Help with Jira Software, Jira Service Management & Confluence
Author: Rachel Wright
Rachel Wright is an entrepreneur, Certified Jira Administrator, and author of the Jira Strategy Admin Workbook. She started using Jira in 2011, became a Jira administrator in 2013, and was certified in 2016. She is the owner and founder of Industry Templates, LLC, which helps companies grow, get organized, and develop their processes.
Summit is the grand Atlassian event of the year. With the palpable enthusiasm of the employees, the knowledge of the presenters, and the immense networking opportunities, this is the place to experience all that is Atlassian.
With all the tech conferences occurring every year, how do you convince your company to send you to Summit?
In your proposal, answer the following questions:
What do you hope to learn? Use specific examples of problems you can solve by attending. Example: “I’ll learn about the new Certification program you were asking about.” or “I’ll take your question about X straight to the Support Bar!” Use the “continuing education” or training angle. You need to learn something new this year right? This could be cheaper or the same cost as other training opportunities.
What valuable experiences will you have?
Who will you network with?
Add statistics to your pitch. Example: How big was last year’s event? How many people attended? How many sessions were there? Who were the speakers and sponsors? This information is useful to compare against other events and communicate value.
Top 5 Justification Reasons
Each year I leave with pages of “new ideas” to bring back to my company.
You’ll get answers to your questions directly from Atlassian or from companies sharing similar problems.
You’ll meet fellow users, Solution Partners (vendors, consultants), and Atlassian employees you wouldn’t normally have access to. How useful would it be to have some Atlassian employee business cards in your pocket?
You’ll gain an “insider’s view” into upcoming features and changes in the works.
It’s a marketing opportunity for your company. You’ll hand out your business cards and wear your company logo shirt, right?
Budget
The flight and the conference hotel are likely expensive, so you need to prepare your supervisor for the sticker shock. Help soften the blow with a list of things your company won’t have to pay for.
For example, you probably don’t need a rental car. Parking in a major city is challenging and cost prohibitive. If your hotel is close to or in the conference location, skip the rental car. You’ll save hundreds by taking a cab or public transportation between the airport and hotel. List a big, visual $0 next to that line item.
The “meals” line item can be listed as $0 or almost $0 as well. Atlassian feeds you well on conference days. You won’t be spending money on additional food.
In 2017, ThinkTilt and Rachel Wright teamed up with the goal of helping business teams get more out of Jira and conquer their “to do” lists. In 2018, we helped administrators effectively manage Jira and battle custom field bloat. Now, we’re collaborating again to help you create better screens and forms in Jira and Jira Service Desk.
In our upcoming series, we’ll help you understand how form design can help or hinder data collection. We’ll help you write good questions, choose the right custom fields, and create forms that users actually want to complete. We’ll explore the screen and form capabilities of Jira, Jira Service Desk, and ProForma. Finally, we’ll provide use cases for various teams and turn bad forms into good ones.
Our first article tackles the differences between screens in Jira and forms in Service Desk. It’s important to understand how screens, screen schemes, and issue type screen schemes work together. Then, you can map screens to issue types and leverage JSD and ProForma forms.
We hope you’ll check in regularly to see the upcoming installments:
Writing Good Form Questions in Jira: Part 1 – How do you choose the right words, field types and validation levels? This article will dig into the nitty gritty of creating good form questions.
Writing Good Form Questions in Jira: Part 2 – Choice questions are great for collecting structured data. We’ll look at the options for choice questions and discuss ways to influence, or mitigated influence on the user.
ProForma is the forms solution for Jira, making it easy for teams to build and deploy online forms, backed by Jira’s great workflow engine. Empower every team in your organization to take control of their processes and deliver first class request management. All the information you need, where you need it.
About Rachel Wright
Rachel Wright is an entrepreneur, process engineer, and Atlassian Certified Jira Administrator. She is the owner and founder of Industry Templates, LLC, which helps companies grow, get organized, and develop their processes. Rachel also uses Atlassian tools in her personal life for accomplishing goals and tracking tasks. Her first book, the “Jira Strategy Admin Workbook“, was written in Confluence and progress was tracked in Jira!
What is your Atlassian product training strategy? You know you need to train your Jira, Jira Service Desk and Confluence users, but organizing training can be daunting and finding a time that works for everyone’s busy schedule is a challenge. How will you educate everyone, encourage adoption, and deliver information on a continual basis? How will you train new users when they join the organization? Training could easily turn into a full time job for application admins and burden an already busy training department.
