Atlassian announced the JSM App Admin role last week ( @Ash Young , Introducing the JSM App Admin Role), with rollout completing in December 2026. I read the role page that Ash linked and I want to compare notes before anyone redesigns their admin groups around it, because the announcement reads broader than the comparison table.
What the table says the role grants (unlicensed, non-billable, assigned by org admins per JSM app):
- App settings and configuration, app usage and consumption settings
- App user management, app audit logs, app compliance settings
- App email settings, app authentication settings
- Customer organizations settings, knowledge base settings
- Space user management (the one space-level row it has)
What the same table marks No for App admin, and gives to User (agent) with the space Administrators role:
- Space settings and configuration
- Queue settings, SLA settings, automation settings, request type settings, operations settings
- Viewing queues, resolving tickets, comments
Ash confirmed in the comments that SLAs and queues without an agent licence are planned but “for now this still remains with the User (agent) role”.
The second layer the role does not touch is Jira administration itself. Request types sit on issue types, and the workflows, screens, custom fields, field configurations, permission schemes and notification schemes behind a company-managed service space are still Jira settings. Nothing in the role page or the announcement says the JSM App Admin can edit those, and Ash listed the hierarchy as Org admin, Site admin, Jira Administrator, JSM App Admin, Space admin, with Jira Administrator above the new role.
So for a service owner who is “JSM only”, the realistic picture today is three assignments, not one: JSM App Admin for the app-wide layer, User (agent) plus space Administrators for the space layer, and a Jira Administrator on call for the scheme layer.
What I would like to hear from people running larger JSM estates:
- Which tasks do your service owners actually raise to the central Jira admins today? My reading of the table says schemes and fields will stay there; is that your experience, or is it mostly request types and SLAs, which the agent plus space admin pair already covers?
- Will you remove the Jira Administrators App Admin role from JSM owners once this lands, or keep both until SLAs and queues are moved under the new role?
- Does anyone see the role in Atlassian Administration already, and does the assignment screen match the announcement (org admins assign per JSM app)? I have not seen it on the organisations I administer yet.
- Audit: the role grants app audit logs. Has anyone confirmed whether that is the JSM audit log only or the site audit log?
Ash asked which JSM tasks still require Jira Administrator access; I will summarise the answers here back on the announcement thread with credit, since that is the input Atlassian asked for.
Sources, read 28 October 2026: What are app roles in Jira Service Management, What are space roles in Jira Service Management, the announcement thread and Ash Young’s replies of 22 and 27 October.
