I am working on a project which involves moving Jira onto the Azure boards. We use Azure DevOps for our repository and pipelines and we are looking to move on to Azure boards from JIRA for our ticketing or change request management.
Release Engineer at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
Helpful features, good flexibility, and scalable
Pros and Cons
- "The layout, workflow, automation, and metrics are helpful in Jira."
- "The biggest complaint industry-wide about JIRA is they need to purchase additional extensions, such as reporting automation. If they could provide some additional extensions from the initial purchase it would be a huge benefit."
What is our primary use case?
How has it helped my organization?
Jira has helped our company because the board layouts are easier to use and has helped us see what is happening in regards to stories and bugs.
What is most valuable?
The layout, workflow, automation, and metrics are helpful in Jira.
The flexibility of defining your columns that can possibly contain multiple statuses is important. When you have teams that are different levels of granularity, the C levels, only care that it is in progress, but the leads want to know that it is in QA or development. You can accomplish these types of things with JIRA.
What needs improvement?
The biggest complaint industry-wide about JIRA is they need to purchase additional extensions, such as reporting automation. If they could provide some additional extensions from the initial purchase it would be a huge benefit.
When using the service desk and the developer, the transition could be better between the two. For example, we asked the support desk to send a ticket over to the development and it was a little bit cumbersome. We had to recreate another ticket for development, then we had two tickets, one service desk, and one development. It would be beneficial if the process was more smooth between those two packages.
Buyer's Guide
Jira
December 2024
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For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Jira for approximately eight years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability of the cloud version of JIRA is very good. However, we did have some issues with the on-premise version but the issue could have been because our servers were overloaded.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability has been very good.
We have approximately 40 people using this solution in my organization, which is mostly everyone. It is used by many departments, such as project offices, development, and coding QA. The only department that is not involved in the use of the solution is the company support. I had worked at a company previously that used the JIRA service desk for their support and it worked well.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have previously used DevOps and Rally.
How was the initial setup?
JIRA installation is complicated. It is similar to a lot of other systems, the more flexible they tend to be more complicated they become.
What about the implementation team?
We do the maintenance of the solution which is adding users and moving them around. The solution is very hands-off, it does not require a lot of maintenance.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We currently are evaluating other options and are doing a study to see if we are going to continue using JIRA or move to something else.
What other advice do I have?
I would advise those wanting to implement this solution to contact an expert.
This solution is a top-of-the-line CRM, I have used the others solutions, and it has the most flexibility and the best visibility.
I rate Jira a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Private Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Head of IT Enel X Digital Hub at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees
Easy to deploy, good for managing documentation, and great for end-to-end project management
Pros and Cons
- "Being able to automatize the deployment of the solution has been great."
- "What I don't like is that perhaps there are not so many different apps that can add value over the management side of the product."
What is our primary use case?
We primarily use the solution for project management.
What is most valuable?
What I like about this product is how you can manage from the project to the deployment, even using Bamboo or using Bitbucket.
Being able to automatize the deployment of the solution has been great.
We're not only managing documentation on the project task, but we're also handling the technical assets that are under the project.
What needs improvement?
What I don't like is that perhaps there are not so many different apps that can add value over the management side of the product. They're not able to develop over Jira, even for normal technical activity signing. For managing the project better or for task documentation or even managing tickets or service needs in another way, there needs to be better customization or better apps.
I'm really obsessed with the idea of reducing the number of activities to have a general retail workplace. However, if we need to expand the use of the Atlassian suite to all the teams, all the people, we need something that can be, easier to use and has the ability to offer more guidance to those users that usually don't work with these type of tools. For example, ServiceNow doesn't fit all the needs in the company, however, it can be configured. You can develop so many different functions over it. I don't want to increase the payments and the number of licenses that I have to buy from ServiceNow. I would prefer to have my own developed team and try to define everything on our side - including the functionalities that I would like to build for those proposed functionalities.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've used the solution in a structured way for about 18 months now.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We have looked at and worked with several content-managed solutions in the last year. We're trying to build our retail workplace using ServiceNow, and, at the same time, increasing the use of the Atlassian suite. ServiceNow, we use for post activities such as service ticketing, service managing, and so on.
The introduction of agile has moved us onto the Atlassian suite, which has been really very, very useful. At the same time, we have a partial solution that has been built over Salesforce, using the Salesforce development environment.
