Calling all Mindville Insight users, we need your help! (there might be swag involved)

[Charlotte Nicolaou]

Hello Insight users, 


As part of our (Mindville's) acquisition by Atlassian, our training team is looking to build some new Insight training materials and we want to hear from you! 

It would really helpful if you can share with us any of the following:

1. What you found difficult to learn about Insight

2. What you would like to learn more about

3. Any tips/tricks you think others should know

4. What you use Insight for (asset management, service management, inventory, HR etc etc)

We'd love your feedback on what we should include in the next generation of training materials. 

Please comment your suggestions below. If we use your suggestion, as a thank you for helping out, we'll be in contact to send some swag your way 😉! 

Thanks,
Insight Marketing & Training Teams

[Jeff Saunders]

- Having Object Schema templates for Cloud (like Server has) to use
- More examples of Asset Type Configurations (Example: How to tie filling in a user name to add an employee for onboarding purposes as an example)
- This video originally by Mindville has a great demonstration of the expansion of Insight. Just covering in detail how this could all be achieved on the cloud platform would be a big help:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwLkeQPOvqU&t=263s

[Charlotte Nicolaou]

Thanks for your reply Jeff.
We're working on these aspects for Cloud at the moment so keep an eye out!

[Arto Kovalainen]

About the video Jeff mentioned. I did something similar for the cloud today. Biggest difference is that in cloud you cannot create objects via postfunctions yet so I made similar process but it starts by creating new employee in insight and that will initialize process in HR SD by creating main onboarding ticket.

Then I used custom fields, insight postfunctions and automation for Jira to fullfill rest of the functionality. My eyes were bleeding and I was hitting my head to the wall doing trials and errors but finally I have process that works almost the same as the thing in the video.

[Fabian A. Lopez (Community Leader - Argentina, Florida, California)]

1. What you found difficult to learn about Insight

   1. Where to enter the IQL to find Objects
   2. How to use insight fields in regular JQL

2. What you would like to learn more about

   1. Confluence macros to show more Insight object data
   2. IQL in confluence macros to combine objects related data

3. Any tips/tricks you think others should know

   1. How to remember the update of existing data, content curation
   2. Filtering the content on graohics

4. What you use Insight for (asset management, service management, inventory, HR etc etc)

   1. We use it as source of truth for our set of products, each product is one asset for us
   2. Each team member is an asset and then we build a Team Asset and assign products to them

[Charlotte Nicolaou]

Thanks Fabian, this was really helpful and detailed.

[Arto Kovalainen]

"How to remember the update of existing data, content curation"

+ 1 for this

How have you accomplished this?

We have automated tasks or email reminders for object owners if object has not been updated in 6 months.

[Marco Brundel]

Hi, I have an addition. I would also like to learn more about using Insight with other add-ons like Automation for Jira, Email this Issue and Tempo.  regards, Marco

[Florian Reichl]

that`s a big point in fact! otherwise it`s useless!

[Marco Brundel]

I have already tried 2 times to reply, but both times it was not saved. That is why now hopefully three times is the charm.

During the 1st day of Riada days 2019 in Stockholm we had a very educational workshop. So also look at what you already have at Riada / Mindville.

I still find the Reports a difficult part of this.

I also find it difficult to apply IQL in a JQL filter. Examples in the documentation are not entirely clear.

Also pay attention to what configuration is possible with an attribute.

Explain the permissions.

I think the use of the Insight Custom fields containing the different options in terms of filtering and display is a tip to draw attention to.

And I have set up Insight Post Functions for many customers. Definitely a tip.

Regards, Marco

[Charlotte Nicolaou]

Hi Marco, 

Thank you for your reply. It is actually that Riada training course that we are updating and hoping to improve on. So it's very helpful for us to know what you still needed to learn yourself afterwards. 

It seems IQL in JQL is a common tricky area!

Thanks again for your tips too, 
Charlotte 

[Marco Brundel]

Hi Charlotte, What options are available with reports in Insight is an interesting point for me.

