Increase votes / visibility on most useful Suggestions or Bug fixes for Cloud Admins

[Suresh]

Quite often, many of us identify issues and work with Atlassian to get them logged as Bugs or Suggestions. Once created, these requests sit in JAC waiting for visibility, feedback, and votes that may help Atlassian prioritize them.

Would it make sense to have a dedicated Admin Community discussion (or use an existing space if one already exists) where administrators can share newly created Bugs and Suggestions that are specifically relevant to Jira/Confluence administration?

Yes, admins can create their own JAC filters and subscriptions, and this may seem like duplicate effort. However, if fellow admins share relevant tickets here, community members can discover, review, and vote for them much sooner through discussion notifications. It could be a simple way for admins to help other admins gain visibility for important issues.

Here are a few items I've recently voted for:

• Impersonation retains admin permissions on workflow properties rather than the impersonated user's permissions
  JRACLOUD-98903
  https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRACLOUD-98903

• Short or Smart Links for Rovo artifact URLs
  ROVO-989
  https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/ROVO-989

• Transition/Status in a shared workflow cannot be restricted to a single project
  JRACLOUD-98540
  https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRACLOUD-98540

• Rename the Action menu for clarity, since the hover text shows "Automation"
  JRACLOUD-98369
  https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRACLOUD-98369

• Retain existing Global Transition functionality in the new workflow editor
  JRACLOUD-98040
  https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRACLOUD-98040

• Rovo Studio Test panel produces output not observed via Rovo Chat
  ROVO-618
  https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/ROVO-618

• Custom field value comparisons in Automation rules fire even when conditions are not met
  AUTO-2218
  https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/AUTO-2218

• Stop execution of an Automation rule when an error occurs
  AUTO-2085
  https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/AUTO-2085

What do you think?

Worst case, this discussion ends here with no additional votes. Best case, it becomes a useful way for administrators to surface impactful Bugs and Suggestions to other admins who may share the same pain points and want to support them.

[Matt Doar]

I think many larger orgs have a channel in Slack called "vote-for-this" or such like. It helps focus feedback. But votes in jac are only one of the ways that Atlassian manages their backlog. So a separate group in community could be useful as a lightning rod for frustrations but I'm not sure it would change a lot. Might be mistaken though

[Ignacio Pulgar]

Atlassian shared only 1 vote per Atlassian Org counts. The number of users of the org is what matters, no matter how many of their users actually voted.

[Mykenna Cepek]

I'm of two minds on this...

• I like this @Suresh (it's occurred to me too). It's a way to get broader visibility to a curated set of bugs and suggestions in order to increase the voting on them. This makes them more likely to get Atlassian's attention. If that's the system, let's work the system towards the change we want.
• However, I also feel that the system is broken. What system? For Atlassian Cloud products, I mean their Bug Fix Policy and their New Features Policy (other links here). The former is heavily weighted on Atlassian's internal designations, and the latter at best "helps Atlassian understand" what's important to us. Our votes are only one aspect of the firehose of information we send towards Atlassian.

One critical thing missing from this system is the perspective of the Administrators responsible for Atlassian products at their orgs. Any random user can vote and comment. Those of us responsible for hundreds or thousands of product users have vital product perspectives and valuable product input.

Often our pain points are leverage points to make Atlassian's products more welcome and useful at our organizations to all our users. On a bad day we admins have upset users with real-life product problems. A good day is actually quiet. It's rather thankless in that sense. Being heard would matter a lot.

I believe Atlassian needs to find a way to listen to us better.

[Suresh]

@Mykenna Cepek If you look at https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/ROVO-985, https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/AUTO-2085, https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/ROVO-989 to name a few, in addition to Voting, I was really pushing them hard to have them assigned with my additional admin comments. Atlassian support team also wants us to have our voice heard than support team's notes. At least I consider assignment as major win, compared to the plethora of them being left in cold storage for ages.

[Sean H_]

I'd like to add:

• Ability to configure Threaded Comments in Jira

  https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRACLOUD-93678 

This one's been the bane of my life since it was introduced. It has well over 600 votes.

[Becker_ Rene]

That and Forbid to create instances with managed accounts are the two that I see every week ^^

---

[Esther Ortega]

I think it's a great idea, Suresh. Opening a dedicated channel or space for administrators to share relevant bugs and suggestions would make a lot of sense; I'm not aware of one as such today, but I'd certainly find it valuable.

I agree that Atlassian's own JAC, where issues are logged, could serve that purpose… but perhaps it isn't enough on its own. As Mykenna rightly points out, votes are just one of many information channels reaching Atlassian, and the specific perspective of those of us administering the product for hundreds or thousands of users gets lost there. A space curated by and for admins would help give faster visibility to the tickets that really hurt us day to day, and let those of us sharing the same problems back them sooner.

And even though, as Ignacio reminds us, only one vote per organization counts, bringing administrators' input together in one place would already be a step forward. Count my vote for the idea!

[Suresh]

@Esther Ortega In the absence of (and until the time) such dedicated channel or space for only Admins is available, we can continue to use this forum. Downside, lot of our comments/views could camouflage the suggestions/bugs that mean a lot to us and want votes & more importantly comments. 

As I mentioned here, I have been successful in getting them assigned, at the very least, by including my admin pain as comments than a simple vote.

[Becker_ Rene]

I actually don't see the point.

It's not because I do not like your idea - I do. But so far, I've not yet seen a bug that has been actually fixed. It either zombi-ed or was acquitted as not being relevant.

Recently when Atlassian migrated Confluence's legacy editor pages to new editor, they broke 1000s of pages. Criticality: low; Severity: low.

Besides the lack of QA, it speaks books on how Bug-Reporting/management works: It does not.

So ... I commend your proposition but I don't see that work and result will be balanced with this one.

---

Edit: The bug is, that the API breaks images under certain conditions when updating pages via API. -> I just wanted to make sure to differentiate between support and bug :-) 

---

[Suresh]

@Becker_ Rene Welcome to the Admin-victim-club. As you will realize in the Bugs listed here, this was (and has been) my strategy knowing very well that Atlassian does not have the same view as mine when it comes Criticality & Severity. 

1. If a known limitation has been found or agreed by Support team and did not have any corresponding link, I pushuade (push + persuade) them to open it, for me to track.

2. As soon as I get the Suggestion/Bug opened, post on our internal chat channel to get votes.

3. Leave a comment to give my view of their Assessment, Criticality & Severity. Check this https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/ROVO-985 out as example.

4. Include Atlassian Account contact (on your Atlassian support ticket), where ever necessary. It helps (and helped on ROVO-985).

5. Lastly post here. 

As you will realize, I am doing what is in my hands. 

[Becker_ Rene]

OK. Let's give it a go: https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-84258 :-) 

---

PS: Just in case it came across wrong: The negativity and frustration is pointed towards Atlassian's bug management, not towards you. I know, I sometimes sound a bit harsh (must be a German thing).

[Suresh]

sure and I voted. 

[Josh]

General consensus thus far - the way JAC works feels broken to customers and something needs to change for the better.

@Bryan Guffey had a good Linkedin Post on this topic about a year ago.

@Jens Schumacher - Released_so had an insightful Community Post on this topic back in October.

We could try to adjust the way we play the game, or we could push Atlassian to rewrite the rulebook. I recommend the later.

[Becker_ Rene]

> or we could push Atlassian to rewrite the rulebook

Any suggestions on how to do that?

---