Improvements and the next chapter of user management

[Daphne Zhang]

August 14 update

We started rolling out the new groups list and group profile for customers with the centralized experience. We're still rolling out the new user profile from the last update.

July 25 update

We finished rolling out the new users list for customers with the centralized experience. We're starting to roll out the new user profile for customers with the centralized experience.

June 12

We started rolling out the new users list for customers with the centralized experience.

Hey admins! We’ve been looking forward to giving you an update on user management in the cloud. This update is most relevant for customers on the original user management experience, but everyone will benefit from improvements we’ve been making behind the scenes. 🎉

We’re bringing the benefits of centralized user management to all customers, without the need to consolidate multiple directories into one. Read on for more details.

Recap

In 2021, we announced a new, centralized user management model for customers in Atlassian cloud. This gives new customers one directory for their entire organization, no matter how many sites they create. Last year, we moved existing customers with only one site to this model.

While the centralized model is appropriate for many customers, it’s not suitable for others. In November, we decided not to migrate our remaining customers. We know for these customers, a multiple-directory setup is necessary and intentional.

What's next?

In Q4 this year, customers on the original user management model will see users across all their directories (sites) in one place. These users still exist in separate directories, but admins will save time otherwise spent switching between sites to manage their respective users and groups.

Admins will also manage any user who is in more than one directory in one profile. Instead of updating profiles for the same user in multiple sites, you’ll be able to manage a user’s details and app access in different sites from a single profile.

Before we can make these changes, we’re improving the centralized experience. We’re making it easier to find users and manage their access, especially in organizations with thousands of users. In fact, we’ve already released some of these changes! Check them out below.

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New APIs

In March, we released new APIs for user management. These APIs support user management operations at scale and can be used by all customers. Try them out! See API documentation

In the coming months, we’ll release more APIs for write operations.

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Updated users list

Currently available to the centralized experience only.

The new users list separates Role, App access, and Status into separate filters, each with a search field to help you quickly find your criteria. You can also choose to show up to 100 results on a page, reducing the number of pages you need to navigate. With this update, you can also sort users by their public names.

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Updated user profiles

Currently available to the centralized experience only.

We’re starting to roll out an update to user profiles. This update moves the Apps and Groups tables into separate tabs, where you can choose how many apps or groups to show in each table. We also added search and filters to these tables, so you can look for specific apps or groups. You’ll also notice an active user’s status is now more prominent. The new profile also indicates to organization admins whether a user is a managed account or an external user.

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Updated groups list

Currently available to the centralized experience only.

We’re starting to roll out an update to the groups list. Use the new Apps filter to find groups that grant roles to a specific app. New action menus let you add users or grant access to a group without navigating to the group profile.

You can also choose how many groups to show on a page, up to 100 at once, reducing the number of pages you need to navigate. You can also sort groups by their name with this update.

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Updated group profiles

Currently available to the centralized experience only.

We’re starting to roll out an update to group profiles. You’ll find the group description and summary of members and apps in a card, similar to a user profile. Like the new user profiles, you’ll find the Members and Apps tables moved into tabs, where you can choose how many members or apps to show in each table. We also added search and filters to these tables, so it’s easier to find specific members or apps.

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Coming soon

• Updates to original user management pages

• More APIs

We’ll update this post as these are released.

As always, we’re interested in your feedback! If you have questions, leave a comment below.

Thank you,

Daphne

[Yatish Madhav]

Great stuff - thanks for this post @Daphne Zhang 

[Alin Faur]

This is definitely great news, thanks for sharing!

Our org has several sites and about 3,000 users, and we were looking forward for the centralized user management interface, as we don't need too much separation. Our main reason for that was to be able to properly manage user access to Atlassian Compass, which is not possible through the classic interface.

Is this something that the new updates are considering?

[Daphne Zhang]

Hey @Alin Faur, I can find out for you. Can you tell me a bit more about what you're unable to do in the classic interface (original user management) to manage access to Compass?

[Alin Faur]

Hi @Daphne Zhang , thanks for circling back!

In the classic interface, there's no possibility to control user role assignment (full user vs basic user) for Compass. The app description says that all users in the org can have basic access by default, we needed to restrict that to only a handful of users. However, when we create dedicated groups to access Compass, we can either grant those groups full user access or none.

We had a support ticket opened with Atlassian and an engineer applied a patch which made it so that the current list of full users remains as it is, but adding any new users to a group would grant them basic access only. It's a temporary workaround that satisfies our current need, but that can be insufficient in the near future.

We can get in touch and I could provide you with additional details (including the support ticket number and the details that were discussed). 

[Aneita]

Hey @Alin Faur

Thanks for the extra context! With the upcoming improvements, we will be updating this so that admins can manage users and the roles that they hold more easily. 

This applies to roles like Compass basic, Jira Product Discovery contributor, Jira Service Management stakeholder which today, in the original user management experience, isn't as intuitive. 

[Alin Faur]

That's great news, thanks for sharing!

Looking forward for updates! :-)

[Joerg]

Does this mean that the original experience will also get the new "user access admin" role?

[Daphne Zhang]

Hi Joerg! Thanks for the question.

No, we're not introducing the user access admin role to customers on the original user management model with this change.

Similarly, site admins of customers from the original user management experience will maintain their current permissions, rather than the permissions of a site admin on the centralized user management experience.

We have some separate work underway to revisit our organization model and admin roles so we can eventually support a consistent set of admin roles for all customers, on one user management model. We'll keep this group posted 😊

[Joerg]

Thank you.

