In terms of requirements management, the ability to write the descriptions and acceptance criteria are helpful. We can also group the stories by epic and associate stories by themes. There are tags that help us categorize stories. We can attach documents such as use cases and spreadsheets for detailed information as well as link to other stories.
Sr. Business Analyst / Product Owner at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
We spend hours and sometimes days looking through completed stories in order to determine how to manage a defect in our existing system.
What is most valuable?
How has it helped my organization?
We are able to track the development work for a particular story or set of stories through the Kanban board easily. The tool helps with team collaboration and raises visibility to the backlog of work to those who are interested in the project’s requirements.
What needs improvement?
We spend hours and sometimes days looking through completed stories in order to determine how to manage a defect in our existing system. We used to use Word and Excel for requirements documentation, and thought primitive, still, I was able to find specific requirements for just about any topic in a matter of minutes by using various searches and by simply knowing that a requirement probably resides in a specific document. I would ask that Altassian improve its keyword search capability and provide reports that could group information in the way I want it grouped for re-use by maintenance and production support teams when troubleshooting an existing system.
For how long have I used the solution?
We've used it for three years for managing the product and sprint backlog of our agile projects. The product was never designed for requirements management yet our organization still insists we can and will use it to manage requirements. We considered some add-ons to the product but so far.
Buyer's Guide
Jira
November 2024
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What was my experience with deployment of the solution?
I am not aware of any issues with the deployment.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I am not aware of any issues with the stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I am not aware of any issues with the scalability.
How are customer service and support?
From what I can tell the technical support is adequate. I do not deal with Altassian so I cannot provide a valid answer.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I was not involved in the decision to use this product. Our Product Owner team made some recommendations for add in products and stand-alone ones; however our recommendations were rejected due to cost considerations. Previously we used Excel, Word and Visio to represent the requirements. We stored the documents in a common share and versioned the documents each time changes were made.
How was the initial setup?
We have a complex implementation. I do not know if the initial set up was straight forward. We have many, many teams across the country using JIRA. Since we have a single implementation used by all teams. I can see all the projects and the stories etc. by logging in with my credentials.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Product Development Manager at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
I like the agile board functionality, dashboards & JQL. I would like to see JQL extended to return other types of info.
What is most valuable?
Coming from projects that rely on Agile / SCRUM, one of the essential features in JIRA is the support for these methodologies, represented by the Agile Board functionality. This is the place where our team interacts with JIRA as part of the daily routine by updating tasks, estimations and adding relevant comments. This is also where Sprint planning takes place and where support for Sprint retrospective and analysis is offered in the form of reports like the burndown chart or the velocity report.
How has it helped my organization?
With the introduction of Agile, the need of having a common, synchronized view on the project tasks assignment, their completion status and the effort spent became critical for a geographically distributed and self-organizing team. Instead of spending time on e-mail exchanges or longer meetings, JIRA provided instant access and a unified view to all the required information, enabling the team to properly apply the Agile / SCRUM methodology and become more efficient in the way they communicate. Being instantly notified when an issue is changed by someone working half way across the globe and being able of giving immediate feedback is a tremendous capability.
What needs improvement?
I would like to see JQL extended to return other types of information than just sets of issues. To give a simple example: a COUNT-like operator to determine the number of issues that match a given criteria. Today this is possible through JIRA's REST API or by writing custom plugins, but it would be nice to have it out of the box directly via JQL.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using JIRA for more than two and half years in several different software development projects.
What was my experience with deployment of the solution?
None so far.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
None so far.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
None so far.
How are customer service and technical support?
