The Ultimate Atlassian Admin to-do list (2020 Edition)

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Admins, you are the lifeblood of Atlassian. Thank you! We marvel at the blend of brainpower and passion you invest not just in your company and role but also in your own personal growth. We want to help make your 2018 a year where your passion and expertise collide to propel your career to great new heights. To start, we've put together a to-do list of resources that will set you up for success:

Join the Community

The first item on your to-do list is low effort, high reward. By clicking this link to the online Atlassian Community you will have instant access to a network of Atlassian employees and customers alike.

Once logged in, you can customize a newsfeed unique to you so that you can keep your finger on the pulse of Atlassian products and topics you care most about. Other things you can expect to do in our online community:

• Find help. Whether you're asking a question, chiming in on a discussion or just browsing trending topics, you'll be sure to get the information you need and likely much more.
• Get inspired. There are seemingly infinite numbers of uses or applications of Atlassian products. By joining the Atlassian Community, you will have access to case studies, testimonials, and best practices that will help you get more out of the tools you than you might have thought possible.
• Connect. The Atlassian Community's foundation is made up of people from every industry, career, and skillset. By joining, you'll have the opportunity to network and collaborate with like-minded users facing similar challenges to yours.

Earn your welcome badge by introducing yourself on this thread

Attend an Atlassian Community event

Now that you've joined the online Community, kick your Atlassian spirit up a notch and attend an event (we called them ACEs). These events have traditionally been held offline, but in lieu of Coronavirus, have recently been hosted via Zoom.

At Atlassian Community Events, users from all over the world get together (in-person or virtually) to share common issues, solutions, experiences and initiate meaningful discussions. These events are ongoing, free for attendees, and led by Atlassian users just like you. ACE events are held in over 135 cities worldwide. Who knows, there might be one happening right in your (figurative) backyard! If not, we challenge you to be the change you seek and start your own ACE. Below are just some of the benefits you can expect to gain by attending or hosting an ACE event:

• Learning best practices for Atlassian products. Whether it's Jira, Confluence, Hipchat or one of our many dev tools, you’ll get an absurd amount of knowledge and inspiration at your local user group. The best practices, tips, and tricks either come directly from Atlassian or from industry experts and are guaranteed game-changers.
• Hanging with local (Atlassian) celebrities––and then becoming one. They’re not called “Jira Heroes” for nothing! AUG members and leaders are the Atlassian rockstars within their organizations and they love to share solutions to common business problems. At user groups, you’ll get tactical suggestions that you can take back to your teams to help them be more successful for any product you’re interested in learning more about. The real magic happens when the student becomes the teacher.
• Meeting and learning from likeminded Atlassian users. Community Events are a great way to learn what works (or doesn’t) for teams just like yours. Joining your local Community is the best way to immerse yourself in all things Atlassian and make new friends while you’re at it.
• Hearing it first. ACE members are always in-the-know with the latest on new products and features. Atlassian considers the user group community to be part of the Atlassian family, and being part of the family means getting the inside scoop. If you’re an early adopter, or like being on the cutting edge, you’ll love the intel that you gather in your user group.
• PIZZA-ing and beer, if that's your thing! You bring the discussion, we'll supply the goods. Grab a slice of pizza, sip a drink of your choice, and enjoy! Note: Even if event is held virtually, you still have license to eat pizza and enjoy a beverage ;). 

Join an upcoming Community Event!

Enroll in University

Atlassian University offers something for everyone, from brand-new users to expert Jira admins. (And without the pressure to live in student dormitories or eat cafeteria food). University content is designed to get you the most relevant training based on your product or your role. We currently offer training for Jira, Confluence, Jira Service Desk, and Portfolio for Jira. These are the different types of training you can take:

• On-Demand Classes: This is a great option for those who prefer to learn at their own pace. You simply choose a course and start learning in minutes. They include the same content and hands-on labs as our instructor-led classes, and you can access the recordings and demos for up to 30 days from your date of purchase. Learn more
• Live Team Training (Virtual): A virtual team session is ideal to get your entire team ramped up together (each session can host up to 12 attendees). With only people from your company in the class, the issues and questions are more relevant to your team's needs. Learn more
• Live Team Training (Onsite): If you prefer training at your site, you can arrange that too. Learn more
• Public (Virtual) Training: These are taught by Atlassian Authorized Instructors live and online. Each class is interactive and offers hands-on exercises, and you'll be joined others from all over the world.

We've recently launched the Training Credits program, a prepaid account for training that gives you and your team flexibility to choose any mixture of courses, deliveries, and schedules as needed. The big perks are simple procurement, centralized management, and bulk discounts. Learn more.