Yeah I don't think it's good to have two separate systems, so I'm looking forward to the new consolidated experience, eventually.

[Daphne Zhang]

Hey admins, we started rolling out the new user profile today to customers with the centralized experience. Once it arrives in your organization, we'd love to hear from you! Leave us any questions or feedback you have, thank you!

[Joe_Noel]

I love these changes.

I'm not sure how related/much control your team would have, but right now site admins can only block the creation of new sites/shadow-it-instances if the product in question (Jira, Confluence, etc) is Enterprise tier. Not only is this bad end-user experience, it is also a security and compliance risk.

My company is currently a la carte--we have Enterprise on some apps and premium on others--but this feature to block shadow instances should really be spread to all standard+ customers of Atlassian.

I would link the (at least 5, that I know of) YEARS-OLD tickets that have hundreds of votes and strong support from customers about this on the community forums and the public support jira board, but they seem like they go nowhere, get transferred, then get closed without any meaningful change.

[Daphne Zhang]

Hey @Joe_Noel, I'm not involved in our work on shadow IT controls, but I'll find out if there's anything we can share with you regarding future plans. Thanks for your patience!

[Daphne Zhang]

Hi @Joe_Noel, thanks for your patience. The product manager for shadow IT has been away so I'm not able to speak to any details, but I don't believe there's any plan to revisit the Enterprise plan requirement to block the creation of shadow IT apps.

Sorry that's not the answer you're waiting for. I hope our improvements to user management pages in the meantime help you manage your users and groups a little more easily.

[Oleksandr Tolochko]

Hi @Daphne Zhang 

Is it possible to participate in the early access program for the organization level APIs?

This feature is very important to us, and we've been waiting for it for many years. Thank you!

[Aneita]

Hey @Oleksandr Tolochko - can you please send me an email at ayang@atlassian.com with your orgID? 

The EAP for the new APIs has not yet started, but I'll be able to update you via email once available.

Cheers,

Aneita

[Oleksandr Tolochko]

Hi @Aneita

Thank you very much, information sent ;)

[Daphne Zhang]

Hi all! We started rolling the new groups list and group profiles last week to customers with the centralized experience. We're still rolling out the new user profile from my last update, so don't worry if it hasn't reached your organization yet 😊

With these releases on the way, we can now focus on bringing all the above changes to customers with the original user management experience! 

We'll start by updating these pages where they currently exist (decentralized in sites). This will give you an opportunity to get familiar with the adjusted page layouts and functionality. Afterward, we'll centralize your user management pages so you can manage users and groups across sites in one place. We'll continue to keep you updated when these happen through this post and our release notes.

Happy Friday!

[Don Hames]

Hi @Daphne Zhang, Happy Friday indeed!

This is exciting news! We have been trying to coordinate the upgrade to the new user management experience for over a year, but preparing for it is almost impossible with our system due to the multiple sites, including those with separate instances of Jira/Confluence.

I would also like to proceed with this upgrade as soon as possible. Is there an EAP that could help accelerate the process for us? I have many questions, like how admin groups are handled, since in our decentralized user management, the groups are unique to each site.

I will gladly volunteer our organization to be among the first to upgrade to this new hybrid user management upgrade. Is there any way to be scheduled at the first possible opportunity?

Thanks, Daphne, I look forward to your reply and this upgrade!

Don Hames, ACP-OA, ACP-JCA, SME

[Todd Thomas]

Daphne-

Thank you for the update! Sometimes things get announced in advance but don't get updated later, so I wanted to say thanks for your diligence on keeping us updated. You may consider editing the original article with this update so it's easier to see at the start.

I'm looking forward to the updated administrative refresh.

[Kathleen Xu]

Hi @Don Hames, hope you're well! 

Just to clarify, we aren't migrating customers from the original user management experience to the centralised user management experience. That said, we have two upcoming releases for customers on the original user management experience. 

Our first release focuses on improving the original user management experience. This release will: 

• Improve performance and scalability

• Uplift the layout and functionality in the users list, user profiles, groups list and group profiles

These improvements will be available to all customers on the original user management experience by early October.

Following this, a second release will centralise user management pages, allowing you to manage users and groups across sites in one place. 

If you’d like early access to the first release, we can enable it for your org starting in early September. Please contact me at kxu2@atlassian.com with your orgID, and we'll work closely with you to coordinate this. 

Thanks! 

[Daphne Zhang]

Thank you @Todd Thomas! I'm happy to hear you feel informed by following this article. Great suggestion! I'll edit the original post with this update.

[Jason Bowne]

These are great improvements!  I do have a couple questions though. We wanted to move to the centralized user management (and only had 1 site directory) however the blocker for us was the number of managed users AND the fact we needed to turn off SCIM from Azure in order to get upgraded (too much of a risk of issues given how important Jira / JSM / JPD / Guard etc.. all is now that we have them all integrated into IT's operating model.

Will there be improvements around lowering the barrier to get into centralized user management, so it doesn't take measures as I described above to move?

[Daphne Zhang]

Hey @Jason Bowne, our work is focused on improving the user management pages in the centralized and original user management experiences as they are today, but we won't be changing anything regarding requirements to migrate to the centralized experience if you're currently on the original experience. I'm sorry to disappoint.

Having said that, if you're on the original experience today and you only have 1 directory, you'll benefit from the release we've planned for next month that promotes this directory to sit under Directory > Users in the navigation, rather than hidden in Apps > Sites > Users. I'll update this post when that happens and we welcome your feedback for any of our upcoming releases for the original experience.