Regards, Marco

[Linda Milne_Togetha Group_]

Hi @Charlotte Nicolaou  where did this get to? Is there Insight training coming soon?

[Trevan Householder_Isos-Tech-Consulting_]

@Charlotte Nicolaou

I'd say about 50% of the time we implement Insight for Asset Management and the other 50% to extend User Profile information.

Almost all of our JSD/JSM clients have wanted group information, phone number, building number, etc., from user's AD attributes.  They want to see it in their issues. They want to leverage this data to know who their manager is when assigning approval. They want to be able to use an employee or other user (or customer)'s extended profile information with Jira Automation to auto-assign JSM issues based on the customer's location and a specific office location (based on region or specific skills).

[Jason Selby]

Hi Charlotte,

I have used Insight for quite a few months and think it has great potential but there have been a few issues on the way.

What you found difficult to learn about Insight?

I think a number of organisations either store their current assets in a spreadsheet (yeah i know people still use the right...) and the import instructions were not the easiest to follow (the later videos were better)

What you would like to learn more about?

I think IQL and JQL reference pages are a must going forward with all the possibilities of what can be done....  I also would like more videos on how to use the tool as i find videos are the best for certain aspects of learning (especially how to link different schemas to show the real potential of how the services work together)

Any tips/tricks you think others should know?

When updating the asset config, please clear your cache to see the changes come into place, sometimes the changes you have made won't be shown until this has happened.

What you use Insight for (asset management, service management, inventory, HR etc etc)

I use it for Asset Man but also want to get more visibility with service man. I also want to be able to link Confluence documents to it as well. I also want to see its full potential working with Ops Genie etc...

Kindest regards,

Jason

[Charlotte Nicolaou]

Hi Jason, 

Thank you for your reply, it's really helpful and informative. Importing and IQL has come up a lot so that's definitely some key areas for us to focus on! 

When you say more videos on how to use the tool, do you mean videos with more 'real world' examples? Rather than just 'this is how X feature works'? 

I'm also curious - you mention that linking different object schema together gives a lot more potential. Could you elaborate on that a little more please? I think there's a lot of power here but it's hard to articulate so I'm interested to hear how that's helped you. 

Best wishes, 
Charlotte

[Jason Selby]

Hi Charlotte,

By more videos what I want is how far we can push the envelope for possibilities with the tool, like what can be achieved at the most advanced levels. 

What i mean for the object schema links is that for my organisation i have 2 object schemas, one for company hardware and one for software (SAAS) i want to be able to link hardware to software so i can build services and then when we have issues with that service it tells me exactly what the issues have been historically. It would also be great to be able to report on assets and show trends etc...

I hope this helps..

KR 

Jason

[Jan-Peter Rusch]

Hi,

we're using Insight for about 2 years now on Jira Server with Jira Service Desk (now Jira Service Management...) integration and some CRM projects.

• What you found difficult to learn about Insight
  • Creating own object schemes to match our CRM data wasn't easy at first, but documentation got much better
  • Reporting was close to non-existing, when we started with Insight. The new reporting tool was a giant step forward
  • As Insight is a sort of graph database, relations between object type are a key feature and should be explained more in depth
• What you would like to learn more about
  • Not sure, if it's possible to create QR codes, which automatically create a Jira issue with a link to the scanned object...
  • Mobile support for Insight on the server app
• Any tips/tricks you think others should know
  • See the use case below, Insight gives you so many options dealing with assets & processes you cannot imaging...
• What you use Insight for (asset management, service management, inventory, HR etc etc)
  • Asset management / CMDB with Insight discovery to easily identify/pick assets on employees tickets

One not-so-common use case: Creating pages in a Confluence space for each customer from our CRM:

• Create a import connection to our CRM data using the Insight CRM template
• On import and object creating an Insight automation rule is triggered, creating a Jira issue of issue type Customer with scripted setting the issue summary to the customers name & id
• The creation of an issue of type Customer triggers a Jira post function after create which uses a marketplace app (Issue Publisher) to create a page of the issue using a page template in a Confluence page

This way we can easily create 800 nice looking pages in Confluence in a matter of minutes...

