Using JIRA Service Desk for IT

[Josh McWilliams]

So I'm coming from a ServiceNow background and the JIRA service desk seems a bit empty. How do I go about getting it setup for specifically IT use? The Service desk is currently setup where IT has its project called IT Help Desk. And people create tickets via email and there's a queue of tickets and there's a set SLA that is the same regardless of what it is that can't be changed anywhere. It does not differentiate between Incident, Change, Request etc. There's no auditing function or change scheduling to be found. I see the website talking about the Service Desk features and functions and I'll be honest I don't see really any of them aside from ticket creation. What am I missing? The cloud app does not differentiate between Jira and Jira Service desk as they both go to the exact same page. It says its ITIL certified but has no ITIL functions out of the box? What add ons do I need for this to be more than the most basic of ticketing systems?

[Jack Brickey]

Hi Josh and welcome to the Community. I haven't personally use SN so cannot comment on the comparison. However, I can try to answer some of your JSD questions.

When you create a project in JSD you have a few template options one of which is focused on IT. The main differences between the templates are the workflows and a few config items. In JSD there are two important fields to understand, well there are actually many but let's focus on these two, Issuetype and Request Type. Issuetype is the underlying Jira Core field that can be associated w/ a specific workflow to create the desired process flow. Request Types are sort of like sub-categories of the Issue Type which means that all request types under an issue type will follow the same workflow constraints, conditions, properties, etc. With that brief intro, to your statement about no differentiation between incident, change and request, the use of Issuetype and Request Type should allow you to realize this requirement. Of course it ultimately depends on your detailed requirements.

Regarding JSW and JSD going to the same "page" i'm unsure what that is referring to. JSD project and JSW projects are independent and while generally folks deploy both apps in the same instance for many good reasons they don't have to be. You could have a JSW cloud instance and a separate JSD instance, though I would rarely recommend doing so.

Regarding the larger question about what addons you need I think it would be best to understand what features/functionality you need. The reason I say this is that I expect many, but unlikely all, could be met OOTB.

Finally, it might be best to go thru a full test setup an play with it awhile to get a better feel for what is there and what is not. You may wish to start here if you have not already done so as the docs certainly helped me when I first started.

[Josh McWilliams]

Jack, Thanks for the reply. I just recently changed companies. The company I am now at already has the Jira Service Desk implemented but I'm not seeing much of any options in there. I don't know if its how my predecessor set it up or what.

Basically what I'm looking for is to have separate Queues for Incidents, Requests, and at least two for Changes. Have the ability to create tickets on behalf of a user that they can see the status of. Have a list of requestors based on AD users so that when they create a ticket or request I can see the equipment assigned to them.

Incidents should have different SLAs that change based on how critical the incident is. Ex. If it affects their being able to do their job vs minor inconvenience, and If it affects one person vs many people would change how critical the incident.

So requests should have an approval process and be created from a service catalog. That way there can be different SLAs for different requests. If its a request for adding someone to a call rotation or shared email the SLA would be different than if they requested a new Monitor which would be different than a new user onboarding request. The first two would require at least one or two people to approve or deny and the last would be limited to only HR and Hiring Managers. The ability to attach prices for requests such as prices for a replacement mouse, or monitor, or an additional software license.

Change requests would be based on outside requests such as adding or removing individuals from Active Directory groups, adding certain sites to firewall rules, spinning up a new server for a group, adding an IP reservation for new equipment etc. 

Or from internal IT processes for Maintenance. Such as a switch migration, or upgrades to the domain controller, or print server, replacement of backup servers or other such tasks that will need to be scheduled with a start and end time and date and the risk of downtime due to the maintenance.

Is it capable of doing that?

[Jack Brickey]

ok so there is a lot here Josh much of it is just coming up to speed w/ JSD and I think the docs and diving in will ultimately help the most. that said let me try to help...

• Queues - Absolutely you can do this. How you do it depends on how you setup Incident, request, changes. Are these already setup in the project? If so are they issuetypes or request types. Go into Queues and add new queue. define the queue by constructing the filter, e.g. Issuetype = Incident or "customer request type" = Incident. Add any other filter parameters that are needed. You might wish to click on an existing Queue, edit it and get the feel for how they are defined. Repeat for all queues you desire
• Create on behalf of - There is a link in the sidebar "Raise request" this will allow you as an agent to create a request using the portal forms and in the form there will see your name in the on behalf of. Simply begin typing the customer's name and select when it pops up.
• Equipment assigned to user - I would suggest an addon for this such as Insight but TBH I have not use it or any addon for this so can't recommend anything.
• SLAs - IMO this is where JSD shines. It is quite flexible and powerful I would suggest you reference the docs i point you to previously to learn it but it is pretty easy at least to start.
• Approvals - there are builtin functions that allow you to set up multi-levels of approval. It is pretty powerful but there are some improvements I would like to see but nothing major. Basically, you create the Approval w/in the workflow and define the approver(s) for each. You can also define a bypass that an agent can use in the event the approver is gone for example.

hope this is helpful. Here is an article I wrote (shameless plug) awhile back that may help and there are a ton of good answers to specific questions in the Community. Just use the search bar at the top and type in a few key words.

[Josh McWilliams]

Queues: They are setup as issue types, Not specifically those but their issue types seem to not really be used as only the IT Ticket ever generates a ticket. I tried to create a new workflow for hardware requests and it seems that all the issue types are locked to the same workflow and it forces me to create a new workflow from a copy of another workflow then change them all manually to a new workflow one by one. Which is not intuitive at all as it doesn't say if you edit the workflow of this one item you created it will change every item you have and not allow you to revert it. So now I feel by editing the workflow of this new request has screwed up all my workflows because everything in the project were locked to the same workflow and it let me edit it while it was active even though their own documentation says you cannot change an active workflow.

Is there a good process to not mess up all my workflows without having to create every workflow before even starting adding queues?

Create on Behalf of: Doesn't quite seem to work. I start typing in a name and it will only see three other people.