Which Jira products do I need?

[David_Diehl]

The organization I support needs software tools to manage servicing of specialized custom equipment (hardware and software).  We need a tool that does inventory management; tracks issues, repairs and routine maintenance; tracks the status of assets (new to inventory, in use, in stock, being repaired, marked for disposal, etc.); provides access to reference materials (tech manuals, operations manuals, repair manuals, installation and deinstallation schedules); provides customized dashboards for status information and query functions; provides reports on inventory status, issue trends, actual vs. planned maintenance level of effort, etc.,.

I think one or more Atlassian products can do what we need, but I have no clue which products I actually need, and whether it's best to start with a basic product like Core and customize it, or a specialized product like JSD and (somehow) strip out unnecessary clutter.

[Sajan M]

Hi David,

Let me break your requirements.

1) The organization I support needs software tools to manage the service of specialized custom equipment (hardware and software).-

Servicing of equipment generally will involve customers raising issues via a portal and the service agents will resolve them as per an SLA. If so Jira service desk will suite here.

2) We need a tool that does inventory management; tracks issues, repairs, and routine maintenance; tracks the status of assets (new to inventory, in use, in stock, being repaired, marked for disposal, etc.)

Jira Service Desk can be used along with Atlassian marketplace addons to get inventory management capabilities. Please check the below link for more information.

https://www.atlassian.com/blog/jira-service-desk/jira-asset-management-overview

In addition to the plugins mentioned here, you can explore https://marketplace.atlassian.com/search?query=inventory for more plugins. The plugins are maintained by third party vendors and may come free or with an additional license cost.

3) Provides access to reference materials (tech manuals, operations manuals, repair manuals, installation, and de-installation schedules);

You need to integrate with Atlassian Confluence for this. Please find a good article on this below.

https://www.atlassian.com/blog/jira-service-desk/6-steps-to-create-knowledge-base-jira-service-desk-confluence

So Jira Service Desk along with Confluence and some add-ons should suit your purpose. You can try the trial version at https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/service-desk and see how best it suits your requirements.

Hope this helps!!

Regards,

Sajan Mathew,
Atlassian

[David_Diehl]

This is getting closer to what I'm looking for.  Thank you for your helpful response.  The choice I am now faced with is whether Jira Service Desk has too many "bells and whistles" tailored to the traditional IT service desk.  The organization I support has clients that rarely have internet access, so most service requests would be generated by the service organization itself.  Most interactions I want to be able to track are asset-centric:

• Use a smartphone to scan the QR code of an asset
• The QR code is linked to the JSD asset ("issue") page, which allows the servicer to enter status information (new to inventory, put into use, put into stock, being repaired, marked for disposal, etc.) directly from the smartphone.

Can I configure Jira Service Desk to allow this direct asset status interface?  Or do I need to build up this capability from a more basic Jira product?

[Sajan M]

Hey David,

I found one blog for asset management which should help with your requirements. Please go through all the 5 sections.

https://www.atlassian.com/blog/archives/jira-asset-management-physical-implementation

The asset tracker plugin for Jira also comes with a QR scanner app. You can explore this also.

https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1212115/asset-tracker-for-jira-asset-management?hosting=server&tab=overview

Cheers,

Sajan Mathew,
Atlassian