Many companies either don’t have product-specific training or want training but can’t implement it. Others gather everyone in a room for a marathon training session that doesn’t provide an optimal learning experience. The content is not tailored to different user roles and everyone forgets what the instructor said by the end of the day. Employees who missed the “training day” don’t get the help they need and new hires won’t get a training opportunity for a long time.
When users don’t understand the software, or when admins don’t have enough experience, the applications won’t work as well as they should. As a result companies spend time and money cleaning up the mess caused by prior mistakes. I saw this first hand. With no training, I became an application administrator! I built things badly and eventually realized I’d copied the mistakes of others and added to the overall mess.
Let Us Handle Your Training
We know training departments don’t always have the time or expertise to create product-specific training. We do and we’re good at it. Let us deliver company-wide training though our efficient, 30-minute, online, skill or topic-based courses.
Our courses are self-paced and include video lessons, homework, and a quiz to test and reinforce understanding. There’s even a course certificate for your employee’s portfolio or resume! Users self-enroll and leadership can view enrollment, progress, and completion at any time.
Please complete the form or share it with your training coordinator so we can recommend courses, presentations, and materials.
When considering your Atlassian product training strategy, select content that’s specific to each user’s role and delivered in manageable pieces. Different types of users need different information, different levels of detail, and need it delivered at different times. It’s tempting to gather everyone in a big room for a marathon training class. But it’s much smarter to offer role-specific information in small, digestible, and progressive pieces.
Progressive, Role-based Training
Intro to Jira Cloud Agenda
In the beginning, a brand new user just needs to know the basics. Answer questions like: “What is this application?”, “How do I use it?”, and “How do I access it?” Take a look at the agenda in our 30 minute “Intro to Jira Cloud” online course, for example. It’s short and specifically designed not to overwhelm new users. The goal is to get them feeling comfortable in the application immediately. Consider that some employees may have used Atlassian applications before. Their previous experience, version, use, and expectations could differ from what’s expected in your organization.
As part of initial training, give new users a simple homework assignment. Here’s an example: (1) to log into the application, (2) bookmark it in the browser, and (3) create a Jira issue, a Confluence page, or a Jira Service Desk request. You can test whether their creation meets the needs of the organization. This is a great time to catch problems before they turn into bad habits. Look for future trouble like missing an important issue field, creating a page in the wrong global space, or providing vague request details.
Once the user understands the basics start adding additional content. Select new content based on user role, how they’ll use the software, and skills they’ll need to do their regular job. Time the content delivery so they can learn little by little without impacting their other work.
User Types and Roles
Here are some additional user types and content recommendations:
The regular or occasional user needs info about sharing and organizing their data, creating filter subscriptions, linking, and logging time.
The power user wants information about basic & advanced search, JQL, and bulk changes.
Team leads, project managers, and scrum masters want to know about views like dashboards, boards, and reports.
Service Desk Agents want to understand service level agreements (SLAs) and how to use JSD features to support their customers.
Application admins want information about configuration, performance, effective workflows, best practices, mistakes, and certification.
Delivering information progressively, and based on roles, lets you quickly and effectively train users. They can put the info into practice immediately and won’t forget everything they learned by the end of the day.
Let Us Handle Your Training
We know admins don’t always have the time or expertise to train users. We do and we’re good at it. Let us deliver your company-wide training though our efficient, 30-minute, online, skill or topic-based courses.
Please complete the form, or share it with your training coordinator, so we can recommend courses, presentations, and materials.
“Halloween Horror Stories” Atlassian Community Event in Toronto
It’s October and time for some Halloween fun! The Toronto Atlassian Community Event is featuring content from Rachel’s Wright’s “Jira Scary Stories” presentation, along with Confluence horror stories of their own. Join them for lunch on Oct. 30, 2019 to hear stories of spooky security, freakish custom fields, and the potential horrors of user-created projects and issue types. These stories are based on the gruesome mistakes in the Jira Strategy Admin Workbook.
Atlassian Community Events are where users meet, learn, network, and share best practices. User groups meet locally and all over the world. Group members are newbies and veterans who like to “talk shop” about Atlassian software, Agile development, DevOps, software, and related business topics. Attend these events to network with your peers, share solutions, meet Atlassian Solution Partners, get special content from Atlassian, and maybe enjoy a beer or two.
The Strategy for Jira Tour is back on the road! Our next presentation is a remote one in Anaheim, CA. Rachel will present “Best Practices for Managing and Maintaining Your Jira Application” at the next Orange County Atlassian Community Event, on October 22, 2019.
