Continual UI Changes: Salt in the Wound or Steps in the Right Direction?

[Haddon Fisher]

One of the biggest issues I have had\have\and suspect I will continue to have moving from Server to Cloud was\is change management. I definitely still have some PTSD from the silent change of maxResults but even beyond these once-in-a-while instance-shaking events, there is a near-constant stream of small "tweaks" we seem to get daily, mostly in the UI.

My questions to the community:

1. How do y'all feel about the pace of changes to the user interface?
2. How do y'all feel about the interface changes themselves?

I'm asking because...

1. It seems functionally impossible for people to keep up with the changes being made given the footprint of Jira in many organizations.
2. Most of the changes feel either value-neutral or value-negative.

I'm asking here because:

1. When I talk to Atlassian, the only answer I can really get is "We're doing this in response to customer feedback".
2. When I talk to other admins I'm friendly with, they agree that these changes don't make sense.
3. I can't get a sense looking at the comments on the announcements what the overall sentiment might be.

If I'm the crazy one, so be it - its not like I'm not crazy in other areas already. However, I see enough dissonance that it seems worth asking, and if we aren't the crazy ones then it seems important to know Atlassian is.

[Todd Winton]

Agreed on the sentiment.  This becomes an issue particularly when it is a function I might use once every few months and have to remember how to get to the correct location again.

[Victor Galli]

Keeping up with the changes is definitely tough!

My default recommendation for people is to take advantage of both sandboxes and release tracks in Atlassian Administration. I think you’ll find that the use of both of those together (putting your prod instance of each product on the bundled track and putting your sandbox instance of each product on the preview track) will make your life much better.

https://www.atlassian.com/blog/platform/change-management-in-cloud

https://support.atlassian.com/organization-administration/docs/manage-product-release-tracks/

[Kate]

Seconding Victor's post, the updates in Product Release tracks have been incredibly useful to my team. 

We have our Sandbox on the Preview track, with our Prod on Bundled. This gives us about a month to get used to any changes. I also schedule in my calendar time so I can check through the list of upcoming changes so I can inform myself and even test them out in Sandbox before they hit for users. 

I admit, it's never as good as being able to pick and choose what's hitting your environment; but knowing what's coming can go a long way to settle the discomfort. Admittingly there's been very little that I have actively disliked hitting our production (don't get me started on the automated 'Compass Components' change 🤬), but I've gotten used to it. 

[Gary Spross]

I agree with this sentiment, but I also understand that the software Atlassian provides is very complicated with a lot of "tentacles". That said, I don't approve of this as an "excuse" for poor implementation communication though.

I would like to see Atlassian provide a personalized "Product updates" feature. I would also appreciate all levels of updates to be included, not just the larger feature changes. I would envision this being a list of updates that are "Coming Soon" as well as an indication of when particular updates are implemented within the instance. The pushback I've received on this suggestion is that Atlassian can't provide specific dates when updates will be implemented. I'm not looking for exact dates though. I'd appreciate having a quarterly window for updates that are "on the horizon", a 2 weeks window for updates to be implemented, and immediate notification when an update has been implemented. Notifications to these updates could be set to all or on an individual basis (whatever the admin prefers). This would allow admins to, get up to speed with the upcoming updates, discern which updates require communication to their users, and an ability to prepare the users for the updates before they are implemented within the instance.

I like the continuous manner of update implementation. To your point though, I would just appreciate a "heads up" before updates are implemented (I'm concerned that the nav UI updates are suddenly going to be rolled into my instance one day and my user base is going to freak out). Atlassian most definitely has the ability to do this. They have to know when they are rolling out an update/set of updates and which instances the rollout is occurring within.

On a side note, I would also love to understand how Atlassian prioritizes improvements/feature requests they work on. This needs to be improved in my personal opinion. I come across requests, that are relevant to something I need to be able to do, and the request is 10+ years old and still "Gathering Interest". Example: I think the navigation needs improving, however I don't see a lot of enthusiasm for what has been shown thus far. Why is this something that was prioritized over a more functional request like providing details on group usage within an instance?

[Eliot Forrest]

Here are my thoughts on this and thank you for bringing this up to the community, great topic and one needs some attention from a customer experience perspective. 

1. How do y'all feel about the pace of changes to the user interface?
   1. Although we all can argue that sometimes-getting companies to give us quick and fast fixes, enhancements to critical software products can be challenging. I can say Atlassian does not have the problem. However, the pace and the amount it is not easy to keep up with and to properly organize them in such a way to help out with my internal users it is not easy. 
2. How do y'all feel about the interface changes themselves?
   1. So far, I will admit, I have like most of them, however there were some I scratch my head at when we have more pressing and obvious ones; dashboard widgets enhancements and why leave it to the Market Place to address some of the JQL gaps.  

[Gary Spross]

"why leave it to the Market Place to address"

This...

It is maddening how often there is an issue or something that cannot be performed within an Atlassian product and the go-to solution is to utilize an app from the marketplace. The cost of the products themselves are high. To then be told you have to pay more money to a different vendor to make the product more functional is ludicrous to me.

I do believe that the third party apps are ultimately a net positive as some great, otherwise non-existent features are created. However, when we are talking about OOTB functionality that should be improved upon, having a marketplace just means that those requested improvements will be overlooked by Atlassian. This is especially true when it comes to the administration of the products. I should not have to pay for a third party app to be able to maintain the organization/cleanliness of my instance with regards to groups, filters, dashboards, etc., not to mention being able to do these things in an efficient manner.