Fortunately, we have so many different solutions for file management. We have FileNet, we have OneDrive. We have SAP. In terms of file management, we have so many different solutions, even Dropbox.
We are using the Jira service center and we are using Trello and Confluence as well.
How was the initial setup?
The deployment is pretty straightforward. It's not overly difficult. We are able to automatize a lot of it.
What other advice do I have?
We're an Atlassian partner.
In terms of project management, Trello is not enough of a solution to manage complex projects and maybe some new functions can be developed. I'm not saying that Jira has to develop that, or that Atlassian has to develop that. Perhaps there is something that we can do to create a referring community to develop those new use cases and more simple use cases, and, at the same time, use them for more general purposes in the company. Atlassian fits in the technical side, in the IT side really well. It just needs to move to become friendly in a retail workspace environment, outside of its traditionally technical background.
Overall, I would rate the solution at an eight out of ten.
I would recommend the solution to other users and organizations.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
Buyer's Guide
Jira
December 2024
Learn what your peers think about Jira. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2024.
824,067 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Sr. Manager (TCoE) - ALM Platforms & PO &T IT at a pharma/biotech company with 5,001-10,000 employees
An agile solution which allows for planning and visibility, but lacks scalability and governance
Pros and Cons
- "The product is good, stable and very cost-effective for small teams."
- "As the solution is highly configurable, it has very poor governance."
What is our primary use case?
We are using the recent version.
We use it for story and sprint planning, as well as for reporting.
How has it helped my organization?
The solution benefits our organization with its agility, planning and visibility in respect of large teams spanning different geo locations.
What is most valuable?
The tool is well known and popular to use.
The sprint planning is pretty good, as are the reporting piece, retrospective reporting and the planning board.
It is a great tool from the planning perspective, such as that of capacity and sprint planning.
What needs improvement?
As the solution is highly configurable, it has very poor governance. There is nothing which comes out of Jira to go into the product. It is free for all and anyone can create with it. This means that the responsibility lies with the user community to create some form of governance.
Moreover, the solution is geared to small teams. It lacks scalability.
The tool is not good at the enterprise level. This means that, depending on how the person installed the software, the issue of performance may increase commensurate with the number of projects. While plugin for x-ray exists, it is not that mature in test management. Although it's a good tool for many of the smaller clients, once a person goes deeper into it, it's not there, even though it will get the work done.
It is a less desirable solution in controlled environments, such as science, banking and finance, in which there is a need for certain compliance supports.
The solution is not that great for audit histories. It's a great tool when much integration is involved. With cold products, things can always be achieved through other means.
When the teams collaborate, they need multiple metrics to be tracked. With this comes the issue of direct impacts, such as the appearance of one's UI and its usability aspects. The screens have changed greatly in appearance over the last ten years. This is an issue which every software dealt with in line with the growth of usage and complexity.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Jira for nearly ten years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution is good for small teams. It lacks scalability. It does not work well when it must be used across multiple domains and multiple teams which need to collaborate.
The Atlassian strategy is that the solution be open to all to encourage collaboration. But, this raises the issue of how to control the data input and the tool and all that it comprises in respect of the reporting that is generated. This means that poor data quality in the geo projects will equate with poor reporting on it.
As such, supplementation by the teams or organizations using it is required. They must come up with their own rules of governance about who can do what.
The product is not being extensively used at the moment. It is a niche product. I have not seen usage behind it. It involves ID users for certain teams.
We do not have plans to increase usage. This will depend on the feedback we receive.
How are customer service and technical support?
I have not made use of technical support.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We did not switch to Jira. It is simply one of the products that we also use in addition to an in-house micro focus ALM.
How was the initial setup?
While I was not involved in the initial setup, my understanding is that it is simple. Atlassian puts out many different products and I cannot say for certain how I would have handled ones which are on-premises, compared to those which are cloud-based or server products.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I am not in a position to comment on the licensing.
What other advice do I have?
We make use of the solution on Jira Cloud.
While I cannot say with certainty, I would estimate the number of users in our organization at a thousand-plus.
This figure contemplates different departments, such as that involving support.
My advice is that someone in a large enterprise first give consideration to the issue of governance before implementing the solution. For a small team it is ready to use straight out of the box. One need just try and stay with the default workflows. There is no need to overengineer the product.