Speakers: Rachel Wright (Strategy for Jira®), Peter Toudjarski (Botron Software), and Michael March (Isos Technology)
You know if you don’t maintain your Jira application that it can quickly grow out of control. But where do you start? How do you make small improvements without impacting daily business? What should you do if your application is already a bit of a mess?
In this presentation, we’ll address:
how to set standards so you don’t have more schemes to maintain than necessary,
how to clean up schemes and custom fields when you have too many,
how to archive old projects and unneeded issues,
and how to track changes and customization requests so you have a record and an audit trail.
Atlassian Community Events are where users meet, learn, network, and share best practices. User groups meet locally and all over the world. Group members are newbies and veterans who like to “talk shop” about Atlassian software, Agile development, DevOps, software, and related business topics. Attend these events to network with your peers, share solutions, meet Atlassian Solution Partners, get special content from Atlassian, and maybe enjoy a beer or two.
I frequently combine my love for travel with my love of Atlassian products. In my “Boondocking with Jira and Confluence” series, I used two Atlassian tools to plan our first “off-grid” camping experience. We’ve been touring the US in an RV since 2015, and have always used Jira and Confluence to plan trips. Now it’s time for my next adventure! This time, I’ll use Trello to plan a 200-mile walk on the Camino de Santiago in Spain!
Frequently asked questions about Trello and my trip:
What is the Camino de Santiago?
The Camino de Santiago is a network of ancient pilgrim routes that lead to the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain. Each year, over 300,000 walkers, cyclists, and even a few horseback riders, travel many routes originating in Spain, Portugal, and France. This 4-minute video provides a good overview of the journey.
How far are you walking?
Decision made and Trello card completed
“Which route will I take?“, “Where will I start and end?“, and “When will I go?” were all early questions on my Trello board. I couldn’t plan any other travel details until I answered those questions. I read countless travel books and blogs to decide and once I had answers, I used Trello’s “Due Date” function to mark those cards complete and move on to other planning tasks.
My portion of the walk is approximately 200 miles or 313 kilometers. I’ll walk the most popular route, called the Camino Francés, and start in Leon, Spain. I’ve been to Barcelona twice, both for Atlassian Summit, so this time, I’m arriving in Madrid.
The full Camino Francés route starts from St. Jean Pied-de-Port in France. This route is approx 480 mi /775 km, requires a climb over the Pyrenees mountains, and takes 5 or more weeks to complete. That seemed a little daunting for my first long-distance hike! I’ll try this shorted version first and see how it goes.
While I’m “Trekking with Trello” enjoy $10 off your order at the Strategy for Jira Store Code: TREKKING Shop Now Valid: September 2019
Why are you walking?
To be completely honest, I don’t know yet. I’m hoping I’ll know when I arrive in Santiago. I’d heard of this walk a very long time ago but I can clearly remember the day I decided I wanted to attempt it. In the fall of 2017, our RV trip took us to Phoenix, Arizona. I saw an advertisement for a documentary film showing right down the street from our campground. “I’ll Push You“, is a film about a man who pushed his wheelchair-bound best friend the entire length of the Camino. Their inspiring story, and the desire to do something interesting with my vacation time, motivated my trip.
Others do the walk for a variety of reasons including spiritual, religious, adventure, tribute, remembrance, transition, celebration, etc. In another documentaty, a group used the experience to overcome addiction. I even read a story of walking the Camino as penance. The potential reasons and personal motivations are endless.
What type of terrain is the trail?
The trail is every material except sand and lava. (If you haven’t done a lava trek, add that to your bucket list. I highly recommend it!) The route leads through large cities, tiny villages, and vast countryside in between. I’m expecting a mix of rock, mud, grass, gravel, dirt, cobblestone, and asphalt.
There’s quite a debate on which type of footwear is best for the varied terrain. I’ve concluded boots vs. sneakers is a personal preference. I’ve selected a waterproof trekking sneaker and have tested them thoroughly. The first pair is worn out from many miles of testing. The middle pair is slightly too small. The last pair is just right and will accompany me on my trip.
How are you using Trello to plan the trip?
Trello lets you create lists and tasks in a flexible and highly visual way. It helps people and groups organize their “to do” lists and projects. Work teams can track projects like a new product launch, a social media schedule, or to prioritize a list of ideas. Families can track their kitchen remodel project, weekly chores, or shopping list. I’m using Trello to research, plan, and prepare for my long-distance walk.
Initial Trello board with 5 planning lists
I started with a blank Trello board and added 5 lists to encompass my planning process. The “Resources” list includes all my research items, like books to read, videos to watch, and logistics, like time zone and currency differences. The “Decisions” list captures all the questions to answer before booking flights and making additional plans.
