Enhancing the objective and key result experience in Jira Align: Transitioning to a unified OKR hub

[#1]

TL;DR: We're consolidating objective tracking and management into a single, improved experience: OKR hub.

Hi everyone,

My name is Denise Garcia and I am a Product Manager on Jira Align, working on the objective experience.

As of version 11.10, the OKR hub will be enabled by default for all environments as the single place to manage and track objectives. This release is scheduled for deployment to continuous track sandbox environments on March 28, 2025, for production Cloud environments on April 11, 2025, and will be available for on-premise environments on April 30, 2025.

We’re excited and believe this change will make it easier for you to:

1. Streamline and standardize processes for managing OKRs.

2. Summarize or drill down easily in a single view.

3. Make OKR views customizable for each user’s preferences.

Got questions or need help? Comment below!

What is changing?

The OKR hub will replace the legacy Objectives tree page in the sidebar navigation, and selecting it will land you in the new experience by default. On your first visit, there will be a quick spotlight tour to review the Tier filter and the option to return to the legacy objectives tree page.

The Tier, Team, and Program Increment filters will respect the options selected in the sidebar, and are open to allow the selection of additional teams and program increments.

Note: The legacy objectives tree page will be removed from the product in version 11.13.

Why are we replacing the legacy objectives tree?

The OKR hub has been rolled out as opt-in experience for over a year, and we’ve heard positive feedback that the new table gives you more control when selecting the data most relevant to your workstreams.

We’re excited to roll this out by removing the legacy objective tree page permanently so that all users can track and manage goals with the same improved experience.

Having two experiences to complete the same task can be confusing and unproductive. Our goal is to standardize your process with the OKR hub so that everyone can consistently create, track, and complete objectives in a streamlined manner.

Here are some of the benefits you’ll get in the improved experience:

• Drill down easily from goals to objectives  - Click on goals to drill down to objectives in the same view.

• Customize the display for your team’s needs - Flexible column arrangement means you can drag-and-drop fields to prioritize what data you see first.

• Focus by status - Filter by statuses in one click to laser-focus on what's at risk or off-track.

• Jump into visual mode - Click on a parent objectives tree to see a visual representation of related child (and parent) objectives.

What do I need to do?

No action required, the OKR hub will be enabled by default in the upcoming version, 11.10. For more about the new OKR/goals hub, visit the Jira Align Help Center.

Note: You’ll still be able to access the legacy objectives tree until it is removed in version 11.13.

We’re continuously improving the objectives experience, so we’d love to hear your feedback as you utilize the new hub!

What's next?

In an upcoming release, we will also be shipping an improved objective details panel! This will eventually replace the legacy objective details panel. See the image below for the improved design, including:

• a streamlined creation experience

• clear information architecture

• enhanced security for cross-portfolio work item associations

Looking forward to your feedback on the objective experience in Jira Align!

[__ Jimi Wikman]

How will these tie into Goals?

[Denise Garcia]

Hi Jimi, goals can be seen in the OKR hub by selecting one of the goal tiers from the Tier filter in the header. If goals at the tier you select have child goals/OKRs, the items can be expanded to show the cascading view of the goal and OKR hierarchy.

[Dane Warner]

Thank you for this update - will this change fix some of the naming inconsistencies of these activities? For example, if you select a goal, the OKR Hub activity name would change to 'Goals Tree.' This makes it challenging to train new users and direct them in the tool if the name is changing depending on the tier-level selection. It is not intuitive. I would be OK if the 'Goals Tree' were renamed to 'Goals Hub' or similar, but if the activity is called the Hub and the other activity is called a Tree, we should be consistent on terminology.

This is on top of the Objective Tree vs. OKR Hub activity appearance. If a user happens to select the Objectives Tree activity button, I have found they will struggle to find the OKR Hub again since they expect it to appear when they select the "OKR Hub" activity off the left-side panel. Instead the behavior is to default the activity that was last selected - either OKR Hub or Objectives Tree.

[__ Jimi Wikman]

@Denise GarciaVery nice! Thank you for the clarification :)