We've been using this solution for six years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It's quite stable. We have not had any problems.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It's scalable. We currently have 45 users, with six dev users and two people for maintenance.
We will keep on using it. Whether we expand our use depends on our entire portfolio and the product growth that we are catering to our customers.
How are customer service and technical support?
It's not that good. I would give it a rating of three out of five, on the basis of price. They need to add improvements because it is not as easy to reach out to these people as necessary. I would expect them to have a call center or something, but they don't have one. We have to write down our messages and send them to support. It is not easy to solve our issues.
How was the initial setup?
It was definitely complex to set up. It was difficult right from the start, by applying the project setting configurations. Popping up the custom fields and relating it to the workflows was also difficult. Identifying a security policy on top of that and adding the group was really complex, too.
Deployment took almost one month's time to set it up and get started.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate this solution as seven out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Test Manager at a financial services firm with 11-50 employees
Has a good dashboard and is user-friendly but the setup needs improvement
Pros and Cons
- "The dashboard is the most valuable feature. The user experience is very good, it's easy to use."
- "The initial setup could use improvement."
What is our primary use case?
Currently, we use the on-premises deployment model but we are moving to the cloud. Amazon is part of it but we are in the evaluation part. Our primary use case is for workflow and regression testing.
What is most valuable?
The dashboard is the most valuable feature. The user experience is very good, it's easy to use.
What needs improvement?
The stakeholders have to decide to use JIRA and that's the problem. Not all the stakeholders are in touch with JIRA but we need their budget for the whole team to get the opportunity to use JIRA. It's not a problem with the tool, it's our organization. Some of the stakeholders have other opinions and they like to use other tools.
The initial setup could use improvement.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using JIRA Portfolio for eleven years in total.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Stability is very good. It's an easy to use and nice tool. We wanted to and we have bought licenses. For the bank, we have 250 users at the moment. We will increase it up to 500 users.
For maintenance, at the moment we just have a crew that takes part in the maintenance. It's only one or two people.
How are customer service and technical support?
We don't contact their technical support very often. Most of the things we do by ourselves, and we look for some videos on YouTube for such things. We are in a group and there we get some information about JIRA. For most things we need, we get our own information.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was complex. We have Agile teams and we have classic teams and the waterfall development. We have to integrate both and we have to create a workflow that can be used for all of these aspects. Our governance in Germany for a bank is difficult. We have many things to keep in mind.
The deployment only takes two weeks but the difficulty is that we have many systems. Our old system is divided into 10 subsystems, so when we deploy we have to use other things. We must look for every single system. We'd like to integrate with JIRA but at the moment it's not in our book.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate it a seven out of ten. I don't know everything about the solution and every feature.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner.
Line Technical Agent at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
Stable, easy to deploy, and has good integration
Pros and Cons
- "The feature that we like the most is that JIRA enables modules. Atlassian provides a lot of products around JIRA, such as compliance for the documentation, BitBucket for the Git version. We are new to these products developed by Atlassian, but they can integrate very easily. Generally, when an editor is developing a solution, they think about integrating with JIRA. When we are looking for any other solution, they plan to easily integrate with JIRA."
- "We would love to be able to have direct contact with Atlassian. Currently, they are not working directly with West African countries. We are considering using JIRA Align, but when we contact them, they say that as we are in West Africa, they don't directly work with West Africa."
What is our primary use case?
We are using this solution to manage an agile project. We are putting JIRA on our backlog, and we are following the work in progress with the Kanban board.
We have generated a lot of dashboard in-reporting with JIRA Portfolio to monitor the performance of our direction and our projects team. We have a license for 250 users, and we are going to get a license for 500 users.
What is most valuable?
The feature that we like the most is that JIRA enables modules.
Atlassian provides a lot of products around JIRA, such as compliance for the documentation, BitBucket for the Git version. We are new to these products developed by Atlassian, but they can integrate very easily. Generally, when an editor is developing a solution, they think about integrating with JIRA. When we are looking for any other solution, they plan to easily integrate with JIRA.
What needs improvement?
We would love to be able to have direct contact with Atlassian. Currently, they are not working directly with West African countries. We are considering using JIRA Align, but when we contact them, they say that as we are in West Africa, they don't directly work with West Africa.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using JIRA Portfolio for about four years, since 2016.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is very stable. We had only one issue, but it was not related to JIRA.
How are customer service and technical support?
We didn't have to get in touch with the support team. Generally, when we have an issue, we go to the community, and we are able to resolve it very fast.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is straightforward.
What about the implementation team?
The deployment is very easy. We easily do it ourselves without any help. We have a team of two to three people.
What other advice do I have?
Doing digital transformation is difficult. It's not regarding JIRA. It's difficult to change the mindset of our teams to be more agile and to adapt JIRA as a new way of working. We have to change the mindset and the mentality of the teams with a new way of working so that we can move forward. JIRA will help us to be more agile because JIRA is built for agile teams.
We had to work with a consulting team based in France to help us with the organization of the process. Atlassian doesn't directly work with West African countries. So, we had to work with a French company.
I would rate JIRA Portfolio an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Buyer's Guide
Download our free JIRA Portfolio Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros
sharing their opinions.
Updated: December 2024
Product Categories
Enterprise Agile Planning ToolsPopular Comparisons
Microsoft Azure DevOps
GitLab
ServiceNow Strategic Portfolio Management
Jira Align
Digital.ai Agility
Planview AgilePlace
IBM Engineering Workflow Management
Buyer's Guide
Download our free JIRA Portfolio Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros
sharing their opinions.
Quick Links
Learn More: Questions:
- Why do I need an enterprise Agile planning tool?
- When evaluating Enterprise Agile Planning Tools, what aspect do you think is the most important to look for?
- What products can help with Agile Project Management?
- What is the best enterprise agile planning tool?
- What is Agile procurement and how to achieve it?
- What are the best practices for adding documentation to a planning process?
- Why is Enterprise Agile Planning Tools important for companies?