Best regards

JP

[Walter Stoltsz]

We have just begun evaluating Insight to use for configuration and asset management. We are using JIRA Cloud and initially Insight looked to be the perfect tool with the way it integrates into JIRA, however we have become somewhat disappointed with the lack of functionality in the cloud version to the point where we are now considering moving to JIRA Server just to be able to access this functionality, as it is crucial to our business operations.

1) What you found difficult to learn about Insight

IQL for advanced filtering (would prefer to just use JQL for consistency)

2) What you would like to learn more about

Feature roadmap for Insight for JIRA Cloud now that server support is ending. Specifically which features will be brought over, which not and when. The main features we are concerned with are:

1. Reporting Engine for Insight Server(!!!)
2. Confluence Macros for Confluence Cloud
3. Templates
4. External integrations such as Tempo, Better PDF Exporter, etc

3)Any tips/tricks you think others should know

Best practices for object schemas

4) What you use Insight for (asset management, service management, inventory, HR etc etc)

Asset Management, Development Inventory Management, Configuration Management

[Mikael Sandberg]

We just started using Insight as part of our migration into JSM.

1. What you found difficult to learn about Insight
   Like mentioned before, it would have been nice to have Object Schema templates like the ones on the server-side. We already have a CMDB in our old system, but it is always good to have a template to work off from, since the current setup may not be the optimal one.
2. What you would like to learn more about
   I would like to see what is on the roadmap for Insight, the current one for JSM just says that the integration will be improved. I am especially interested in when integrations to other systems are planned, like Jamf integration and Microsoft Intune
3. Any tips/tricks you think others should know
   Since there are no templates, make sure you have a plan on how you want to define your object schema(s), Should you have one for everything or use multiple? Think about who should be able to access the objects.
4. What you use Insight for
   We will initially use it for asset management but may use it for HR, Legal, and Marketing in the future. 

[Gerhard Sulzberger]

Hi @Charlotte Nicolaou ;

We are starting to take a look at Insight at the moment.
 
We use Jira Software, Bitbucket and Confluence since years.
With Servicedesk we started this year for ITSM. Insight looks promising for us to centralize our Asset managment, CMDB and also as source for Incident Management.

We are interessted in any kind of Asset Management.

• IT Assets
• Product
• HR
• Contracts
• CMDB
• ....

Most important part is the automation and the integration into other products like Servicedesk, Jira Software.

What I would like to understand better:

• How to properly define your schemas / object model (the design/architecture part, less the technical implementation)
• Automation possibilities with Postfunctions and with Insight automation
  Integration in Servicedesk and for example Incident workflows
• Setup CMDB's
• Example use of the API's

Thank you;
Gerhard

[Florian Reichl]

Planned Features for Cloud and  the distinction to Data Center/Server.
Importer
Automation
IQL joins
inheritance methods

Integration with Tempo, Structure, Confluence, Advanced Roadmaps, EazyBI - and also smaller apps.

[Dan Olson]

I don’t have very detailed questions yet because I’m still trying to setup the demo.  I am standing up a service management project and need very basic functionality from insight 

basically I need a place to store applications and services as CIs with common attributes such as approver(s), related services, related KBs in confluence and the ability to “call” the “affected service” in incidents, service requests, problems, and change requests

having a very hard time getting this basic functionality situated 

Any reference docs that can guide me through cloud setup?

thanks. 

[Carla Ann Rowland]

Third answer: others not saved.

1) more clarity between the relation ship between the Insight objects are needed.

e.g.:

Table a: components

Table b: component Network rack with its layers

Table c: Software installed on Components

Table d: Software licenses expiration dates contact etc.

Table e: The built network rack

How do you attach those tables together so when you hover on Table e shows all that detail as a cohesive entity

2) The video tutorials need to be updated.

