Alignment of all areas - which Add on / App should we use?

[Vanessa Becker]

Good day

Our organization has Service Management and Software setup and we have several projects setup.

The process is currently if the Service Management ticket is logged and it is a new feature it needs to go to a Design/Product phase (project) and thereafter if feasible it is assigned to our Development project.

The difficulty that we are having is that we are battling to see all items in the pipeline of all three areas. What is the suggested App / Add on to use where you can align all these products/projects to see what is in the pipeline and on the roadmap so you can show your customers where in the phase their requests are logged?

So we basically want to see everything logged and their deadline dates and other fields we will choose through one central App/Add On

[Lewis Cook · Accepted solution]

If you have a Cloud Premium subscription the Advanced roadmaps option does a lot of what you're after. I'm aware of the other add-ons suggested, haven't used them but they do similar jobs from my understanding.

Dependent on the audience and their expectation as well as your broader process it seems like you could potentially achieve some of what you want via Kanban Boards or Dashboards. Both of these options are heavily filter driven allowing you to pull in the issues at the right level for the audience.

[Domenico Manzo _Actonic_ · Accepted solution]

@Vanessa Becker I fully agree with Fabian, BigGantt from Softwareplant is a great tool to track your Project Planning and Management. There is also other tools, depands on your needs and budget. 

If you need help or support, just le me know, we will be happy to help you. 

[Fabian Lim · Accepted solution]

Hi @Vanessa Becker

I would recommend biggantt from softwareplant especially if you are using separate jira projects to track the work. Otherwise, Jira roadmaps would have been a good option.

There are a lot of other apps out there too and you will get tons of recommendations from vendors.

[Anna-BigPicture]

Hi @Vanessa Becker

I just wanted to add a few words about BigPicture/BigGantt, because its flexible rules in defining a Program scope seem to answer your needs.
BigPicture allows users to create a defined collection of tasks based on a combination of multiple Jira projects, boards, or filters and display them all on the roadmap.

The App gives you a lot of flexibility; you can include tasks from different projects or only some tasks that meet your particular specifications in one Program box. The setup's flexibility ensures you that a Box can be configured to contain exactly the tasks you need to fit your work, using narrowing down JQL Filter (limiting it to epics only). Please have a look at my image.

[Vanessa Becker]

Thank you do you have a demo I can watch?

[Keith Jones]

We took a little bit of a different approach. We clone items from JSM into different development projects, and through automation, we update specific fields in the original JSM service request, using that as our single source of truth on status and updates. This gives us the ability to surface some of the metadata back to the customer, and to keep our overall reporting in a single project. In our case, the original service request stays open until the development has been completed and accepted by the user. 

[Dave Rosenlund]

As you can see, @Vanessa Becker there are a number of ways you might address your use case. However, there is no one size fits all answer. IMO, the best way (for you) is going to depend on a number of factors.  Here's a suggested shortlist:

• On-prem or Cloud? (if you aren't sure, look at your Jira url's - if there's an "atlassian.net" at the end the answer = cloud
  • If cloud, are you using Premium or Enterprise? If so, Atlassian's Advanced Roadmaps is inside. 
  • If cloud, does the Atlassian Cloud Fortified program matter to you?
  • If on-prem (aka, not cloud) do you have a Data Center or Server deployment? If data center, Advance Roadmaps is inside. If you are on a Server deployment, Advanced Roadmaps is not an option for you.
  • If on-prem, does the Atlassian "Approved for Data Center" program matter to you? 
• Are you using the Jira Software Epic > Story > Sub-task hierarchy across all projects? Or, have you adapted your issue hierarchy to suit a previously established process(es)?
• Are there any other Jira apps actively being used in the organization?

Those questions, as well as others that may arise depending on how you answer those questions, should guide your next steps.  But, in general, what you are describing is project portfolio management.  

In the Atlassian ecosystem, the top-sellers in this category are he already mentioned Advanced Roadmaps, BigPicture/BigGantt, and Structure/Structure.Gantt.  But there are others that may be a better fit for you. 

My suggestion: If you already have Advanced Roadmaps, start there. But if you don't (or can't afford that approach), have a look at the others mentioned here and/or learn how to craft an Atlassian Marketplace search that maps to the answers to those questions. 

I explain how in this article.  It's about a different subject but if you skip to the search techniques I describe toward the end of the article you can apply the answers to the questions above to your search.

Hope this helps,

-dave 

P.S. Full disclosure, my employer makes Structure and the optional Gantt add-on, Structure.Gantt, but I tried to generalize my answer.