When is it beneficial to use Jira Software and Jira Service Management in a company of 200 people?

[Helena MP]

We have IT projects - which we can handle with Jira Software and when our project is finished, users should report problems and additional request through the same ticketing (and more)... system.

And there comes Jira Service Management which is ment to be ticketing (and more) system for service desk.

Can you help me with information which tool is the most appropriate for us?

Thanks,

Helena

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Accepted solution]

I think you've almost answered your own question!

I imagine an idealised lifecycle for a product is best done with two Jira projects.

• Create a Jira Software project for development
• Code away until you've got a product
• Create a Jira Service Management project to handle customer requests (probably well before general release - I often see this done when internal betas are ready, when the business trials it with a small group of people who are effectively customers)
• The Service Management handles customer problems and requests, using "create linked issue" in the Development project if or when an issue needs developer attention
• When develpoment activity on the product ends, you can archive the developer project
• When you no longer need to do any customer support, you archive the JSM project

Obviously, there are variations - a lot of places only have one support portal, so they never archive the JSM project, just stop allowing requests for defunct products.  A product may well be made of of many development projects.  And so-on.  But the basic principle of "develop with Jira Software, support customers with JSM" are what you were suggesting and remain the same!

[Helena MP]

Thank you for your answer.

As pricing is really high and having both portals means double licencing.

Is it possible to handle both with Jira Software (cloud) product + some plug in from market place? 

Thanks,

Helena

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Why are you double licencing here?

You have one Jira install, you licence it for (say) 100 Developers and 5 Service Desk Agents.  (The agents may need a developer licence if they're going to be part time developers and need access to the boards, but that's not double licencing, just recognising that some people need access to two different areas)

[Helena MP]

We should have Jira Software(JS) and Jira Service management (JSM). So we would need both tools.

Users will create tasks in JSM, agents will send tasks from JSM to JS?, and developers will work od tasks in JS? or in JSM? Is it the same task?

Developers will also create dev tasks in JS. Will users see them in JSM?

Sorry it is not clear to me how these two Jira products work together.

Thanks in advance,

Helena

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

The model is not simple, so it's probably worth explaining it.

Underlying all of this is the idea that there is a pile of issues which represent "something someone needs to do something about".  Jira (technically now called Jira Core, and sometimes referred to as the Jira "platform") is an issue tracker.

It organises issues into Projects, for the purpose of configuring them, so stuff like access by people, common fields and so-on are done by project, and that, of course means people using Jira will align the Jira projects with their working practices.  A project (or set of projects) will map on to a product, a team, an organisational project, etc

Jira Software and Jira Service Desk are applications that add functions over the top of the Core functions, changing the projects that use them from generic issue tracking to either Agile-aligned projects that have Scrum and Kanban boards, or to ITSM-aligned projects that have simplified customer portals, SLAs, queues and help-desk functions.

Note here that I've talked about projects mostly, not JSM or JS.  That's because the applications apply on top of projects within Jira.  You do not "work in JSM" and separately "work in JS" or "work in Jira Core".  You work in a project, and that project will be either a Core, JSD or Software type project.

Users and licences matter too.  You have up to four types of user:

• Jira Core users who just get plain Jira issue tracking
• Developers (Software users) who get the Software board functions
• Agents for Service Desk who run any service desk projects
• Customers who can only see the portals and requests, not the issues behind requests in Jira

Note that when you have a Service Desk or Software licence, it includes a Core licence so that Agent or Developer can use all the Core stuff the JSD and Software lives on top of

So, to answer your questions

>Users will create tasks in JSM, agents will send tasks from JSM to JS?, and developers will work od tasks in JS? or in JSM? Is it the same task?

No, customers, or people logging things for them, will create requests in a JSM project.  (Your customers may well also be developers - I'm a developer in our main Jira, but I am a customer when I'm raising support requests for new kit or permission changes etc)

Agents would be there to sort out most of the support requests, and then create linked development tasks in development projects in the cases that need developer work.  Updates on development tasks can update the issue that they were spawned from.

>Developers will also create dev tasks in JS. Will users see them in JSM?

Developers will run their development project creating all the development items in it.  They can let the service desk agents in to see and even work on the issues if that is of any use, but the issues are not in JSM, they're in a project in Jira.

Customers do not see issues in Jira, they can only see requests

[Helena MP]

Thank you for your answer. 

I understand most principles now. It's pretty complicated:)

[Helena MP]

Another question:

>Agents would be there to sort out most of the support requests, and then create linked development tasks in development projects in the cases that need developer work.Updates on development tasks can update the issue that they were spawned from. <

Agent from request in which came through JSM, creates new - linked task in development project. Development projects are created in JS? 

How are updates on development tasks seen to request issue? Is it automatically? Do developer choose what is seen (is sent to) request issue?

Thanks again :)

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Not quite, projects are created in Jira, not Software or Service Desk.  They are of a type of Core, Service Desk or Software, changing their behaviour.

But, yes, Request arrives via a Service Desk project (and part of the request is the underlying issue), your Agents either handle it, or decide that development effort is needed, and they create a linked issue in a development project.

You can then set up automations that can take selected updates from the development issue back to the Service Desk issue, some of which is visible to the customer in the request. This is because you generally do not expose your development cycles or process to the end customer. 

It is probably best for your agents to decide what flows back into a request, and makes the developers aware of it. 

[Krystal Thompson]

@Nic Brough -Adaptavist-  we currently complete this in my organization. Is there a way to not get the duplication on reporting for the same issue. When I pull reporting for tickets created for a week I don't want to see the Service desk ticket and the project related ticket? 

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

What do you mean by "ticket"?  A request or an issue?   And what duplication?

[Hernan Halabi - Elite IT Consulting Group · Accepted solution]

Hello @Helena MP sounds like you could handle your IT projects in Jira software and once they are released to the customer, you can offer them a portal from Jira service Management for them to submit problems or new request that you could later copy and sync with the backend projects (the Jira software ones)

[Helena MP]

Thank you all :) :)