Jira 9.4 / JSM 5.4 LTS released

[#1]

Hello Community!

We know that many of you have been eagerly awaiting the next Jira Software and Jira Service Management Server and Data Center Long Term Support (LTS) release. We’re excited to announce that Jira Software 9.4 and Jira Service Management 5.4 LTS releases are now available!

Why choose a Long Term Support release?

Upgrading to a Long Term Support release provides you with continued access to critical security, stability, data integrity, and performance fixes for the two-year support window before this version reaches its end of life. LTS releases enable you to move quickly when a high-impact bug or security fix is ported over and released for upgrading.

What to look forward to in Jira Software 9.4 and Jira Service Management 5.4

As we prepared Jira Software 9.4 and Jira Service Management 5.4, the Jira teams focused on improving user value, offering continued quality, and improving accessibility.

User value

This LTS release includes several improvements to the user experience, notably the now native inclusion of Automation for Jira (A4J). The A4J Data Center app is now a free marketplace app; as long as you are on a supported Jira Data Center license you can leverage the app for free until you upgrade to a future release where it is included natively, such as this LTS. A4J is a powerful, no-code automation engine that allows customers to automate and extend Jira’s capabilities. It supports thousands of use cases, such as synchronizing parent and sub-tasks, smart auto-assigning, tracking SLAs, the ability to act on linked issues, and more.

Exceptional quality

In recent releases, we’ve tackled high-impact items and bugs to ensure we would deliver a high-quality, high-value release. All in all, we've resolved hundreds of issues since our last LTS releases, Jira Software 8.20 and Jira Service Management 4.20, including an issue with the attachment button and performance degradation with bulk issue move operations.

Accessibility

We are especially pleased to share that this LTS release includes several accessibility updates. This upgrade remediates accessibility blockers and allows these users to complete essential tasks within Jira Software and Jira Service Management.

Jira Software has now resolved many critical issues for low-vision and keyboard-only users. Additionally, we have updated Assets functionality-related user accessibility in Jira Service Management and improved the overall user experience. View all of our closed JAC accessibility tickets here for JSW and here for JSM.

By upgrading your instance to 9.4 you will get all of the improvements and features that we’ve shipped since Jira Software 8.20 and Jira Service Management 4.20, including:

Jira Software

• Automation for Jira is now part of Jira Software Data Center (Data Center)

• Limit excessive activity with Safeguards (Data Center)

• Activity tabs improvements (Data Center)

• Connect to Cloud products with secure application tunnels

• Additional language support for Advanced Roadmaps (Data Center)

• Project picker search improvements

• Improved gadget configuration experience

• Make your integrations more secure with OAuth 2.0

• Login performance improvements for basic authentication

• Exclude projects from the data pipeline (Data Center)

• Diagnose and troubleshoot Jira on the fly with Java Flight Recorder

• OAuth 2.0 Outgoing mail (SMTP)

• Node scaling (Data Center)

• Exclude events from the audit log (Data Center)

• Performance improvements for Agile boards

• Keep your site running like clockwork with app monitoring

Jira Service Management

• Automation for Jira is now part of Jira Service Management Data Center (Data Center)

• Faster and more accurate SLA calculation (Data Center)

• Additions to auditing for Insight (Data Center)

• Improved Insight accessibility and performance (Data Center)

• Connect to Cloud products with secure application tunnels

• Limit excessive activity with Safeguards (Data Center)

• Better communication with multiple email channels (Data Center)

• New SLA configuration interface (Data Center)

• Reuse data with auto-populated request fields (Data Center)

• More data points to get a snapshot of your service team’s work

• Exclude projects from the data pipeline (Data Center)

• Make your integrations more secure with OAuth 2.0

• Tailor the requests list (Data Center)

• Speak your mind with comment reactions (Data Center)

• Use queues in the mobile app

• Faster background processing

• Diagnostic recording configuration with Java Flight Recorder

• Email channels audit log

• Exclude events from the audit log (Data Center)

• Improved indexing management at Jira start-up (Data Center)

• Keep your site running like clockwork with app monitoring

• Tailor the requests list (Data Center)

• Login-free customer portal (Data Center)

• Help center column sorting (Data Center)

• Background processing performance improvements

• Insight is now Assets

• Insight accessibility and performance boost

For a bird's eye view of all the changes, check out the Jira Software 9.4 and Jira Service Management 5.4 Long Term Support Release Change Log.

