How can I use Jira to manage content for a gaming website?

[TomodachiLifeROM]

I'm managing a gaming website called TomodachiLifeROM, where I publish guides, tutorials, and Nintendo-related content. As the amount of content grows, I'm considering using Jira to organize my workflow.

I'd like to know:

• Is Jira a good choice for managing website content instead of software development tasks?
• Which project template works best for tracking articles and updates?
• How do you organize content using Epics, Stories, and Tasks?
• Are there any recommended automations for tracking article progress from draft to published?

If anyone is using Jira for website or content management, I'd appreciate seeing your workflow or best practices.

Thank you!

[Rob Hean]

Heya @TomodachiLifeROM  - I agree with @Viswanathan Ramachandran , you can certainly use Jira to manage your content. Unless you have a specific need for the more premium features, a free instance could support you fairly well.

To answer your question:

Is Jira a good choice for managing website content instead of software development tasks?

1. Jira can track any kind of work... historically it was intended for software-related stuff, but anything can be represented.

Which project template works best for tracking articles and updates?

1. Depends a bit on your process. e.g. do you use Scrum? if so, the scrum template :D One thing to keep in mind is everything in the template can be changed later. It's also very important to think through your process BEFORE you start using Jira. I recommend writing it down on a whiteboard/bit of paper so you understand things like the workflow (e.g. are there specific statuses you need to track? review stages? etc). Once you understand it conceptually, then you can choose the best template/setup in Jira.

How do you organize content using Epics, Stories, and Tasks?

1. good question! "Story" typically refers to something in AGile projects management, so you might be able to ignore it.. "Task" is likely the best bet for an individual article (although you COULD make a Work Type called "Article"). Each task would keep track of everything about that one article/guide/whatever.  Epics could be by specific game, time period, or some other bigger bucket to organize the things you're creating.

Are there any recommended automations for tracking article progress from draft to published?

1. This largely depends on your process and what you need to do. e.g. when you complete a story, you could have it automatically shoot someone an email letting them know... recommend you think through what you want to do and then consider what is "click-heavy" so you could automate.

Also tagging my friend and fellow Champion @Kythera  - she uses Confluence and Jira to manage her portfolio and personal projects, I bet she'd have some ideas.

[Viswanathan Ramachandran]

hi @TomodachiLifeROM 

Yes, Jira can manage the content production process, although it isn’t a Content Management System (CMS). With the unified Jira platform, you can create a business project using a Project Management template and customize workflows, issue types, automations, and dashboards to manage the entire editorial lifecycle from idea to publication.

Jira is a single platform that supports:

• Business teams (Marketing, HR, Finance, Legal)
• Software development teams
• Project management
• Task tracking

From a reporting and metrics perspective, dashboards become extremely valuable.

One thing I always encourage is avoiding overly complex workflows. Keep the workflow simple enough that the team enjoys using it, then use automation, permissions, and dashboards to enforce consistency rather than adding unnecessary workflow steps.

Automation examples:

• Automatically assign articles to right group when writing is complete.
• Notify reviewers when an article moves to Ready for Review.
• Set due dates based on the planned publish date.
• Flag articles that remain in review beyond a defined SLA.
• Send Slack or Microsoft Teams notifications when articles are published.

Jira can absolutely become the operational hub for a growing platform when designed well and absolute benefit to engineering and business. 

[Viswanathan Ramachandran]

I also noticed you tagged Confluence and asked about Jira.

Confluence is primarily a collaborative knowledge management and not a traditional Content Management System (CMS). it is ideal for 

• Technical documentation
• Project documentation
• Internal knowledge bases
• Meeting notes
• Product requirements
• Runbooks
• Policies and governance documents
• Team collaboration

My honest opinion : Confluence can publish content internally (and in some cases externally), but it isn’t intended to run a marketing website or gaming blog.