How Atlassian engineering teams manage their ad-hoc requests

[#1]

At Atlassian we have two teams of software engineers that help our security team. About a quarter of their workload comes from security requests, such as changing code or updating automation. Kat Kelsch is a software engineering manager and has set up a structured process using Jira Service Management to manage the requests.

1️⃣ Set up a request form with custom fields

Using a Jira Service Management template, Kat created a request form for the security team and customised the fields to suit her way of working. The questions are focused on the problem, rather than an already-formed solution. And the questions in the form make it easy to assign the request to the right people.

“One of the biggest misconceptions is that it'll be more work than it's worth. I reduced a significant amount of communication and I haven’t touched the form in six months, and it’s still working.”

Learn more about request forms

2️⃣ Automate requests from a dedicated Slack or Teams channel

Using drag-and-drop automation in Jira Service Management, Kat linked up a Slack channel to a service project. Slack messages automatically turn into service issues. Comments on the ticket show up on the ticket and on the Slack thread. Learn more about chat and Jira Service Management

3️⃣ Automatically turn all requests into issues

From the form or chat channels, all requests automatically create an issue in her team’s service project. The issues are assigned to different product managers and pre-populated with the right info and context from Slack or the form. The security team member gets an email with their issue number so they can view the details and status, leave any notes, and reply to comments.

“Context switching is not completely eliminated, but it's reduced significantly.”

4️⃣ Connect to Jira Software

The product manager can keep things in Jira Service Management or simply turn the issue into a Jira Software issue, with the same assignee, summary, and description.

“Being able to seamlessly move requests from your service desk into a into whatever project you need is super helpful.”

5️⃣ Use report templates to monitor the work

The teams can use out-of-the-box reports in Jira Service Management to keep tabs on KPIs like CSAT and SLAs. And because Jira Software and Jira Service Management are both built on the same Atlassian platform it’s easy to share data and create an end-to-end view of the whole process.

Learn more about Jira Service Management 

[Masayuki Abe]

Unfortunately, during the setup of Assist on our website, we are experiencing authentication failure with m365, which is preventing us from utilizing the feature of creating issues from the chat.

We have reached out to the support team for assistance, but they are currently overwhelmed with their workload, and the issue remains unresolved. We would greatly appreciate their support in resolving this matter.

[Dan W]

“Being able to seamlessly move requests from your service desk into a into whatever project you need is super helpful.”

If you are moving the requests how are the customers able to see them.  Once they are moved if the customers do not have a license to Jira they disappear.  Our customers refer to this as the Black hole effect.  Most of our Devs are getting good at creating linked issues in their software projects but we still have tickets moved periodically.