The product is good, stable and very cost-effective for small teams. These are some of its advantages.
I rate Jira as a seven out of ten.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
IT specialist at a construction company with 10,001+ employees
Has many good features for knowledge management, but ideas should be future-proofed
Pros and Cons
- "There are many good things about Atlassian."
- "I would like to have a future-proof idea of the cost and the roadmap for my class."
What is our primary use case?
I believe we are using the latest on-premises version.
What is most valuable?
Confluence, not Jira, is the most convenient feature with Atlassian. We use the product for knowledge management, the use of creating or documenting knowledge into a knowledge base.
What needs improvement?
I would like to have a future-proof idea of the cost and the roadmap for my class. This is in light of the fact that they are switching things up, promoting the cloud service and mixing different support levels.
The CMDB and knowledge platforms that are in the background of the ticketing tool should also be addressed.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Jira for five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
When it comes to the question of stability, this depends wholly on the amount of resources provided to the virtual servers, since we make on-premises use.
How are customer service and technical support?
We have internal Atlassian experts, so it is tough for me to comment on the technical support.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The price of the solution could be lower.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We are currently in the initial stages of contemplating a switch from Jira.
What other advice do I have?
My advice is to work closely with Atlassian to make sure that all the designs are future-proof.
It is tough for me to Rate the solution. There are features needing improvement, but also many good things about Atlassian. As such, I rate Jira as a seven 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.
Consultant at a pharma/biotech company with 10,001+ employees
An easy-to-understand defect tracking tool with good capabilities and integrations
Pros and Cons
- "It is a good defect tracking tool. It has a lot of capabilities and functionalities. There are a lot of graphs and a lot of tracking. It can be sprint-driven if you want."
- "It also works well with all the integrated tools that you buy."
- "If they want Jira to be the one-stop shop of the view of all of your deliverables, not just from a defect tracking perspective, but also from a requirement perspective, a code perspective, and a testing perspective, it needs to pull out more data and work better as an integration tool."
- "One thing that I don't like about Jira is that when you do an export, it only allows a thousand issues. So the export feature needs to be better."
What is our primary use case?
I'm overseeing the developments done in Jira.
What is most valuable?
The thing that I do like about Jira is that it is relatively easy to understand. In some respects, you don't have to read a lot of ticket information, and you can start pulling down. Everybody is using it, and it works for a lot of people who are just doing enterprise development, cloud-based development, and things like that. It is built for the general audience.
It is a good defect tracking tool. It has a lot of capabilities and functionalities. There are a lot of graphs and a lot of tracking. It can be sprint-driven if you want. There is a lot of data that you can pull out for estimations. It has got a lot of out-of-the-box functionalities that are kind of like the Jazz platform for out-of-the-box scrum and other such things.
It also works well with all the integrated tools that you buy.
What needs improvement?
One thing that I don't like about Jira is that when you do an export, it only allows a thousand issues. So the export feature needs to be better.
Another thing that I don't like about it is related to epics. There are times when you simultaneously want to have a story tied to two epics, one driving the content change and one driving the format of that evolution. It is not truly a parent-child relationship. It is a single-parent relationship to the stories. It would be nice if you had the capability to tie in multiple epics to a particular story. It is a rare case, but we have that.
Setting up and executing a triage board should be simpler in the sense of how you do the admin. I come from a regulated space, and there should be easier control of who approves and reviews a system board to oversee all the defects. It should have easier out-of-the-box solutions to allow us to set up a triage board at the system level, the software board level that reports to the system board, or the test level that reports to the software board at the system level. There should be out-of-the-box solutions to migrate that and say that who are the three people on the triage board and if they have these admin privileges. Software review board and test review board would be another thing.
We have also had a problem with the integration with Bitbucket Pull Request data. It is an add-on to the tool, but it is not fully integrated. It is not easy from my perspective. Jira, Bitbucket, and Xray should be smoothly integrated. Xray is pretty good, but Bitbucket is standalone. So, when you pull out the data from a comma-separated value and want to move it into a new database, you have to reenter the data. You somehow lose that Pull Request capability. Pull Request through Bitbucket and the review of the code should be easier to manage. You could use a software package called Crucible to go ahead and mark how you did the review, who reviewed it, and who is the independent reviewer or subject matter expert, but that also should be easier to set up. If they want Jira to be the one-stop shop of the view of all of your deliverables, not just from a defect tracking perspective, but also from a requirement perspective, a code perspective, and a testing perspective, it needs to pull out more data and work better as an integration tool.