3) importing also needs clarity-- have one video to do first import into table A

    2nd video using table A-- doing an import to update existing records and add to table with new data--without causing duplicate records.

4) is there a way to restart the counter on a table... so when solving an import issue into a blank table the numbers are consecutive?

Used for:

asset management: hardware, software, and human resources.

[Charlotte Nicolaou]

Hi Dan, 

How are you getting on now? I recommend taking a look at the video tutorials here:
Insight Onboarding Guide

We recently updated them for the latest version of Cloud so it will take you through adding data into Insight and creating the field in your Jira forms to attach the affected service. 

I've also been posting a series of community articles on how to select what data to include and how to structure it that you might find useful. 

[Charlotte Nicolaou]

Hi Carla, 

Thanks for your feedback! We are actually discussing creating some new video tutorials now so I hope you will see improvements in the near future. 

We'll keep your points in mind as we create our new resources. 

Thanks!

[Walter Buggenhout]

What you found difficult to learn about Insight?

• Inbound and outbound references
• referencing and filtering custom fields
• importing data from csv
• IQL, especially when referencing attributes

What you would like to learn more about?

• The future of Insight in Jira Software (we set up several CRM like cases and product inventories without using JSD

Any tips/tricks you think others should know?

• How to properly define your schemas / object model (the design/architecture part, less the technical implementation)
• Automation possibilities with Postfunctions and with Insight automation
• Confluence Insight Macro

What you use Insight for (asset management, service management, inventory, HR etc etc?

• CRM
• Product catalog
• HR
• (IT) Service Management
• ...

[Arto Kovalainen]

What you found difficult to learn about Insight?

• Groovy Scripted Post Functions
• Feature differences Cloud Vs DC
• IQL especially in sync settings and related objects

What you would like to learn more about?

• Forthcoming features in Cloud
• Pricing/ Licensing model in Jira Service Management (what happens to JIRA SW users using insight)

Any tips/tricks you think others should know?

• Use of Insight instead of jira custom fields in order to reduce administrative burden
• Automation possibilities with Postfunctions and with Insight automation
• Confluence Insight Macro
• Free integrations/importers in Server and DC (hopefully soon in Cloud too)
• Enrich/ update object data by using external REST APIs

What you use Insight for (asset management, service management, inventory, HR etc etc?

• CRM
• HR
• Service Management
• Contract Inventory

[Charlotte Nicolaou]

Thank you Arto, this was really helpful!

[Tomáš Vrabec]

EDITED

1. What you found difficult to learn about Insight

   1. Object facade from groovy scripts
   2. IQL could be tricky
   3. Relation between Child - Parent attributes

2. What you would like to learn more about

   1. I can consider myself as an insight expert (ask Yinon or Mathias)

3. Any tips/tricks you think others should know

   1. Using insight fields instead of custom fields (users can change content without being Jira admins)
   2. Assignees support
   3. Extension of AD / Jira directory, with full sync. 
   4. Problem, Change, Service request management source
   5. Support of fully automated assignees based on assignee group based on entered inputs in issues
   6. Many more, ask Anna or Sandra, ladies should be familiar with part of them. We can arrange a call or something.

4. What you use Insight for (asset management, service management, inventory, HR etc etc)

   1. All of mentioned and much more :-) 

[Charlotte Nicolaou]

Hi Tomáš, thanks for your detailed reply! I'll have a chat with Anna and Sandra but I may just take you up on that offer of a call as the project progresses!

[Matt Lane]

Hi @Charlotte Nicolaou ,

Some of us would love a simple walkthrough guide for Cloud, on how to import objects from .csv where the object type is setup to have a user attribute that is type 'User' and type value of eg. 'jira-users'. So that we can for example link ownership of an asset directly to a jira user in our Atlassian cloud ecosystem, for assets (objects) we import via csv.

I'm sure this guide would suffice to help others with similar use cases, where they are wanting to import a large amount of assets from csv, but are encountering difficulties with assignment of jira users when attempting to import.

