Where do we submit suggestions for improvements to the OnDemand FAQs / OnDemand sign-up trial?

[Andrew Frayling]

Hi,

I've noticed an increase in the number of times the same questions are being asked here about OnDemand, namely:

• How do I install plugin X?
• How do I customize Y?

Is there somewhere we can submit suggestions for improving your FAQs and/or sign-up trail to try and reduce the number of these questions?

Take an example of a new customer who's heard how awesome and extensible JIRA is and now there's an OnDemand option so he doesn't have to worry about infrastructure:

1. Visits http://www.atlassian.com - sees a nice by "Check out our products" link so he clicks it
2. Now at http://www.atlassian.com/software - Cool!! Useful descriptions of all the products and JIRA is front and centre
3. Clicking the JIRA link we're at http://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/overview - Nice!! I can try JIRA for free, but I'm gonna checking pricing first
4. http://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/pricing/?tab=ondemand - Wow, that's cheap, and "It's All Included" not like those download chumps where "Add-ons available from Atlassian Plugin Exchange" mine's got "Bundled add-ons and remote integrations"
5. Ok, I'm sold I'm gonna try JIRA (http://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/try/) - I'll just check the FAQs first, awseome "Trials are fully functional, so you can try any of the add-ons or plugins available. In Administration, navigate to 'plugins' and search for the add-on or plugin name to install."
6. Right, let's start my free trial (https://my.atlassian.com/ondemand/signup/jira) - Nice, simple form and double checking, "Yes, many more [add ons] may be enabled from within the administration console in your OnDemand Instance."

So he's all set up, get his confirmation email and starts playing with his OnDemand JIRA. Now he's heard of some awesome plugins and want to give those a try duing his trial, which he can right because "Trials are fully functional, so you can try any of the add-ons or plugins available. In Administration, navigate to 'plugins' and search for the add-on or plugin name to install." But, wait, the plugin(s) he wants to install aren't there.

How does he install plugins? No big deal, that's what Google is for: https://www.google.com/?q=install+jira+plugins where http://confluence.atlassian.com/display/JIRA/Managing+JIRA's+Plugins is the top hit and covers everything he needs to know about installing plugins, he just needs to go to the Install tab, but he doesn't remember seeing an install tab. So he logs in to OnDemand again just to check, nope, definitely no install tab. Better go back to the documentation and read it again, oh, what's this "Some functionality described on this page is restricted in JIRA OnDemand." What functionality? He hasn't tried creating dashboards yet, maybe it's that.

After a while he heads over to Atlassian Answers and asks the question where he's told "no you cannot install plugins with OnDemand" or has his question closed as "duplicate". Neither of which gives your new customer a very good impression of Atlassian or the community.

My point is that at no stage during the signup trail do you actually give a clear view of the restrictions with OnDemand and even when you visit the full documentation and are given an indication that there are some restrctions it's not clear what those restrictions are. I don't believe you're deliberately trying to be misleading, but something's not right if the same questions are cropping up again and again.

A single link to the plugin policy or restricted functions of OnDemand somewhere along the sign-up trail would probably help and I've got lots of other suggestions if you're willing to hear them ;-)

Andrew.

[Michael Knight · Accepted solution]

Thanks Andrew, I will bring this up with marketing and the tech writers to see if we can get this improved. If anyone else has any additional feedback, feel free to add it to this thread or even report it to Support.

[Andrew Frayling]

Thanks Michael. As mentioned I think a link to the Plugin Policy and/or Restricted Functions somewhere in the sign up process would help.

My other pet peeve is the way the dedicated OnDemand documentation at http://confluence.atlassian.com/display/AOD/Atlassian+OnDemand+Documentation+Home very quickly links off to main documentation without warning and you're suddenly reading instructions that only apply to the download version, albeit with the vague "Some functions are restricted". There used to be dedicated, self contained documentation for OnDemand, but that seems to have disappeared in favour of linking off to the main documentation. I can understand why you've done this as maintaining two sets of almost identical documentation carries an overhead, but the key word is "almost" and I don't think the differences are being highlighted well enough.

In addition to the above, is it possible to investigate having "sticky" questions here on AAC? Similar to old school forums where there are permanent threads that new users are encouraged to read before posting.

That's all for now, I'm sure I'll think of more :-)

Thanks again,

Andrew.

[Carlos Granados]

I have a suggestion. This:

Screen Shot 2016-02-16 at 12.25.02 PM.png

Might look a little better like this:

Screen Shot 2016-02-16 at 12.26.38 PM.png

Also whenever I tried uploading a screenshot I kept getting this:

Screen Shot 2016-02-16 at 12.29.26 PM.png

So I used links instead, but when I hit "comment" I got this:

Screen Shot 2016-02-16 at 12.34.26 PM.png

Then I realized it was because I wasn't signed in. Might wanna put tiny bit more specific error messages.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

I don't think this is a useful comment on a 4 year old thread.

[Andrew Frayling]

Some more for the common questions list:

• How often is my data with OnDemand backed up?
• How do I get a backup of my OnDemand data?

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

I don't think it's clear, for exactly the reasons Andrew has said.

I'm guilty of "closing as duplicate" these questions, because from a community view, the repeated questioning is annoying noise. That sort of repetetiveness strongly suggests people aren't getting the message when they need to see it. It should really be early on in the OnDemand process.

I don't think http://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/try/ is unclear in itself, but it's obviously not sinking in, or people aren't seeing that page as they go through the process.