I'm using Jira for the requirement repository. When I do requirements, it would be nice if I had the capability to say that for your requirement, I'm going to give you traceability to support a traceability report from Xray. I'm also going to give a requirement ID number in the ticket. You could use Jama and things like that, but it would be nice if Jira supported that.
We had on-prem and cloud deployments. We had to go to on-prem because of the security measures that were deployed. On-cloud didn't have the same capability. If you have one database on the cloud and the other one is on-prem, they don't talk to each other. It would be nice if you pulled it in and you could switch and say that I want to go on-prem because I got greater security risk.
When we go into the regulated space, I require a lot more integration and capability for tools. It is very hard to get tools to perform at that level because they're built for the general audience. In the regulated space, whether you're in medical devices, avionics, or any other regulated environment, tools have to be validated. I've worked with some companies in the past that had the capability to facilitate that validation. With one of the solutions, you could go ahead and buy a validated suite or a requirement package that will validate the tool for your use, but it is such a small market for Jira around the world that nobody really cares about that.
On their website, they show a bunch of tools that work with Jira, but it would be nice if they gave you examples and said that if you're a regulated medical device or regulated, here's a solution that could work for you. Here is Jira. Here is Crucible, and here is Xray, and here is what it'll do for you. They could also ask how do you do the requirement management? Do you use Jama that ties to Jira? It would be awesome if they had some use cases that showed people how to use Jira as the building block and how to add something on the front end for requirement management, and something on the backend for testing, such as Crucible for the peer reviews and Xray for the test management. People would see it and say that I want to do that.
It would also be nice if it could provide some lock-out capabilities based on your development and environment preferences. For example, you can specify that no one can close a defect until it has been tested, or until a particular task is complete, you can't go to the next phase. It would be cool if you could have something like this set up versus someone configuring it in the background.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
They have got 10,000 licenses of Jira, and they have teams around the world deploying it across multiple geographies. All of that works fine.
How are customer service and support?
I haven't used them because this company has its own tech support. So, I've been reaching out to them.
What was our ROI?
Most people who turn to Jira say that the return on investment is much better.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Jira and its solution off the shelf are cheap. It is cheap for startups.
What other advice do I have?
It depends on what you want to use Jira for, and what's the problem you're trying to solve. If you're going to do defect tracking and management of an artifact and you have got requirements, code, and tests, and they all got to summarize, you have to then go ahead and take Jira. You can then buy Crucible for the peer reviews and Xray for the test management and get them to work seamlessly with each other.
I would rate Jira an eight out of ten. It is fairly cheap. For a nine or ten, it would be like DOORS and Jazz platform, but the problem with that is that it would become really expensive.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
Test Manager /Architect @ Testing Practice at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
A user-friendly solution, but it'll help if they had their own test execution feature
Pros and Cons
- "Jira is very user friendly, easy to install, and easy to access."
- "Although it covers the overall requirements and measurements, it'll help if they had their own test execution feature."
What is our primary use case?
We use Jira for the overall issue management in development projects. We use it to maintain a high level during each sprint, which is a requirement. We also use Jira for issue management during testing. We create a test plan and manage it all with Jira.
What is most valuable?
Jira is very user friendly, easy to install, and easy to access. The most valuable feature in Jira is release management. You can also manage a consolidated dashboard that can be accessed globally by all the team members. We can do all this with Jira while engaging in development.
One of the key benefits is that it's a single repository for all your SDLC. Based on the user ID and password, anyone can access it, and they also have a single sign-on. It's not that very complicated to do issue management with Jira. We can also pull Jira data and generate quality metrics that can be used for the overall optimization of the test execution.
What needs improvement?
Although it covers the overall requirements and measurements, it'll help if they had their own test execution feature. Because right now, we're using third-party tools to test executions.
If there are multiple projects, it could be a good thing if they had a reporting method where you have a portfolio view with predictions and so on. If there were a way to manage all the SLAs, that would be helpful too.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Jira is stable and meets our requirements. You don't have to use it out of the box as you can customize it to your requirements.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Scalability isn't a problem because we have used it with over 200 users. You don't have to stick to any out of the box features as you can customize them.
