Rachel Wright Community Champion

Announcement: The in-person Summit user conference in Las Vegas, is suspended for 2020. There will be an online, remote event instead. Please read Atlassian’s Summit 2020 FAQ. Updated for Summit 2020! Continued from Atlassian Summit 2020 Travel Guide – Vegas Edition (Part 1) Side Trips Do you have extra time in Vegas? 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 talk about the importance of getting certified: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2FoOyPqDyA Be sure to check out the next video in my 7 part…

As a consultant, I’ve seen a lot of different Jira configurations and helped plan many migrations, merges, and moves. Sometimes the effort is small, like moving a Jira project from one application to another. Other times it’s porting an entire application to a different hosting environment or combining multiple large…

See part 1 “The fundamental reality is we can’t bring [new Cloud features] to Data Center.” – Mike Cannon-Brookes, Atlassian Co-Founder and Co-CEO One of the coveted perks of being an Atlassian Community Leader, is the ability to periodically chat with Atlassian leadership. In an “ask me anything” session with Mike…

Atlassian Team 2021, formally known as Summit, is the annual user conference. This event brings Atlassians, customers, users, and partners together for a few magical days of announcements, demos, and discussions. This year Atlassian created the ultimate digital experience to discuss the evolution of modern work, building…

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 talk about the benefit of joining the Atlassian Community program: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfkw50mXkzU Be sure to check out the next…

Where’s the best place to track your Jira migration? It’s the same place you’d track any other strategic company initiative! I always track my work for Jira in Jira. That includes everything from small configuration changes to big projects like migrations and upgrades. To make it easier for you to manage your migration in…

If you haven’t done a software migration before, it’s hard to know what to expect. How do you properly plan for something unknown? How does the configuration and amount of data impact complexity? How long will it take? The answers to these questions are different for each organization and application. Use these common…

Sometimes it’s important to understand how far your Jira application has strayed from the default configuration. Was that setting there from the beginning or did an application administrator add it eons ago? Default notification scheme (Jira Software Cloud) To find out, visit Admin > Issues > Notification…

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 talk about the importance of creating a test environment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-ZmzMakFhA Be sure to check out the next video in…

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 talk about the importance of tracking changes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tpYAqRm294 That's the end of my video series! You can see all…

One of my customers wants to prevent Jira issues from being edited after creation. While this is possible using a Permission Scheme, there are pros and cons for restricting the edit ability. But before I share my opinion of this idea, I wanted to hear yours! Discussion questions: * What problems could this solve? * What…

Sometimes it’s important to understand how far your Jira application has strayed from the default configuration. Was that setting there from the beginning or did an application administrator add it eons ago? To find out, visit Admin > System > Global permissions in your application. Then use this baseline list to compare…

“The way you should implement new things in Jira is to think about how you’ll report on those things. Always start with reporting needs and work backward.” Join Rachel Wright and Manuel Pattyn from iDalko, a Platinum Atlassian Solution Partner, as we discuss Jira clean up. In this episode of the Atlassian.FM podcast, we…

Question We are using a shared screen scheme across multiple projects. How do we make changes to one project without impacting others? Answer It’s great that multiple projects share schemes! Sharing schemes is the goal. Whether it’s screens, issue types, workflows, or other settings, Jira maintenance is easiest when…

In October 2020, Atlassian announced they will stop selling new Server licenses on February 2, 2021. Further, they will end support for Server products on February 2, 2024. This means customers like me will need to switch to Data Center, migrate to Atlassian-hosted Cloud products, or make alternate plans. It’s no surprise…

How does Jira ordering work? What happens when users prioritize issues differently or on different boards? How do I know if ordering is functioning correctly? Answer Jira provides a way to order and prioritize issues. On a board, simply drag an issue above or below another issue to determine ranking. Ranking is a global…

A new navigation for Jira Cloud is on the way! Atlassian is returning to Jira’s navigation roots by replacing the left sidebar menu with a top nav bar. Former Jira Server users will find the design very familiar. Users are likely to adopt these changes quickly. My colleague, Chris Lutz, who has previously only used the…

Question When I started using Jira in 2011 there was only one type. But now there are different application types, like Jira Core, Jira Software, and Jira Service Desk, and different deployment types, like Jira Cloud, Jira Server, and Jira Data Center. If you have Jira Cloud, there are also different plans like Free,…

Are you migrating from Jira Server to Jira Cloud (or vice versa)? The user interfaces are similar, but there are some differences to prepare for. In early 2020 Atlassian started incrementally delivering a new navigation experience for Jira Cloud. The return of the horizontal navigation makes the application look similar to…

This article is part of a collaborative series on Form Design. Previous articles covered Why Form Design Matters, Form Layout and Flow, writing Good Form Questions - Open Questions and Good Form Questions Part 2 - Choice and Conditional Logic and Things to Think about When Converting Forms to Jira. When I became a Jira…

This is the next article in our series on Form Design. Previous articles include: * Why Form Design Matters * Form Layout and Flow * Good Form Questions - Open Questions * Good Form Questions Part 2 - Choice and Conditional Logic * Things to Think About when Converting Forms to Jira * Efficient Jira Screens and Jira…

Announcement: The in-person Summit user conference in Las Vegas, is suspended for 2020. There will be an online, remote event instead. Please read Atlassian’s Summit 2020 FAQ. Updated for Summit 2020! My two favorite things in life are Atlassian Summit and travel! Atlassian’s flagship event, the annual user conference, is…

This article is part of a multi-part series. Also see: * Summit Through the Years - Part 1: 2013 - 2015 * Summit Through the Years - Part 2: 2016 - 2017 * Summit Through the Years - Part 3: 2017 - 2019 I've attended Atlassian Summit since 2013 and as a frequent attendee, I'm always excited to see what's new each year. Each…

I’m asked the same question all the time: How do I learn more about Jira administration so I can be a great admin? There are a ton of resources available; you just have to know where to look, to seek them out, and be willing to put in a little time and effort. Like anything in life, the more you put in, the more you get…

It’s smart to make Jira workflows as simple and flexible as possible. I like to give users multiple ways to transition issues between statuses and even let them skip statuses when needed. But sometimes skipping a status is undesirable or creates a compliance problem. Consider an approval status for example. You’d certainly…

Series Menu: Intro | Gear Tests and Practice Walks In this post of the “Trekking with Trello” series, I’ll share how I used Trello software to prepare for my long distance walk on the Camino de Santiago in Spain. I’m a planner and a researcher. I like data and hate unknowns. I want to know exactly what I’m getting myself…

When considering your Atlassian product training strategy, select content that’s specific to each user’s role and delivered in manageable pieces. Different types of users need different information, different levels of detail, and need it delivered at different times. It’s tempting to gather everyone in a big room for a…

In my previous How to Study for Jira Administrator Certification article I shared my tips for preparing for and taking the Jira Certification exam. Now that you’ve passed the exam, you might be asking, what’s next? The initial exam is only the first step in your Jira learning journey! You’ll need to take additional exams…

As a Jira administrator, I frequently see this problem: child issues are closed but nobody remembered to close the parent issue. Users have already moved on to the next thing and the parent issue sits in its incorrect status forever. Or maybe it’s the opposite: the Epic is closed, but its Stories, Bugs, and Tasks were…