In the “Travel” column, I added the Skyscanner power-up to monitor the costs of flights to Madrid. A power-up is a way to extend Trello’s features and integrate it with other Atlassian and third-party apps. The Skyscanner tip is from Bridget Sauer on the Atlassian Community Team. Thanks Bridget!
The “Gear” column is for items carried on the trail. I used it to choose between a poncho and a rain suit, to test different types of socks, and to research whether hiking poles are permitted on an airplane. The result: I’ll take a poncho and rain pants, double layer Wrightsocks work really well, and hiking poles are only allowed in checked baggage.
Finally, the “Prep” list includes “to do” items like practice hikes, a reminder to purchase travel insurance, and my packing checklist. My packing list is normally stored in Confluence. I could have connected Confluence and Trello with a power-up, but decided to simply cut and paste. Select your Confluence task items, copy them, and paste them into a Trello checklist. Each item is automatically converted to a checklist item!
Trello board with beginning planning details and the Skyscanner power-up
When are you going?
I’m devoting the month of September 2019 to this adventure and to taking a break. I’ve worked since I was 15, started my first company at 18, and started my first post-college job a few months before I even graduated. This is my first extended break and I’ve earned it. Thank you Giles Knights from ClearHub who helped me realize this break is an accomplishment. I’m grateful for the ability to take this time off.
We have a special promotion for the month of September 2019. Use code “TREKKING” for $10 off your order at the Strategy for Jira Store.
If you need assistance while I’m away, please contact Chris Lutz at clutz@jirastategy.com.
What’s next with Trello?
The next post in this trekking series is about physically preparing to walk long distances. I used Trello to stay focused on my walking plan.
I’ll post additional content as I approach the trip and after I return.
Have a question about my trek or about using Atlassian products like Jira, Jira Service Desk, Confluence, or Trello? Ask questions in the comments section below.
The Strategy for Jira Tour is back on the road! Our next presentation is a remote one in Boise, Idaho. Rachel will present her top “Jira Admin Mistakes” at the next Boise Atlassian Community Event, on August 15, 2019.
The presentation is based on the Jira Strategy Admin Workbook and its goal is to keep you out of what Rachel calls the “Jira swamp.” Already in the swamp? Let’s dig you out!
This presentation is different – it’s about strategy. It’s recommendations from years of cleaning up horrible Jira configurations! It’s about what you should do, what you shouldn’t do, and why. Hear the mistakes Rachel made as a Jira administrator and real examples of problems to avoid. Would you rather your application be an organized, tidy, and trimmed garden or a foggy, contaminated, overgrown swamp?
Atlassian Community Events are where users meet, learn, network, and share best practices. User groups meet locally and all over the world. Group members are newbies and veterans who like to “talk shop” about Atlassian software, Agile development, DevOps, software, and related business topics. Attend these events to network with your peers, share solutions, meet Atlassian Solution Partners, get special content from Atlassian, and maybe enjoy a beer or two.
As a Jira administrator, I frequently see this problem: child issues are closed but nobody remembered to close the parent issue. Users have already moved on to the next thing and the parent issue sits in its incorrect status forever. Or maybe it’s the opposite: the Epic is closed, but its Stories, Bugs, and Tasks were forgotten.
When issue status does not reflect reality, reporting is a nightmare. All completed or unneeded issues should be transitioned to their final status. Why not take this step off your user’s “to do” list and automate it? It’s easy to automatically transition issues with Innovalog’s Jira Misc Workflow Extensions (JMWE) app.
Use Case
When all child issues are closed, automatically transition the parent so users don’t need to do it manually. Example: When all Sub-tasks are transitioned to the “Closed” status, automatically transition the Task issue to the “Closed” status.
Requirements
You’ll need the following:
Access: Jira application administrator permissions (to install the app) and the ability to edit workflows
Environment: Jira Server, Jira Data Center, or Jira Cloud
Install: Install the JMWE app from the “Find new apps” page in your Jira instance. Apply a free trial or paid license on the “Manage apps” page.
Issue Types: A “Standard” issue type (Example: Task) and a “Sub-Task” issue type (Example: Sub-task). These are default Jira issue types; they likely already exist.
Workflow: Create one simple, 3 step workflow. Example: Open > In Progress > Closed
Issues: Create one “Task” issue and two “Sub-task” issues
Implementation
Here’s how to do it:
Edit the workflow
In diagram mode, create a new global transition
Click “Add transition”
In the “From status” field, select “Any status”
In the “To status” field, select “Closed”
In the “Name” field, enter “Close”
In the “Screen” field, select your standard “Resolve Issue Screen”
Add Transition Screen in Diagram Mode
Here’s how the workflow looks, in Text mode, with the global “Close” transition.