[Haddon Fisher]

I almost didn't want to mention change management comms at all here...it's such a big issue in and of itself it's worthy of it's own topic.

To Gary Spross's point, "Here is a change; the window for your instance to receive it started a week ago and runs for 9 months" is not helpful. I've also heard the whole "we can't be more specific" excuse from Atlassian but this is software, not the laws of physics. All that means is "we think it's better for us to invest our time and resources on other things" - part of the reason I posted this is that I cannot understand how "other things" keeps being UI changes and not this kind of stuff.

Victor Galli, I am happy that they added release tracks (and the ability to put sandboxes ahead) however at the end of the day I didn't find this as much of a solution as I thought; you can't get away from anything coming even when you do see it.

[Sim]

I can give a concrete example 

I was stunned/lost when I wanted to delete a Jira board but cannot find the delete button

I tried to ask Atlassian Intelligence for an answer to check if I got amnesia

but the delete option is really not there 😨

It took me some effort to discover the list of all created boards is buried under "Your Work" 🕵️

[Sim]

Even Atlassian Intelligence cannot keep up with the change....

[Sebastian Mendel]

I might accept the quick changes if the fixes were the same. But it seems the focus is mostly on changes that help Atlassian sell more rather than improving the UX for existing customers.

So many long-standing, unresolved bugs that I have to provide workarounds for or just tell my users it doesn't work. Why aren't they being fixed at this pace?

Or much-needed features that take forever or are implemented "weirdly," like custom domains.

While this sounds like an empty threat, I think Atlassian is losing us, at least since they "forced" us into the cloud.

In summary: quick changes are fine, it's just like Atlassian is making the wrong changes.

[Keith Jones]

This is a big sore spot for me, and one I've mentioned every time I get the ear of someone at Atlassian. I feel like they are looking for the next, new, exciting feature that a few will use, while ignoring the issues that have their own anniversary parties in the Atlassian ticket system. 

For an example - Agents not being able to @mention customers without first making them Request Participants, which can lead to notification hell on a busy issue. 
(JSDCLOUD-1476) - Opened 2/2015, last updated 2/2022, still marked as "under consideration". 1045 votes for it. 

I also have a problem with being told "get the add-on" for the same basic functionality found in most other ticketing systems. 

I do like some of the changes that have been rolled out, but to be honest - most of them simply don't apply to us. 

[Morgan Watts]

I am relatively new to being a Jira admin, with just a year of experience using the Cloud product.

I agree that the constant changes can be overwhelming, especially when you are still learning the ins and outs of the product. However, some of the updates have significantly improved ease of use and accessibility. Recent changes in board management and custom field organization, for instance, have been particularly beneficial.

As another commenter stated, and I agree with the sentiment, is an overreliance on the marketplace to cover shortcomings, which feels more like just another revenue stream.

One challenge I face is the reliance on the marketplace for enhancements. My company prohibits the use of plugins due to security concerns, which means missing out on tools like ScriptRunner and advanced dashboard plugins. This limitation can hinder problem-solving. Although it sometimes pushes me to come up with creative solutions, the quickest fix is often simply purchasing a plugin. While I understand this is part of Atlassian’s business model and supports other companies, the inadequacies of JQL can feel like an intentional gap for third-party solutions, which can be frustrating.

Overall, I appreciate Atlassian’s commitment to regular updates. Reading the weekly release notes is helpful, but they could be clearer. Some features remain in the "rolling out" phase for weeks without clear indication of their status. This makes it difficult to determine if a feature is genuinely new or still in progress.

[Anne Saunders]

It's funny how many user requests are in the backlog with thousands of upvotes over a decade or more, and none of them are AI or Atlas, or whatever the next shiny thing is. 

That said, I was really jazzed about the changes to Automations and the addition of the List view - those are the only ones that have felt meaningful for me lately.

[Morgan Watts]

I'd love to use Atlas, but I've still found building a nice Confluence page does the same thing without having to learn a new product. 

Curious if once Work Management and Software combine will Atlas make more sense. Atlassian is pushing the "Goals" function more it seems.  

[Gary Spross]

@Morgan Watts, Atlas is being rebranded as "Platform Experiences". It seems, based on this post, that many of the Atlas features are going to be inclusive within Jira projects. This, to me, makes for a much more seamless experience. We have not begun using Atlas because when I researched utilizing it, I knew there wasn't going to be adoption because it was another area of the tool to navigate to and yet another "thing" users would need to update. If the features of Atlas will truly be integrated within projects, I can see adoption in the future being more likely.

[Morgan Watts]

@Gary Spross Agreed on the "another thing to update" part of the tool. That was the biggest deterrent to me attempting to use it. "Reporting hell" is rampant and with Jira being new at my company, having too many places to look solves more problems than it answers. 

Thanks for linking that post. I haven't read that one blog yet. 

[Anne Saunders]

@Gary Spross I wish we hadn't started using Atlas. The PMs were interested, but the interest dropped off quickly. 

[Gary Spross]

@Anne Saunders, what do you attribute the drop off in interest to? Is it similar to my thinking that users would feel that it was "just another thing requiring updates"?

[Anne Saunders]

@Gary Spross That was it exactly. A tool that was pitched as a way to centralize and organize was really just so much busywork, followed by the juice not being worth the squeeze.

[Haddon Fisher]

For those of you who have actually invested any time in Compass or Atlas....is it any better than Portfolio 1.0\Portfolio 2.0\Align or any of the other attempts they've made to chase this dragon?

To be honest, at this point I just take it on faith that these tools are too data-heavy to work and will be quietly dropped in a year or two...I'd love to be proven wrong!