Planning your upgrade

As a reminder for those of you who are currently on Jira Software 8.13 or Jira Service Management 4.13, the end of life (EOL) for these versions is November 8th, 2022.

For the best experience, we encourage you to upgrade as soon as possible. Atlassian will continue to provide assistance if you encounter issues related to upgrading from your EOL version to a supported version.

We understand upgrades can take some planning, so here’s a round-up of resources to help you prepare:

• Pre-upgrade planning tool

• Jira Software 9.4 Release Notes

• Jira Software 9.4 Upgrade Notes

• Jira Service Management 5.4 Release Notes

• Jira Service Management 5.4 Upgrade Notes

• Jira Software 9.4 and Jira Service Management 5.4 Long Term Support Release Change Log

Feel free to share any questions or comments below!

Thank you!

The Jira Product team

[Pramodh M]

Hi @Andrzej Kotas 

Can you please confirm if we can upgrade the instance to LTS release without the fear of having bugs?

How Atlassian ensures to quickly fix the bugs, or any security vulnerabilities found on the LTS release. Please help with the information. 

We are thinking upgrading the platform to LTS version

Thanks,

Pramodh

[Andrzej Kotas]

@Pramodh M I believe this is something you might be looking for  https://confluence.atlassian.com/enterprise/long-term-support-releases-948227420.html

• For details on what security fixes get backported to Long Term Support releases, see Security Bug Fix Policy . 

• Some bug fixes can also be backported: for related details, see Atlassian Data Center and Server Bug Fix Policy.

• To learn the differences between each type of release, see Release terminology and Long Term Support releases.

• There's also a brief overview of Long Term Support releases on this  blog post from our  Head of Product. You can also post your questions and comments on this community post. 

• Looking for a trusted Atlassian advisor to help you navigate transformation challenges for DevOps, ITSM, and Agile at scale? Check out our Technical Account Management service.

• Need more hands-on support? Check out our support services.

[Filip Sagen]

Hi @Andrzej Kotas

We just upgraded to the LTS but experience that the Activity tabs improvements have a negative effect on the user experience. Unlike the cloud environment, the comment-box does not adjust to the newest/oldest first ordering, and with issues that has a lot of comments is it not possible to see the latest previous comment when adding a new comment, regardless of ordering.

I've tried to find more information on this but cannot see that Atlassian has recognized it as an issue for Data Center customers, it was addressed for the cloud here: https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRACLOUD-73076

Do you know if this will be addressed in future releases or is it not considered as an issue at all?

[David Yu]

@Filip Sagen see these two issues:

• https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRASERVER-74191
• https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRASERVER-74122

and also this previous post. Personally we are holding off upgrades until these issues are fixed.

[Tanya L Christensen]

@Filip Sagen and @David Yu 

I agree with your request to update the positioning of the 'Add Comment' button.

As a work-around, typing the shortcut 'm' will take you to the comment window no matter what's displayed on the screen.

• 4 essential JIRA Software keyboard shortcuts
• Using keyboard shortcuts 

Also, using the . (dot) to launch the Quick Operations and selecting 'Add comment' will launch a Comment modal window.

[Filip Sagen]

@David Yu 

Thanks a lot! yes, those where the exact kind of tickets i didn't find before, I also made a comment on the previous post.

@Tanya L Christensen 

Those are great tips, although, if you want to reference anything said in previous comment and want it to be readable while editing a new comment it's still an issue I'm afraid.