An AddOn for everything

[Jerome Bleichenbacher]

Hi there

We're using Jira now for some weeks and we try to make it as comfortable as possible for users. Therefore we wanted to improve several "defects" like

- custom field required at a certain point in the workflow

- staging new configuration from test- to live-system

- close subtasks automatically when story is being closed

- update custom field at a certain point in the workflow

On all these topics I've found a lot of other admins/users who needed this features. Unfortunately the answer here in the forum (and google, too) was always the same: use an AddOn - and mostly the AddOn is not for free, either!

In my opinion this list should be default Jira-functionality with no need for an AddOn. And it seems to me as if Atlassian is not willing to add those functionality to their core-functionality in order the protect the AddOn-vendors.

Some people here in the forum are not getting the point that not everyone is willing & able to use and pay extra for an AddOn which should be default functionality. And its frustrating when the answer to everything is: use an AddOn. This is not how a professional business application should work.

What are your thoughts?

br,

Jerome

[Daniel Yelamos [Adaptavist]]

Jerome. 

Belonging to one of the companies that makes add-ons like this(that would cover your necessities by the way) I can tell you that there is no conspiracy here.

Atlassian brings a huge platform that has a ton of different use cases, they are unable to cover every single one of those use cases, and even if they did, there would always be more. That's why Atlassian is not a closed environment at all, they allow their users to develop the functionality that they don't offer with THEIR source code. I've been a software developer for a few years, and let me assure you that not many companies are willing to share source so that clients can adapt their product to their needs.

This is good for Atlassian because it allows them to generate business, first of all, and because if anyone decides to offer a feature that they don't, that someone is in charge of support, development, and of course, of monetising that software if they wish to do so.

I understand your frustration, but I would kindly refer you to the Atlassian feature request service desk, so that you can see the inhumane amount of feature request and bug reports Atlassian gets. As someone that has worked with clients for over 6 years now, I can tell you that clients always want more, and that supporting everything is impossible. There are upsides and downsides of having software this flexible, and in all honesty, I would much rather it this way than having a closed product that I cannot innovate upon.

Cheers

Dyelamos

[Boris Berenberg - Atlas Authority]

I would like to add to the above that Atlassian has actually released features that apps provide and basically killed said app. This has happened multiple times, to me personally once, and I expect will happen to another of my apps in the near future.