As we do every quarter, SPK’s team reviews the latest Atlassian product updates. In this blog post, we’ll cover announcements that happened between September 2022 and December 2022. As you probably know, Atlassian updates their Cloud and on-premise products on a regular basis, and there are lots of things happening with Cloud on a regular basis as they enhance their products to support the many use cases of their customer base. To support our clients to better adapt to on-premise and Cloud changes, we’ll be covering information about pricing, bugs, features, and other general updates in this blog. As a reminder, SPK and Associates is a certified solution partner with Atlassian.
Updates to Jira Software in December 2022
In a recent email newsletter, Atlassian notified Jira Software Cloud users of several new features that were either live or would be live by the end of December 2022. This included a few updates to existing Free, Standard, Premium, and Enterprise versions of Jira Software.
Create Issue Enhancement
There is a new way to create issues without leaving the screen you’re on. The 3‑state issue create option allows customers to minimize and maximize the issue “Create” modal between 3 different sizes. This modal makes the process of creating tickets easier and quicker by minimizing context switching, maximizing screen real estate, and enabling customers to work at their pace. This update will be in place for all Jira Software customers by the end of December 2022. You can read more in the community post here.
Add tasks on the fly with the Jira Work Management in Google Chrome
Users of Jira Work Management can now add tasks on the fly with the Jira Work Management extension in Google Chrome. Have a task top of mind while browsing tabs? Quickly add it to your Jira Work Management projects using the new Google Chrome extension. Create tasks from anywhere, add more details and attachments, and assign them to teammates on the go. Learn more about the Google Chrome extension here.
New in Advanced Roadmaps: Sample Plan
As someone who has used Advanced Roadmap, I’ve found that explaining it without showing it using real data is very difficult. If you are interested in learning how to use Advanced Roadmaps but have not had the time or patience to create and use test data and didn’t dare experiment on your own production Jira data, now you can. With the new feature of creating a sample plan, you can create a plan in Advanced Roadmaps using dummy data to quickly see its features in use and explore in a risk‑free way. Check out the Atlassian community post to learn more!
Jira Product Discovery Is Coming to GA
Officially announced as a beta program in April at Atlassian Team ‘22, Jira Product Discovery is a new dedicated tool for product teams to prioritize, collaborate on, and deliver new product ideas, all within Jira. Jira Product Discovery will graduate into general availability (GA) in the coming months and the pricing model will be posted soon. Jira Product Discovery was conceived 3 years ago and with lots of great feedback from the beta users, which got access to the tool for free, it is now close to GA. It moved into beta last fall and it has gotten great organic traction from companies around the world. Jira Product Discovery is targeted toward product teams, and more specifically product managers, for the discovery phase of software development.
OpsGenie, JSM and Incoming Call Routing
In late September, Atlassian announced that it would be integrating inbound phone call routing into their Jira Service Management (JSM) product by way of management via the OpsGenie interface. Incoming call routing was available only to OpsGenie standalone customers until now. JSM Cloud Premium and Cloud Enterprise customers can opt-in to distribute and connect incoming calls to the right teams at the right times.
If you’re not familiar with how Incoming Call Routing works in OpsGenie, the feature manages the process of routing incoming calls based on a customer’s on-call preferences. This can be used, for example, as a support call hotline that routes incoming calls to the right on-call engineers. This integration brings incoming call routing functionality to JSM Cloud Premium and Cloud Enterprise customers by integrating Opsgenie’s call routing features with Jira Service Management.
Call routing is one of the top-voted customer requests for JSM and Atlassian definitely delivered here. With incoming call routing, customer calls are always answered, no matter how many people are on call, already engaged, or available. The OpsGenie interface allows admins to set up customer on-call schedules to make sure the right people are available when customers call. Incoming call language support can read messages in eight (8) different languages as of the first release. This applies to customizable messages, too. Call routing allows customers to find the right team, no matter where in the world they are. Agents can get to work wherever their computer is with browser-based call answering. Agents can start working to resolve customer issues immediately if they’re in an open browser. No additional hardware or other software is required. You can learn more about the incoming call routing feature here and here. With SPK’s experience in Jira Service Management, be sure to inquire if you would like implementation support for your inbound call features in your existing JSM or newly created JSM environments.