Customer Service: I actually found all the information I needed on the Atlassian documentation pages and forums and never ran into the need to call the Atlassian customer service.Technical Support: Excellent so far, considering the fact that the existing documentation gives almost all the required answers without the need to call or e-mail support.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
In a previous project we have used Microsoft's .NET framework and the suite of support technologies like Team Foundation Server (TFS). TFS contains an issue tracking system fully integrated with Visual Studio and the only extra thing needed was the equivalent of an Agile board. This we found in the form of Telerik's TFS Work Item Manager and Project Dashboard, which offered similar functionality to JIRA's Agile Board.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup required a bit of thinking on how to organize and when to use the different types of JIRA issues, what fields are relevant in the context of our team processes and what kind of dashboard information is required, not only for the team but also for the stakeholders. This is not so much JIRA related as it is process-related. Once all of this is agreed upon, JIRA makes things easy by selecting for example Agile SCRUM as methodology, configuring the appropriate issue screens and workflows, defining the relevant filters and adding widgets to the dashboards.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I believe this goes together with my earlier comments. The day to day cost of using JIRA is minimal, since each team member shares the responsibility of keeping issues up to date so that the overall status is in sync with the real project status. There are also the occasional changes to JIRA board, issue or dashboards configuration driven by the evolution of team processes, which is a normal consequence of being an Agile team.
What other advice do I have?
I recommend JIRA Agile to anyone looking for a mature, easy to use and customizable issue tracking system, especially in the context of large, geographically distributed teams. I also believe it is important not to spend excessive time trying to configure it to cover every process and situation from the very beginning, but to focus on the essentials first and then adapt as the project evolves.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Buyer's Guide
Jira
November 2024
Learn what your peers think about Jira. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: November 2024.
816,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Cyber Security Consultant at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Good performance, with real-time collaboration, but the integration could be improved
Pros and Cons
- "We integrate Jira with QRadar which is helpful."
- "I would like to see more integration available with more tools."
What is our primary use case?
We use Jira for ETCM. It's for ticketing with QRadar.
What is most valuable?
We integrate Jira with QRadar which is helpful.
The performance is quite good.
It has real-time collaboration.
It provides good visual data easily.
What needs improvement?
While Jira integrates well with QRadar, it is not integrated with Splunk for example.
I would like to see more integration available with more tools.
For how long have I used the solution?
Jira is not used in my company; in fact, it is not used at all. Jira is a project management tool that I use at school and during my internship.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Jira is stable. I have not experienced any issues with the stability of Jira.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have not had any issues with the scalability of Jira.
How are customer service and support?
They provide technical assistance. Whenever you need something technical, they are quick to respond.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
The price seems reasonable to me. It's very similar to Splunk.
I don't believe it is expensive.
I'm not sure if they provide a free version, but we need free versions of everything to try before we buy.
I believe we simply require a longer, free version.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is simple. I didn't do it myself, but I've read the support, the guide, and it appears to be simple.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I did some research for a school project. I needed to compare it to Splunk and a few other tools. As a result, I'm not particularly interested in purchasing them.
What other advice do I have?
I don't use Jira very often, and I don't have a lot of experience with it.
I would rate Jira a seven out of ten.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
ITBridging the gap between business and IT at a engineering company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Scalable, stable, and straightforward installation
Pros and Cons
- "When combining Jira with Bitbucket, you have the possibility to ensure continuous integration and other functions which is highly appreciated by our software development team."
What is our primary use case?
We use JIRA for the management of tasks in IT. We are in the process of implementing our JIRA service desk and using other software for development, such as Bitbucket.
What is most valuable?
When combining Jira with Bitbucket, you have the possibility to ensure continuous integration and other functions which is highly appreciated by our software development team.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Jira for approximately three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Jira has been stable in my experience.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution is scalable. The new licensing model that was presented to me for the data center oriented solution, the price tag that comes with it is the equivalent of 500 users. I only have 50 to 60 users, which means that I have to multiply my budget by 10. This is the scalability that they should be able to provide and I do not like that too much. I can accept that there is a markup for the data center but not the way they have currently presented it.
We will have approximately 60 people using the solution and when it comes to the software development team there are approximately 100 users. It is used in two separate environments.
How are customer service and support?
I have not contacted technical support personally.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Before we used Jira, our operations were very Microsoft office-based.
How was the initial setup?
I am not a regular day-to-day user of this solution and based on the feedback that I received from people at the time it was installed, it went well.
What about the implementation team?
We have one person from an external party who helped us with the implementation. For the internal technical deployment, we have approximately five people from different teams in infrastructure, help desk, and application.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The price at the moment for Jira is okay. I'm absolutely not amused with the plans to try to drive us to the cloud or to other licensing models. For the very simple reason that we are a company in the defense sector where cloud is problematic in a number of the domains. We are now approximately 60 users and the new policy will actually confront us with an upscale to approximately 500 users. I find it unacceptable, and may potentially lead us to look for another solution.
