Introduction to the Atlassian Ecosystem - Part 1

[Alina Urbaniak [Deviniti]]

Have you recently joined the Atlassian Ecosystem? If you don’t know how it works and how to find yourself here, let us introduce you to this fascinating world. In the Ecosystem, you can try and buy Atlassian software, as well as the vendors’ apps, develop your Jira-related skills, gain completely new knowledge and meet amazingly creative and helpful people. Ready? 

What is the Atlassian Ecosystem?

The ecosystem in the IT industry refers to the main product platform and applications, developed by independent companies, broadening its core offer. Such smaller organizations’ networks are built around Microsoft, Oracle, and Google. The giants let smaller companies grow on their fertile land and at the same time expand their businesses even more. That was also what Atlassian wanted establishing their ecosystem – to build a platform that would encourage entrepreneurship and help companies collaborate.

As Mike Cannon-Brookes, co-founder of Atlassian said, their primary assumption was that the great product should sell itself. That’s why the company didn’t have (and still doesn’t) a sales department. Atlassian focused on building a convenient e-commerce experience with the products easy to try and buy. Happy customers were reviewing their products, and that helped the company build up organically. So did the Solution Partners. These are outside organizations who advise companies on Atlassian software and implement it on the local markets. The business model with partners and vendors is completely understandable in case of Atlassian. Since they don’t have a sales department, Partners are the ones to take over this role. Also, it can be hard to understand how Jira works, especially if we take different hosting options into consideration. The partners can deal with in-house software deployment, configuration, and training. The Australian company’s employees keep themselves busy with taking care of the core products and just can’t make it with developing features that answer all users’ needs. Here come the vendors who are targeted at that. Then Atlassian started creating a large ecosystem of vendors developing apps that extend their software. Atlassian Marketplace, a store where you can browse and purchase those extensions, achieved 100 million in sales within first three years of its activity.

Besides partners and vendors in the Ecosystem, there are also developers working on the core products and extensions, and obviously the users. This whole structure is completed by the resources of knowledge for all members and newcomers. Let’s take a closer look at the terms and ideas outlined here and at the rest of the Ecosystem-related concepts.

Atlassian Partners and Vendors

As we’ve already mentioned, vendors are the companies (from all over the world) developing apps available on the Atlassian Marketplace, extending functionalities of the products like Jira Software, Jira Service Desk, Confluence, Bitbucket, Crucible, Fisheye, Bamboo, Crowd and Trello. The vendors that stand out with a great commitment to the Atlassian Platform, and meet specific requirements, can apply to the Top Vendor program. It helps users buy extensions with confidence. The Top Vendors that distinguish themselves from the rest by the high quality of app development, as well as dedication to the customers, can gain Gold and then Platinum status. Some of the big players among the vendors are:

• Gliffy – the authors of the top-selling Gliffy Diagrams for Confluence app (drawing diagrams and flowcharts),
• Tempo – the authors of the top-selling Tempo Timesheets (time tracking in Jira) and Tempo Planner (team management and work planning),
• //SEIBERT/MEDIA – the authors of the top-selling draw.io Diagrams for Confluence (making flowcharts and diagrams),
• Innovalog – the authors of the top-selling Jira Misc Workflow Extensions (Jira workflow automation),
• beecom – the authors of the top-selling JSU Automation Suite for Jira Workflows.

Partners help to implement, configure and customize the Atlassian solutions. They can also sell you the products, offer custom development services and technical support, conduct integration or migration or educate your team. Partners have different specializations – some of them are masters in ITSM projects, the others in deploying developers’ tools like Bitbucket. They also operate in different regions because every local market is oriented on specific products.

Some of the top partners in the Ecosystem are Valiantys, cPrime, Adaptavist, Clearvision, Service Rocket, K15t and Communardo, to name a few.

Knowledge resources

We know that you may still feel lost in the Atlassian Ecosystem. Fortunately, there are quite a few places where you can look for the answers to your questions.

Atlassian website

The clear layout of the Atlassian webpage helps to navigate through this huge source of information. Start from the top menu. You have three sections there: Products, For teams and Support.

Product information

The first path guides you over Atlassian software, grouped into use categories like planning, collaborating, coding and security.  When you enter the product page, you see the screenshots from the tool together with the descriptions of its core features. You can also find there product guides, industry reports or links to the products’ demos. The For teams tab is also devoted to the Atlassian tools, but in this place, they are matched with the teams’ sizes and functions (such as marketing, HR or finance).

Support

This tab is a starting point when you’re looking for help. From here you’ll be directed to the specific part of the website. One of them is the Atlassian Support page, where you can raise a ticket, report a bug, add feature suggestion or browse the products’ documentation. Another one – the Licensing section of the Atlassian page – will answer your questions about the tools’ pricing, licenses, trials, Reseller Agreement, and Enterprise Offerings. If you’re searching for the solutions for your company, check the whole section concerning enterprise products’ offers and services.

Blog

On the Atlassian Product and News blog, you can read about the applications’ releases and tips, the company news, and Agile. If you need a break from a strongly professional content, jump to the Work Life blog and get bogged down in productivity, teamwork, leadership, and technology articles.

Community help

When you can’t find the answer to your problem in the abovementioned resources, visit the Atlassian Community. Your Atlassian account is enough to be this social platform’s member and post questions. The Community gathers users willing to support each other. You can also use the search to check whether the same question or similar to yours has been already answered or whether someone published an article which you’ll find helpful. To be up to date with the latest posts, you can create RSS feed for the search results to receive them either on your email or in RSS feed reader.

Another place for asking your questions is the Atlassian Developer Community – a place dedicated for the people building apps and integrations for the Atlassian products. Here you can also access the Atlassian server and cloud developer documentation. If you seek more information, check Atlassian Developer landing page which provides you with upcoming developer events in the Ecosystem and additional useful content, or visit the developers’ blog. In the last place, you’ll find the latest products’ news and tips from other programers.

Partner Portal

If your company is an Atlassian Solution Partner or Marketplace Vendor (and you’re logged in with your Atlassian account), you should be able to access a portal intended for the partners. Besides information on the Atlassian Partner Program (for Solution Partners, Marketplace Vendors, and Training Partners), you can also find there partner marketing tips and best practices, product’s learning and selling resources, the Atlassian Enablement Academy information and Atlassian events and webinars.

Would you like to know what you can do in the Atlassian Ecosystem? Read the second part of the article.