Atlassian Together in Beta
On September 29th, Atlassian announced a new bundled subscription for knowledge workers called Atlassian Together. This solution will be a cloud bundle of Confluence, Trello, Jira Work Management, Atlas, and Access. At present, Atlassian Together is in a closed beta period with the goal of rolling out different stages for the bundle through FY24. Bundling these tools gives non-software and non-IT staff the ability to plan teamwork and manage tasks with flexibility, collaborate on content, align and deliver their projects at scale, and communicate context all while having company-wide visibility, control and security.
The reason Atlassian created this bundled subscription is that they realize every team is different – and so are their software needs. Atlassian Together provides organizations with a complete Atlassian toolset that helps teams choose the best tool for the job while ensuring alignment across the organization. To join the Atlassian Together waitlist, you can register here.
Atlassian Atlas Out of Beta
In October, Atlassian announced that its teamwork directory product, Atlas, was coming out of beta. Atlas was originally in beta at Atlassian Team ‘22. The Atlas product didn’t have pricing but was shown to have several major benefits, including allowing project members to know the what, why, who, and how of your teams’ work. Atlas’ goal was to connect team members to where work happens with embeds and smart links which allow team members and project stakeholders to get updates on the projects, goals, and topics that were relevant to them.
Atlas features include smart links to allow team members to answer what they are working on, why they are working on it, and how it’s going. Smart links can be published to any page, board, or space for ease of visibility. Also, Atlas has universal profiles which show what work they do, where they fit in, and how they can help inside any Atlassian product. Atlas also has linked epics to ensure projects are linked to Epics in Jira software. There are also integrations for Slack and Microsoft Teams to share reminders, updates and allow others to digest information in channels or rooms where the teams are regularly. Pricing for Atlas ranges from a free plan to $6/user/month plan for Premium. You can see more pricing details here.
In October, Atlassian announced that its teamwork directory product, Atlas, was coming out of beta. Atlas was originally in beta at Atlassian Team ‘22. The Atlas product didn’t have pricing but was shown to have several major benefits, including allowing project members to know the what, why, who, and how of your teams’ work. Atlas’ goal was to connect team members to where work happens with embeds and smart links which allows team members and project stakeholders to get updates on the projects, goals, and topics that were relevant to them.
Atlas features include smart links to allow team members to answer what they are working on, why they are working on it, and how it’s going. Smart links can be published to any page, board, or space for ease of visibility. Also, Atlas has universal profiles which show what work they do, where they fit in, and how they can help inside any Atlassian product. Atlas also has linked epics to ensure projects are linked to Epics in Jira software. There are also integrations for Slack and Microsoft Teams to share reminders, updates and allow others to digest information in channels or rooms where the teams are regularly. Pricing for Atlas ranges from a free plan to $6/user/month plan for Premium. You can see more pricing details here.
Announcement of Atlassian Team ‘23
As Atlassian normally does this time of year, it announced Atlassian Team ‘23 to be held in April. Team ’23 is the ultimate event for modern teamwork live in Las Vegas and digitally between April 18th and April 20th. Attendees from around the globe will explore the ways in which teamwork, humanity, and tech intersect, and learn how Atlassian products and solutions can help unleash their team’s full potential. There will be sessions on many of Atlassian’s products, but also sessions that talk about the needs of business units.
This includes learning how to break down silos between teams and align work around the same missions, how to modernize IT and development processes to better service teams at high velocity, staying ahead of ever-shifting customer needs to release world-class products, and how cross-functional teamwork can help make better business decisions. Join SPK’s team at Atlassian Team ‘23. Register here.
Conclusion
Atlassian tools continue to expand the possibilities and allow better innovation. But customers need to be aware of the capabilities of the tools they are using or could be using. SPK’s team is a certified Atlassian partner and we understand the need to improve business outcomes and minimize costs. Our projects and managed services focus on this regularly. If you would like support with your existing Atlassian products, or to navigate any of the new updates, you can contact our expert team for advice here.