They need to think about industries, which are for compliance reasons are not capable of moving to the cloud, and that they don't put a knife on our throats with excessive prices.
What other advice do I have?
For my defense software development activities, I would like to stay out of the cloud. For the general industry activities and the IT support, we could potentially go into the cloud. There is no objection to that. But for defense, the cloud is not an option for me.
If you want to move ahead to the cloud, I would definitely recommend Jira. For what we use it for since we are stuck on-premise, I would advise others to look into other solutions.
I am not an active user of Jira but based on the feedback I have received I rate Jira 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.
Quality manager at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
Lets you track service requests with high visibility, but other tools give you the same thing for less
Pros and Cons
- "Jira is flexible and accessible for the end-user. It lets users track their requests. The look and feel are good for our purposes."
- "Jira is raising their prices for the license, which is like a trap because many other providers offer services like Jira but for much cheaper."
What is our primary use case?
I'm head of the IT service desk, and we're using it to track IT tickets from the users. If there is an incident or someone requests information or services, we handle all these requests through Jira Service Desk.
What is most valuable?
Jira is flexible and accessible for the end-user. It lets users track their requests. The look and feel are good for our purposes. I'm the IT service manager, so I'm like the director. A cleaner interface helps my team stay on top of the service requests. We used to just take requests via email, and we had some kind of old IT tool, but it wasn't as effective as Jira. And because we are connected to Power BI, we have better visibility. You have a range of metrics so you get some good insight when you integrate Jira to Power BI.
What needs improvement?
For how long have I used the solution?
My colleagues started dealing with Jira in 2019, and they're still using it. And my team implemented the Jira Service Desk in 2020 because the rest of the company was using Jira.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Stable. What about scalability? Is it scalable?
How are customer service and support?
We get outstanding technical support through our partner Valiantys, which is a French Jira distributor certified by Atlassian to resale Jira.
How was the initial setup?
It's not a complex implementation, but it's not easy either. I think it's somewhere in the middle. It's an average software implementation.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Jira is raising their prices for the license, which is like a trap because many other providers offer services like Jira but for much cheaper. And now they are making us move to the cloud. They gave us a deadline to migrate from the on-premise Jira Service Desk to the cloud. It's been two years since we started using it, so I think we will get a discount.
What other advice do I have?
I rate Jira Service Desk seven out of 10
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.
Partner at Yushu
Stable and straightforward to install, and it provides a good view on the status of Agile projects
Pros and Cons
- "This product provides you a good view of the status of your projects."
- "I think that there is some ease of use that could be brought in to improve certain things."
What is our primary use case?
When you are engaged in an Agile development environment, most of the handling and tracking of the stories are handled in Jira. It can also be used for handling and tracking requests in a ticketing system.
I am a consultant from the quality and design part of the work that we do, and I help people introduce tools into their system. Currently, I am only working with one customer that is using Jira. In the past, I have had five or six who were actively using it.
What is most valuable?
This solution covers almost all of the types of uses that we have, from an Agile perspective. All of our requirements are supported by it.
This product provides you a good view of the status of your projects.
What needs improvement?
When I was managing projects that started from epics and moved to multiple tasks, I found that the integration of epics and user stories could have been a little easier. I've seen people struggling to use that aspect of Jira. I think that there is some ease of use that could be brought in to improve certain things.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with Jira on and off for the past six to seven years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
This is a stable product.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I have not used Jira for really huge projects. I have had groups of between 30 and 40 people and for that size, there were no issues with scalability.
How are customer service and technical support?
We have asked a couple of questions from technical support and I don't recall having any issues with that. Everything was as expected.
How was the initial setup?
I have not completed an installation myself, but my understanding is that it is quite straightforward. I am familiar with cloud-based deployment but I believe that it can be deployed in a private environment, as well.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
One of my customers told me that they were receiving better pricing for a similar tool from Microsoft. Specifically, the total cost of ownership was cheaper with Microsoft.
What other advice do I have?
This is definitely a tool that I would recommend to people, depending on their needs.
In summary, it is a good product and the only room for improvement that I can see is that it needs better integration.
