Rachel Wright Community Champion

Who does what? (continued) Application Administrators Application admins need to consider the health of the application, impact, and maintenance implications for each decision and change they make. Settings and general configuration admin page in Jira CloudExample responsibilities: * Establish and maintain standards *…

Who does what? Next, let’s discuss the specific roles and responsibilities of application administrators. System Administrator Responsibilities (Server and Data Center) In short, a system admin maintains the equipment the applications need to function, like web servers, databases, networks, firewalls, mail servers, etc.…

Additional User Types Additionally, all application and deployment types have regular users who track their work in Jira. Regular users – create, update, and complete Jira issues and Confluence pages Jira Service Management (JSM) In JSM, technicians that resolve support requests are called agents. The users who request…

Combined Permissions (Server and Data Center) By default, in Server and Data Center, the role of the application administrator and system administrator is combined. Here’s a screenshot of the global permissions page in Jira Server and Data Center. Global permissions admin page in Jira Server and Data Center The first two…

Types of Admins Jira and Confluence admins fall into one of the following categories: System Level Administrators can perform every administration function. This level only exists in Server and Data Center. For Cloud, Atlassian is your system administrator. System admins do things like: * Configure the mail server *…

Jira and Confluence have multiple types of administrators which have different abilities, roles, and responsibilities. Knowing who should do what helps team members focus on their most important tasks and delegate different duties to others. How do you delegate admin responsibilities at your organization? In this series: *…

Has this ever happened to you? You rename or remove a group in Jira. Jira handles the change in most places, but rules in workflow transitions need to be manually updated. My application has more than ten workflows and each has dozens of transitions to check. Here are some options to handle this situation: * Open every…

What is your organization's Confluence content strategy? Do you have one? In this series: * Part 1: Introduction * Part 2: Forming an Advisory Board * Part 3: Making Content Decisions * Part 4: Space Scenario * Part 5: Scenario Creation Steps * Part 6: Scenario Creation Steps (Continued) * Part 7: Scenario Creation Steps…

Deleting a Space A few times a year, I hunt through my Confluence application looking for unused spaces. Here’s an example. Last month the software team requested a global space for a special project. But the special project never happened and the space wasn’t used. No content was added or changed since its original…

Confluence Benefits Unstructured data In Confluence, the data is stored in a less structured way. This makes it more flexible; users can order and format information any way they want. Flexible The price of flexibility however, is less robust reporting and charting capabilities. Document management One thing Confluence…

Planning, creating, and releasing software requires a sound process, strong coordination between multiple teams, and correctly configured applications. In this series: * Part 1: Introduction * Part 2: Planning Tools * Part 3: Planning Tools (continued) * Part 4: Jira Planning Features * Part 5: Jira Scenario * Part 6: Jira…

Now that you’ve seen the power of the roadmaps feature in Jira, let’s compare it to other planning tools. Here’s a sample Confluence page to show the other options. Note: The recording has no sound. Please refer to the copy provided below. Watch: https://youtu.be/2ADcLx-7h_M The options shown in the video are: * Plan in…

Jira Issue Structure Here’s the same list of items identified in the diagram as individual issues in Jira. Image and Issue Details * At the top of the image are the epics for updating web materials and print materials. * Next, are three tasks for each epic. * Each epic has a short, unique name in the “Epic Name” column. *…

Let’s set up an example Jira project, and add some sample issues, so we can see the roadmap in action. Jira Scenario For this scenario create a software project called “Company Rebrand” to store all the tasks for a organization’s rebrand project. Follow the steps in upcoming sections to build the scenario in your test…

Jira Planning Features All the Atlassian tools are great in their own way, but for the most powerful planning capabilities, I use Jira. Within Jira, you can plan using boards, the roadmaps feature, or any of the apps from the Atlassian Marketplace. Let’s explore how Jira’s roadmaps feature helps plan work. Jira Cloud…