Configure three areas on the transition settings page: “Transition(s)”, “Transition screen”, and “Comment text”.
Under “Transition(s)”:
Click the “Transition Picker” button to select the correct transition. Alternatively, you can type the name of the transition (Example: “Close”) or enter its ID (Example: “31”).
Tip: I prefer to enter the transition’s ID as it’s less likely to change than its label.
Click the “Add” button to the right of the “Workflow name” field. See screenshot
Under “Transition screen”:
Scroll down to the “Transition screen” section
Select the “Resolution” field from the drop down menu
Click the “Add” button
This will automatically set the parent issue’s Resolution to the same Resolution selected when the last child issue was closed. See screenshot
Next to “Comment text”:
Use the “Comment text” field to enter a comment when issues are automatically closed.
Example comment: “This issue was automatically closed when all Sub-tasks reached the “Closed” status.”See screenshot
Click the last “Add” button at the bottom of the transition settings page
Move the new post function after the function called “Update change history for an issue and store the issue in the database.”
The “Transition parent issue” behavior is the forth post function in the “Close” transition.
Also in the “Close” transition:
Add a “Sub-Task Blocking Condition” and select the “Closed” status. This prevents the parent from transitioning until all child issues are closed.
Example behavior: All sub-tasks must have one of the following statuses to allow parent issue transitions: Closed
If you want email notifications sent when the issue is automatically closed, go to the “Post Functions” tab and change “Fire a Generic Event event that can be processed by the listeners.” to “Fire a Issue Closed event that can be processed by the listeners.”
Finally, publish your workflow and assign it to the “Task” and “Sub-task” issue types in your Jira project.
Result
Test your work:
Transition one of your two Sub-task issues to its final “Closed” status
Refresh your parent Task and verify there was no status change, no comment, and no resolution added
Transition your second Sub-task issue to its final “Closed” status
Refresh your parent Task. The Task should automatically transition to its final “Closed” status with a resolution and comment added.
Bonus test: Create a Task issue with no Sub-tasks. Transition the Task to its final “Closed” status. Verify a transition screen is present to collect the resolution. Always make sure closed issues have resolutions!
The two Sub-task issues are in the “Closed” status. The parent Task issue was automatically transitioned to the “Closed” status, a resolution of “Done” was set, and a comment was added.
Q&A
Why did you create a global “Close” transition instead of a single transition?
I wanted to be able to transition the Task issue to the “Closed” status from any status. If users always transition Tasks to the “In Progress” status when they start work, you could create a single transition, in the “In Progress” status, instead.
Why did you add a transition screen to the “Close” transition?
For issues with no Sub-tasks, the user needs to select a resolution value. For issues with Sub-tasks, the parent issue’s resolution will automatically match the resolution of the last Sub-task closed.
Workflows are the most talked about area of Jira. Sometimes workflows don’t represent your real life process. Other times, there are too many manual steps and people hate it! Whatever the situation, users and admins are always interested in learning more and improving workflows. It’s no surprise that “Jira Workflows for Business Teams” is my most popular online course and that workflow materials are the most downloaded items in the Strategy for Jira store.
That’s why I’ve teamed up with Innovalog to help you improve your Jira workflows. Their Jira Misc Workflow Extensions app is one of my favorites in the Atlassian Marketplace. Want to extend your workflow capabilities without code, automatically transition linked issues, or make sure a certain field was updated? The JMWE app does it and so much more! This add-on brings the workflow automation power you’ve been missing in Jira Cloud, Jira Server, and Jira Data Center. I love this plugin so much that I included seven ways to use it in my book. Now, we want to bring those use cases and others to a broader audience. New articles for enhancing workflows are on the way!
About Innovalog
Innovalog, the Atlassian Platinum Top Vendor, is on a mission to make work flow. Their products enable Jira workflows for thousands of companies around the globe and power business-critical processes for millions of users. Jira Misc Workflow Extensions (JMWE) is one of the all-time top-selling apps for Jira! To learn more, watch this 80-second video.
About Rachel Wright
Rachel Wright is an entrepreneur, process engineer, and Atlassian Certified Jira Administrator. She is the owner and founder of Industry Templates, LLC, which helps companies grow, get organized, and develop their processes. Rachel also uses Atlassian tools in her personal life for accomplishing goals and tracking tasks. Her first book, the “Jira Strategy Admin Workbook“, was written in Confluence and progress was tracked in Jira!
Together we’ll help you improve workflows and make work flow.
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