How are customer service and technical support?
Almost everything is covered in their documentation. As payment is required for support, we mostly follow the documentation.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We used Microsoft DSP before. We were looking during a licensing phase for something where the non-licensing cost wouldn't be more, and the system requirement would be minimum. That's what qualified Jira, and we went with the data.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is very good. I wouldn't say that it's very complicated. They have customization options for things like issue management. You can customize it based on your terminology and project.
For a simple set up, it may take around four hours. If it's a 20 member project, it's quite easy to set up Jira. But if it's to be made available enterprise-wide, it takes longer. I had complex projects where it took anywhere from three to four days or a week to set up. You should also note that it may take new users a week to understand it properly.
We tried to do a total uniform deployment, but it's not always possible because every project has some customization. A single user can deploy Jira. I have deployed and managed 20 to 22 users in a Jira instance. Basically, the Jira administrator creates the template. But if the project requires customization to write queries and run tests, that will require some additional skill.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
As a company, we get a subsidized price, and it's lower than what's quoted on their website.
What other advice do I have?
To a certain extent, maybe 70% to 80%, Jira will meet your project development budget. It has integrations with other platforms, so if you want to put it in your DevOps continuous integration flow, it can be done.
If you're engaging in software development, there should be a single repository where you store everything. Then you can start managing it with Jira based on the business requirements and the user stories.
On a scale from one to ten, I would give Jira a seven.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
Service Owner at Mecklenburg County
Our SDLC has improved through additional transparency and communication
Pros and Cons
- "The features that we find most valuable are the Workflow, Scrum workflow, and Dashboards."
- "It would be very useful to have drag and drop time tracking."
What is our primary use case?
Our primary use case is executing the SDLC.
How has it helped my organization?
This solution has improved our organization by enforcing transparency and communication. Individual roles and responsibility are defined and followed.
What is most valuable?
The features that we find most valuable are the Workflow, Scrum workflow, and Dashboards.
What needs improvement?
We have found that improvement is needed in their customer support (communication, which is ironic).
It would be very useful to have drag and drop time tracking.
For how long have I used the solution?
Six years.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Java Development Team Leader at Honeywell
Makes the work process transparent, enables communication among various teams
Pros and Cons
- "JQL, JIRA Query Language enables me to filter all the issues, display the items as I want."
- "It's very flexible. I can define workflows and custom fields and dependencies between issues and projects. And every project can have a custom configuration with my fields, my names for fields, my validations, and my workflows. It's very customizable."
What is our primary use case?
The primary use case is task management within the team and the company, as well as version management and bug management.
How has it helped my organization?
It makes the work process transparent, visible to everyone who needs to know about the current state of the versions, and all that happens. It helps to communicate among different teams, like support, R&D, and QA. Everything is in one place and everything is communicated in the same form.
What is most valuable?
JQL, which is JIRA Query Language. I can filter all the issues, display the items as I want.
It's very flexible. I can define workflows and custom fields and dependencies between issues and projects. And every project can have a custom configuration with my fields, my names for fields, my validations, and my workflows. It's very customizable.
What needs improvement?
I'm using the old version. I haven't upgraded to the new one, so maybe a feature I would be looking for is already there. I don't know. Something I had been looking for was pasting screenshots into issue details, but this was already implemented in the new version.
Better user management features could help.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I have no problem with stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I don't have problems with the scalability. I know companies that are much larger than just projects or teams, that are much larger than my current team, and they work with JIRA and it works well.
How is customer service and technical support?
I used the support from JIRA several times and it was good. I had questions about licensing, I had questions about upgrading from an old version to a newer version.
What other advice do I have?
When I am evaluating a product or vendor, I have some intuition about it. I see how the thing is built and works, and I go by my own impression. For me, that is important. And, of course, price and maturity of the product, along with flexibility, are important criteria.
I would rate this solution a 10 out of 10. It's an excellent product. It has already improved. It has good support. From the beginning, it was very smart and customizable and built well, works well. There are almost no bugs that I have discovered. It's a good product.
I just saw an advertisement on the street for a product called Monday.com. I read a few lines, a few words about it. I hadn't heard of it before that, but I understand it does something similar to JIRA. Obviously, I can recommend using JIRA but if you are searching for something else, the first impression I got from reading the home page of Monday.com was good, so maybe it's worth evaluating.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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