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PeerSpot user
Engineer -QA at FIS
Real User
Allowed a great deal of transparency into the development process for management which has greatly reduced the workload on project managers

What is our primary use case?

Jira is the best project and defect management tool. It works very well for all types of software methodologies or cycles. Communication is very clear to the whole team members. My team relies on this software to keep track of what we are doing. It has lots of nice features that we use such as to link issues to one another, link tickets, put labels of versions to be released, and story points. As a QA person, I also use the filters a lot to find issues that are assigned to me or have been reported by me.

How has it helped my organization?

JIRA has helped us to organize our projects and keep them organized. It has also allowed a great deal of transparency into the development process for management which has greatly reduced the workload on project managers by automating some of the report generation necessary to show progress.

What is most valuable?

This software helps us to follow the process the team agreed to and see the progress on issue and sprint level. With the help of this tool, we will be able to track the progress of the issue and sprint.

What needs improvement?

The reports and dashboards do not provide for reports in a graphical way. The tickets cannot be simultaneously assigned to two or more users.

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.

For how long have I used the solution?

One to three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Jira makes life easy — best tool to use in agile projects!

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

This product enabled us to grow and not lose productivity in the process. We were able to maintain a good line of sight to what teams were producing and which ones were on track and which teams were off track.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I have not used any different solution.

What about the implementation team?

I have used this tool as an in-house one.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user159375 - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Program Manager at a consumer goods company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Great tool for issue/task tracking, customization workflow, and 3rd party software integrations.

Valuable Features

Customization of workflow is a key valuable feature. JIRA comes with a few default workflows, however you can create highly customized workflows depending on your needs.

Improvements to My Organization

Tracking more items in JIRA allows for more transparency of projects; centralized access to latest issues, risks, tasks, etc.

Room for Improvement

Improvements for Cloud version. One such item is available of nested user groups, which is available on server version. Managing a large number of users on Cloud version is extremely challenging due to lack of this capability. I wrote my own command line admin tool in order to manage users more easily.

Use of Solution

I have used it for two years and was the main admin also.

Deployment Issues

We used the Cloud version, due to external access needs. Cloud version deployment is just configuration.

Scalability Issues

With more users and more projects, administration becomes more difficult. Administration is very manual. Thus, I had to write my own command line tool to automate some of my administration.

Customer Service and Technical Support

Customer Service:

Customer service is good. Response to support requests were fairly quick.

Technical Support:

Technical support is good.

Initial Setup

Initial setup is straightforward. A large user base and/or large number of projects requires more planning and strategy, so that you can re-use common workflows, rather than create new configurations for every project (think of abstraction is object-oriented programming).

Pricing, Setup Cost and Licensing

Pricing is based on the number of users. Cloud is cheaper, but choose in-house (server) version if you can, as it has more features and is more secure; overall very affordable.

Other Solutions Considered

We looked at RedMine (open source), but features were limited, and it is not very user friendly. Other options such as BaseCamp and Asana were not really comparable products, in my mind, even though they come up on many comparison websites.

Other Advice

JIRA is tool. As with any tool, it needs to be in the hands of the right person to be used effectively. The administrator and/or trainer in your company should be very competent with JIRA, as they will be leading the effort. JIRA is powerful, but what truly makes it a powerful tool is integration with other Atlassian packages and third-party software. JIRA should almost always be used in conjunction with Confluence. There are many integrations available such as GitHub and many other applications.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Joy Davidson, Scm - PeerSpot reviewer
Joy Davidson, ScmSenior Director, DevOps at a consultancy with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User

You are right that Jira is a great workflow engine with the ability to highly configure workflows, boards, pre and post activities.

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.
PeerSpot user
Manager at a outsourcing company with 501-1,000 employees
Vendor
This tool has some good bug tracking features, but its filtering needs work.

What is most valuable?

The features mentioned below were quite useful for me -

  • Project tracking
  • Planning
  • Defect management
  • Code integration
  • Service Desk
  • Email notifications
  • Reporting

How has it helped my organization?

In my organization, we have so many diverse projects, that the flexibility to integrating JIRA with other tools has been a helpful feature. It has streamlined and channelled our project and test management activities. This has helped all my organization's departments as we now have a data-bank that means anyone can access the required information with a few mouse clicks; be it someone from sales, QA, developer, or management.

What needs improvement?

The only problem area for me is applying filters, and for new users it is very complicated work. I hope they can come up with a better filtering functionality, as this is one of the most basic, important and most widely used features by all categories of users.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using different versions of JIRA for the last three to four years.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

No issues encountered.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

No issues encountered.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

No issues encountered.

How are customer service and technical support?

Customer Service:

It's very good.

Technical Support:

It's very good.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We previously used Quality Center, but JIRA offers better value for money.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was straightforward if you know the basics of installation.

What about the implementation team?

Through a vendor team and they were real experts in JIRA.

What was our ROI?

I can not give you details but the ROI is excellent.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

JIRA's pricing and licensing is the best in the market with the features a user gets.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

  • Quality Center
  • Mantis

What other advice do I have?

This tool has some good bug tracking, issue tracking and project management features. One of the best feature is its integration with other tools which I love, but at the same time, it has some limitations as well.

This is a great product, but I always say before jumping into using it, go through the user guide. Also, if possible, look for some tutorial videos to get the full use of its functionalities.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user229578 - PeerSpot reviewer
it_user229578COO with 51-200 employees
Vendor

Hi,

To go beyond the functionality of JIRA's filters, you can make your own queries in JIRA (without going direct to the DB) or use other reporting tools.

