When to Comment in a Jira Ticket or Confluence Page

[Andrew Kendris]

Hello All, 

My Team uses both Jira software and Confluence in our day-to-day collaboration. I’m always asked if they should comment in the Jira ticket or in the Confluence page the Jira ticket is linked to when updating other members of the team.

Any advice on how to utilize each comment environment and any best practices? 

[Ste · Accepted solution]

Hi @Andrew Kendris

It does depend on your own team or company's environment - and the tools you have available to you.

Considering other tools - this is how we advise our teams at the moment:

Jira:

• When you have an important update - eg. moved to testing, moved to release
• If the issue is blocked or unblocked - tell us the issue or the solution
• If you need a user to do something - assign it and provide a need
• If you're asking a user to provide something - such as an attachment, approval, etc

Confluence:

• When you make an update to the page
• When you complete a task assigned to you - tell us the solution
• When you need a user to do/provide something - such as an attachment, approval, etc

^ The main point here is that we look to use it for updates, important information, etc based on the "Absent-Factor" - is there enough information so if I was unwell or on holiday, another member of the team could pick it up and work on it.

This means we don't want zero issues on a Done issue - nor do we want 100 where 98 are of little value. 

We did used to advise teams to use Jira rather than email - and if Jira is your only converse option, then I'd still advise this. But we found (like on email) the comment chains got quite long - now we advise teams to talk in person or if remote, use Skype, Zoom or Slack for proper conversations.

Ste

[Andrew Kendris]

Thank you @Ste

This certainly provides clarity and I'll share it in my next meeting with the team.