I would rate this solution an eight 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
Director of operations at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Stable ecosystem with a plethora of use cases
Pros and Cons
- "What I find valuable about Jira is that it's an ecosystem. Sometimes, it does not provide the best in class solutions, but it's so well integrated. You will not have many problems with integration."
- "What could be improved is the migration between the testing and production environments. This could be automated somehow as the manual transfer of certain workflows and functionalities is very time consuming right now."
What is our primary use case?
There are so many use cases for Jira. If it's got something to do with IT, it will be covered by Jira. They have a very extensive marketplace and you can find nearly every solution there, including version controlling, source control for the code, automation, test automation, security scanning, configuration, and development management.
What is most valuable?
What I find valuable about Jira is that it's an ecosystem. Sometimes, it does not provide the best-in-class solutions, but it's so well integrated. You will not have many problems with integration.
What needs improvement?
The transfer of the functionality between testing or pre-production and the production environment could be improved. It would be helpful to have more automation in this area.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this product for three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
In general, the core of the product is very stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Approximately 150 users use this product at our company. One comment I would have regarding scalability is that I noticed Jira is not yet ready for the Docker platform. I think they are working on this and it will improve the scalability of the product.
How are customer service and technical support?
Overall, their support is okay. Many topics are covered in their documentation or on Atlassian. We receive support from a local partner.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We previously used SISA.
How was the initial setup?
The initial installation was straightforward for us. What could be improved is the migration between the testing and production environments. This could be automated somehow as the manual transfer of certain workflows and functionalities is very time consuming right now.
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.
Customer Success Manager at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
Good Agile tracking features, easy to manage sprints, and allows for comments and tags
Pros and Cons
- "All of the tracking features are the most valuable because it allows me to see where we stand today and every day."
- "There should be a way to integrate the mobile application or in some way, make it more clear because at first instance, I didn't understand how to use it."
What is our primary use case?
We use this solution for project management.
It can be used across a team. Managers can assign tasks and then they can track the progress. They can put the start dates, end dates, and everyday comments.
They can upload the relevant files to that module.
Jira is used to manage a sprint, which is the terminology used in the agile practice of project management. Sprints can be tracked fully using the Jira software. A sprint is typically a part or a subset of the entire work. It has a definite goal.
For example, if I am building test software, and building the login page is one module, then I can track the work created from the starting stage to the end.
It's a part of an entire software application. If a login page of a website is a subset of an entire website, I can track that right from when it started, how long it takes, what is pending, and how long the control test is.
Basically, you can clump it all together as if it is a team and you can measure the speed of the team. It enables the predictability of a project and helps determine when it can go live.
What is most valuable?
All of the tracking features are the most valuable because it allows me to see where we stand today and every day.
At the end of the day, I look to see what is pending, what is as per my expectation or as per the speed, and what is not going.
I can put in my comments or give a direction, or tag any other person if they need any help if they are stuck.
What needs improvement?
The user interface could be much better, although it's good enough to do the job.
I don't see the mobile application for this particular application. I use it on PC. I tried to download the application, but there are some constraints to using it. It doesn't link properly, it doesn't detect my Jira board, even when I have entered the name. I don't know how to use that app. I download and tried, but there is confusion. There is no clarity on how I can map my desktop account with the mobile application. There is definitely room there to improve.
There should be a way to integrate the mobile application or in some way, make it more clear because at first instance, I didn't understand how to use it.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have used Jira over the last seven months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It's a stable solution.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have a team of eight members who are using Jira. They are divided into teams with each team using different boards.
For example, one team is managers who are using it, whereas another is a team of developers using a different board that can be created and used for their purposes.
How are customer service and technical support?
I have not been in a situation where I have needed technical support. Everything has gone well.
How was the initial setup?
The installation is typically done by my IT team. I don't have exposure to that.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Prior to Jira, we were evaluating Microsoft tools, but I don't recall the name. Possibly Microsoft Task.
We were evaluating Microsoft products for the same purpose.
The decision is a collective team decision. It may have been that Jira is easier to implement across the company.
What other advice do I have?
It is a well-crafted product. I don't have any concerns.
I would rate Jira an eight out of ten.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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Updated: November 2024
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