Planning Work There are many ways to plan, prioritize, and schedule work. Atlassian has three tools in their suite for this exact purpose. The tools all have different features and abilities, however. Atlassian Tools Other Similar Tools * Jira * Confluence * Trello * Microsoft Project * Gantt charts, timelines, project…

Archival Permissions There’s a space-level permission to be aware of. Space permissions are granted to groups, individuals, and anonymous users, if enabled. In the pages column, there’s a special permission specifically for archival capability. Additionally, users with the “Add pages” permission can archive pages they…

Finding Archived Content Yay! The old content is archived. But where did it go? The content is not returned in search results or analytics. Here’s how to find the content again. In all deployment types, an “archived” filter appears in the space directory. Use it to navigate to the old space. Another option is the advanced…

Scenario Creation Steps (Continued) Finally, restrict the internal pages that contain personal and sensitive employee information. In the image, four pages are restricted to HR team members. Those pages are represented with a lock icon. Step 5 Standard: D Instructions: FAQ pages generally contain a lot of content. Add the…

Scenario Creation Steps (Continued) Step 4 Standard: F Instructions: Next add some sample child pages typically found in an HR space. For the employee audience, the sub pages are benefits, forms, and policies. For the team member audience, the sub pages are checklists, internal information, and meeting notes. Think of the…

Scenario Creation Steps Let’s build the structure discussed in the previous section. (Don’t forget to consider the standards (requirements) labeled A-F.) Each step shows an image of a hierarchical diagram. The diagram evolves as steps are completed. Step 1 Standard: A (See the key in the previous section.) Instructions:…

Now that an application strategy is defined, it’s time to determine page hierarchy and ways to organize content. Space Scenario Here’s a sample scenario for a small company with an in-house HR department. The Confluence advisory board has set a few global standards that apply to all spaces. They are: Global Standards * A.…

Making Content Decisions Once your advisory board is formed, it’s time for the board to make some important decisions. The ideal time to discuss application structure is at the time of adoption, but I know, some of you didn’t have that opportunity or you inherited an established application. (Me too!) But don’t worry –…

Forming an Advisory Board If you don’t already have one, create an advisory board to establish standards, support the admins, and advocate for users. Ideally, the board includes the following types of contributors: * An end user who understands how other users leverage the software. * This could be a technical or a…

Hello Community! My name is Rachel Wright and I am a certified Jira administrator, author of The Jira Strategy Admin Workbook, and an Atlassian Community Leader. In this video, I'll share ideas for exploring new growth opportunities: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4U4Nwntyzw Be sure to check out the next video in my 7…

Question What is a Jira issue and a Jira project? Why are users often confused by these terms? Why are things named the way they are? Answer Jira terminology is strange at first and even foreign if you’re using Jira to track business processes. Jira began as a bug tracking tool for software development teams and morphed…

Hey Community! As part of 🍂 Apptoberfest🍂 fun, I wanted to take a minute to share a demo of JSU, a handy workflow app. Jira admins like myself often use this fast and easy no-code solution to quickly solve complex workflow problems and automate our work in Jira. In this demo, I share how I used JSU to quickly configure and…

In case you need some inspiration, here are 65 ways you can use automation in Jira to make your life easier. You can accomplish all of these with built-in automation, workflow extensions, and scheduling apps! Communicate Information Send additional notifications * Notify the project manager when an initiative is approved *…

Hello from my sixty-eighth city in a long-term RV trip I started in 2015! I've traveled all over the US staying in different cities and states for just a few days up to many months. This week I'm in a state park in central Florida and next week I'll be living in a totally different town for the season. Working on the road…

Chris Lutz and Rachel Wright relaxing on their RV travel adventure I’m so fortunate to be able to combine my two passions: travel and Jira administration. In 2015, Chris Lutz and I started a full-time travel adventure and we haven’t stopped yet. Working on the road is easier and more rewarding than you’d think! If you’re…