Thank you,

Matt

[Gerhard Sulzberger]

Hi @Charlotte Nicolaou ;

We are starting to take a look at Insight at the moment.
 
We use Jira Software, Bitbucket and Confluence since years.
With Servicedesk we started this year for ITSM. Insight looks promising for us to centralize our Asset managment, CMDB and also as source for Incident Management.

We are interessted in any kind of Asset Management.

• IT Assets
• Product
• HR
• Contracts
• CMDB
  ....

Most important part is the automation and the integration into other products like Servicedesk, Jira Software.

What I would like to understand better:

• How to properly define your schemas / object model (the design/architecture part, less the technical implementation)
• Automation possibilities with Postfunctions and with Insight automation
• Integration in Servicedesk and for example Incident workflows
• Setup CMDB's and example use of the API

Thank you;
Gerhard

[Florian Reichl]

In case you still need any support Gerhard, please feel free to reach out.

[Dimitri Rupp]

Hi @Florian Reichl yes, I am very much interested in learning in-depth everything about how to set up Insight correctly for  

• IT Assets
• Product
• HR (starting with this)
• Contracts
• CMDB

I am ready to read and follow step-by-step how-to guides or checklists or any excellent, detailed and correct video. For the Cloud.

Insight requires a lot of training and if you are not working with it for 1-2 weeks, you start to feel lost again.

And somehow it strongly feels like, every how-to knowledge is kept highly confidential and secret as well as from Mindville as from Atlassian (sorry, but it really feels like that).

It has to be possible that every Atlassian Administrator and Expert can easily find and absorb all the how-to's for working with Insight.
It is an excellent and very powerful app, but it's easy to lose interest if it is on purpose so difficult to learn it.

Therefore, as an invitation to everybody too: any how-to and step-by-step guide for Insight Cloud is highly appreciated and very much welcome.

Thanks a million for any kind help and assistance.

[Florian Reichl]

unfortunately, @Dimitri Rupp - the product is currently changed and modified to become fully integrated into the Atlassian Premium Cloud. Since this process is not done yet, there is no valueable documentation available at this point. Nobody knows right now. Even experts with years of experience with the product don`t know how Insight is going to look like in the next year(s). 

In case we can be of any help, reach out - we have done many projects with Insight Server. Cloud will be different.

[Dimitri Rupp]

Hei @Florian Reichl 

Yes, I understand that the Cloud version of Insight is still a work in progress. Nevertheless, I would like to use it to the max of what is possible. :)

One thing is currently:

How can I make that the field "Manager" only gives managers in the selection, depending on the location that has been selected in the field before?
So, for onboarding a new employee, you fill out the form and choose the location. According to this selection, there should display managers in the next field in the form only from the location where the new employee starts working.

Is this currently possible to build in Insight Cloud?
If yes, pleeeeeeeeaaaaase tell me how to create this IF-THEN relation  :)

Thanks a million for any hint.

[Runtastic GmbH]

-

[Florian Reichl]

?

[Charlotte Nicolaou]

Hi Everyone, 

Thank you so much for all the in-depth feedback and helping us with this! Far more than we were expecting. 

I have not forgotten the swag, but every time I sit down to order it more replies come in! 
I'll give it another week or two and get a small thank you sent over over the new year :)

Thanks,
Charlotte

[Patricia Francezi]

I would like to know if there is a away to track availability based on service relations and issue related to it

[Charlotte Nicolaou]

Hi Patricia, 

Can you give me an example so I can understand more? 
From your question it sounds like you have your services stored in Insight. 

And you'd like to have a way to understand what the availability (status?) of those services is based on what the services depend on and any open issues attached to them?

Is that correct? 


If so, then that is possible. When an issue occurs with an Insight object (e.g. a host) you can use post functions and/or automation rules to look for the upstream objects that depend on that host such as services. You can then change a status attribute of all upstream objects to 'issue in progress' for example. 

There's a couple of ways I can think to implement it. It may be best to speak to our support team if you want advice on how best to do it for your setup. 
Insight Support 

Thanks,
Charlotte