There is a good product/tool from Jobin Kuruvilla of Go2Group. I think you can find it on his J-Tricks site.

reviewer912150 - PeerSpot reviewer
QA Supervisor at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Valuable ticking feature, stable, and helpful support
Pros and Cons
  • "I have found the most valuable features of Jira to be ticketing, life cycle workflow, definition, and creation. Many of the features are useful."
  • "The solution could improve by having its own tool for quality lifecycle management."

What is our primary use case?

We use Jira in our organization for lifecycle management.

How has it helped my organization?

The solution has helped our organization do lifecycle management easily.

What is most valuable?

I have found the most valuable features of Jira to be ticketing, life cycle workflow, definition, and creation. Many of the features are useful.

What needs improvement?

The solution could improve by having its own tool for quality lifecycle management.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have used Jira for approximately nine years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability of Jira is good.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Jira has good scalability.

We are using this solution extensively. We have more than 5,000 using the solution in my organization.

How are customer service and support?

We have been satisfied with the technical support from Jira.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We have used in-house developed tools previously and we had to do a lot of customization and this is why we moved to Jira.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend this solution to others, it is a good option.

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.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1523823 - PeerSpot reviewer
Software Engineering & Quality Manager at a leisure / travel company with 201-500 employees
Real User
Poorly designed and confusing with a dated user interface
Pros and Cons
  • "The initial setup was pretty straightforward."
  • "The work items structure is not hierarchical and that needs to be changed. It's too flat."

What is most valuable?

The integrations with other solutions, such as BitBucket for pull requests and the check traceability, are pretty good. That's about it. I'm not a big fan of the solution overall.

The initial setup was pretty straightforward.

What needs improvement?

The solution, in general, is a poorly designed and confusing product. The user experience is not ideal and the user interface is convoluted. The interface in particular could use a big refresh as the actual navigation within the interface is not particularly smooth.

The work items structure is not hierarchical and that needs to be changed. It's too flat.

There's excessive scope for customizing the project and the platform. Therefore, there are too many integrations, which leads to very high levels of complexity in terms of management.

Key indicators that are useful to Agile teams such as burn-down charts or burn-up charts, cumulative flow control, et cetera, are available, however, they're not easily accessible from the default user view, whereas they should always be present. Key indicators must always be present. They actually take a couple of clicks to actually get to them.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for two years. It hasn't been too long.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is very stable. It doesn't crash or freeze. There are no bugs or glitches. It's reliable in that sense.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is scalable. If a company wants to expand it, it can do so.

We have about 200 people who use the solution currently. They're mostly software developers but they're end-users as well.

While the solution is being used extensively, we're fine with maintaining our current level of usage.

How are customer service and technical support?

Technical support is very good. We're satisfied with the level of support that is provided to us. They are knowledgeable and responsive.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I've personally used lots of other solutions, however, when I moved to this company, they already had Jira deployed. Jira is the only system of its type that's been used here.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is not very complex. It was pretty straightforward. If a company wants to implement it, the setup should be pretty simple.

There's ongoing integration work on a project like this. Therefore, the initial setup was only a few days, however, then, as you add things to it, you add more time to the deployment.

What other advice do I have?

We are a customer and end-user of the product.

I would highly recommend not using this product if your focus is software development. Organizations should seriously consider alternatives such as Azure DevOps or TFS, which are more focused on modern interfaces and more accurately modeled to modern workflows.

I'd rate the solution at about a three out of ten. It doesn't really offer a whole lot that's actually usable from a software development context beyond extremely simple and free alternatives.

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.
PeerSpot user
Group CTO at a retailer with 51-200 employees
Real User
A stable platform for managing software development
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable feature is managing software development."
  • "The help desk and services management features are in need of improvement."

What is our primary use case?

We are using Jira as our help desk solution, as well as for managing our software development efforts.

How has it helped my organization?

Jira has helped with respect to managing our software development, although it does not suit us well as a help desk.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature is managing software development.

What needs improvement?

The help desk and services management features are in need of improvement.

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?

This is a stable product.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability is fine. We have fifty people in the company who are using it.

How are customer service and technical support?

I have not used the vendor's technical support.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was done before I joined the company.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I am currently in the process of searching for better help desk management solutions.

What other advice do I have?

My advice for anybody who is considering this solution is to ensure that it meets your requirements. For example, we have been trying to use it for help desk management, but have found that is not well suited for this task.

I would rate this solution an eight 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.
PeerSpot user
Head of Product at Truevo Payments
Real User
Workflow management as very specific workflows can be configured to serve any number of business processes

What is our primary use case?

Full SDLC, from software development to quality assurance tracking and project management. The applications of JIRA workflow management are endless. 

How has it helped my organization?

Tracking and accountability have been improved, as with the advanced workflows, one can ensure processes are followed, and it is easily seen through one of the many reporting options exactly who is doing what and when.  

What is most valuable?

Workflow management as very specific workflows can be configured to serve any number of business processes. 

What needs improvement?

The downside to JIRA is the constant push for the changing of the user interface. This can remove valuable features and increase the learning curve. Especially for business users, the change in interface design instantly reduces productivity and buy into the tool.  

For how long have I used the solution?

More than five years.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
Manager, Live Production at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
The mobile app functionality needs improvement. It can be customized for different teams.
Pros and Cons
  • "I found it super useful, as it is customizable for different teams and users."
  • "The following definitely need improvement: UI, speed, and mobile app functionality."

What is most valuable?

Overall, everything with it is great. I found it super useful, as it is customizable for different teams and users.

What needs improvement?

The following definitely need improvement:

  • UI 
  • Speed 
  • Mobile app functionality.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is consistently slow.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Jira Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: December 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Jira Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.