Atlassian Summit 2019: the news report by Deviniti, part 2 - Marketplace Apps news

[#1]

In the first part of this article, I've reported on the most important Atlassian product news from the Summit 2019 in Las Vegas. In this second part, I'll focus on the changes that happened to the Atlassian Marketplace and share some news about the apps.

Atlassian Marketplace apps

Many Summit talks and workshops, along with the majority of the Expo Hall, were dedicated to apps that extend Atlassian software's possibilities. Atlassian Ecosystem Product Marketing Manager Emilee Spencer compared Jira to a house which we should make a home with apps. Atlassian Senior Product Manager Amaresh Ray said that Jira Service Desk is like a car and the apps are add-ons, so we wouldn’t buy a whole new van when everything we want is a bike holder. That being said, the percentage of Atlassian customers aware of the apps' possibilities is still quite small compared to the whole. While we understand the admins who are against third-party apps due to performance concerns or company security policies, we strongly believe that the Marketplace is still an important piece to the puzzle, especially the large functionalities that are probably never going to be implemented by Atlassian themselves. However, there's a simple way for Atlassian to implement features that apps do out of the box. Another acquisition that has been made prior to the event was Good Software, which enabled to include Confluence in-product analytics into the Cloud Premium package. Congratulations for the great work!

Maybe people from the first two buckets also meant Marketplace apps as part of their setup, but the vendors' opinion is that this option should be bolder next year. Source: Igor Sereda, ALM Works CEO

The whole Marketplace development team has moved to Atlassian's brand new office in Bengaluru. There's also a dedicated team to bringing more Server apps approved for Data Center products, which resulted in having more than 320 apps approved so far and covering 85 of the top 100 apps on the Marketplace. What's more, the Scaled Agile Marketplace section appeared to complement acquiring AgileCraft, which is meant to serve enterprises with tools to manage teams of teams, build task hierarchies or track budgets.

Deviniti Apps: what's new?

As you may already know, our own apps cover 3 main areas: helping teams work smarter in Jira Software, improving customer experience through Jira Service Desk, and bringing requirements and test management right inside Jira. Like most vendors, we've managed to release important updates and brand new apps in all these categories special for the Summit.

Dynamic Forms 4.0 for Jira now has Dynamic Forms Visualization in the configuration section, allowing to better see potential errors and easily embrace the most complex forms you may have on the Create Issue screen. We've also revamped the Bundled Fields feature with the ability to reposition them on the grid and adjust their width.

As we've successfully dealt with limitations for each screen of Jira Service Desk, now we introduce an app that improves the whole Customer Portal by enabling us to design it from scratch. Theme Extension for Jira Service Desk allows to choose from six types of cards representing request types, apply a color scheme to play around and then tweak the setup by uploading graphics, changing colors, adjusting the cards' size, etc., until we get fully satisfied with our brand style applied to the Customer Portal. All this is done on the WYSIWYG Edit view, and the only feature in the app that requires a tiny bit of code is custom cards which you can fill with HTML to inform your customers about the big news, invite to an event you host or redirect to an external resource such as documentation on your website. The amount of UI elements that can be easily customized with this app gives you an entire space of possibilities so you can unleash creativity and really thrill your customers. This way you provide them with a consistent experience across all your web properties and also increase their satisfaction with the support process.

And the last big news is for software testing enthusiasts: we've discontinued TestFLO for Jira Cloud and replaced it with a brand new app called Requirements and Test Management for Jira (RTM). Instead of operating on Jira issues, the new app adds five modules to your software project, from Requirements to Defects, and allows to track the whole development process, from collecting requirements to going to production, in a single place. The app's objects are still the same as Jira issues, so you can link them to Epics, user stories, and each other to ensure top traceability, search for them with JQL, or track their progress on Agile boards. Each module has a transparent tree structure that stores objects in folders you can customize and organize as you see fit. The configuration is almost plug-and-play, as you just need to add dedicated issue types and a custom field to the project - then you can start testing right away. The Test Cases are reusable for multiple Test Plans, and you can create Test Executions and Defects quickly from the parent views. If you’re stuck with legacy heavyweight test management tools or just starting the testing journey with your team, the app will provide you with a single repository for your requirements and tests – even for multiple projects at a time.

As an Atlassian Platinum Solution Partner Enterprise and a Gold Top Vendor in the Ecosystem, we’ve been working hard on helping improve Jira Software and Service Desk by adding useful functionalities for over 5000 teams around the world. Read on to learn more:

• How to let your team work faster and easier in Jira Software
• Improve your customer's journey through Jira Service Desk Server, part 1: Help Center
• Choosing an app from the Atlassian Marketplace