Enroll in Atlassian University

Get Certified

Atlassian offers a formal certification program for admins of Jira, Jira Software, and Confluence. In order to become an Atlassian Certified Admin, you have must pass a challenging exam and must continue to earn badges in specific areas of the product to maintain your certification. Becoming an ACP helps you to:

• Differentiate your resume if you’re looking for a new career
• Help your company by optimizing Atlassian products, setting your team up to do their best work

It's no secret that Atlassian Certified Admins have a huge advantage when hunting for the roles of their dreams. And it's no wonder: earning your Atlassian Certification shows a long-term commitment to your professional development and sets you up for success throughout your career.

Read more about why we think every Atlassian Admin should get certified

Attend Summit

Summit is a user conference where hundreds of teams of all sizes and industries come together to find inspiration and up-level the way they work. Similar to Community Events, Summit is traditionally held in-person, but has also been held virtually!

At Summit, attendees gain insights from the industry best, have access to in-depth product training and exam prep workshops, learn about latest product updates and of course rub elbows with fellow admins. Here's what else you can expect to do at Summit:

• Grow in your role. Give your product skills a major boost with 15+ hands-on training classes—from beginner to expert—followed by two full days of keynotes, breakout sessions, and product demos. Summit is also an awesome opportunity to connect with other Atlassian users and learn how they use the same products you do.
• Get a sneak peak. Attend over 75 different sessions and hear from over 90 different speakers about the latest and greatest innovations from Atlassian. Be the first to find out what’s new, what’s improved, and what’s coming soon for the tools your team can’t live without.
• Rub elbows. Summit is an amazing opportunity to connect and share ideas with like-minded individuals. Meet teams from all across the globe at the world’s largest gathering of Atlassian experts, enthusiasts, customers, and partners.
• Get inspired. Learn how other teams are using Atlassian products to unleash their teams' full potential and see how you can, too. After four jam-packed days, you’ll walk away from Summit buzzing with knowledge and inspiration to implement new ideas and tactics at your own company.
• Play, as a team. If you’ve been to Summit before, then you know it’s not all work and no play! Participate in ShipIt Live, where you’ll vote for your favorite hackathon projects and join in a final toast, and let loose with your team at Summit Bash, our biggest party of the year.

Get the download of Summit 2020, including access to all of our remote presentations 

Have you already completed every step of the The Ultimate Atlassian Admin to-do list? Do you have thoughts or questions about anything on this list? We'd love to hear more from you and to send you some swag. Comment on this thread here with a quick blurb about yourself and we'll be in touch :)!

[Helen Griffiths {Capgemini}]

My name is Helen Griffiths and I am the Operations Lead for an ALM Delivery Centre based in the UK. We currently support and administer a range of the Atlassian tools (Jira, Jira Service Desk, Confluence, Fisheye, Bamboo, Bitbucket and Crowd) for ~3000 users based in the UK. 

As a team, we're doing well ticking off the above list. We're all part of the Community, helping out wherever we can and getting some really useful advice when we're a bit stuck. The Atlassian User Group thing is a bit new to us, but we've recently been discussing sending someone from the team to the next meet up in London to share experiences.

We have a goal this year to get 75% of our team Atlassian certified, and whilst this is a challenge, its definitely something we'll do our best to achieve. I've already done a couple of the Atlassian Jira University courses, and they're really in depth and interesting - especially for the things you don't tend to work on on a daily basis - for me, this is workflows!

I've got two of the team attending the Atlassian Team Tour in London next week - which they're really looking forward to attending! I'm saving myself for the Summit in Barcelona in September though :) - out of curiosity, do you know when registration opens up? (I've registered myself for the newsletters, etc - but always best to plan these things ahead if possible!)

My addition to the above list, would be the Atlassian Playbook. Although I've not yet run a session with my team, i've been reading up on the Service team health monitor playbook. I think it's a really good initiative to get the team together and talking. Whilst you sit with your colleagues all day every day (whilst at work, of course) although you may think everything is OK because the team is doing OK, something might be bubbling under the water that you're not aware of. The Service team health monitor gives you a constructive set of attributes to focus on (which saves us a team a lot of time trying to think of these! :)) and setting the dates to check back on progress gives you realistic target dates to set goals for improvement.

Many thanks

Helen

(.p.s I understand it says i'm new here, but I have another account which i've had for years but we've recently had a change of email address and someone registered my account for licensing :))

[Bridget]

@Helen Griffiths {Capgemini}, sounds like you won't "be new here" very long! So exciting to hear that your team has momentum on checking things off this list. Also, 75% certified is an incredible feat!

I will definitely be reaching out to you to see if we can showcase that goal, and to get your take on Team Tour + Summit. 

Good shoutout on Playbook! I will do a followup post with more information on that. I agree with you that it's an invaluable tool that should be part of every team's operations. 

Thanks again for the note! Cheers,

Bridget

[Christine P. Dela Rosa]

Welcome @Helen Griffiths {Capgemini}! Just wanted to shout out that I loved the Atlassian Team Playbook concept prior to giving it a go, but sitting in my first health monitor was transformational. I think being a part of it with your team will get you even more excited. Good luck!

[Yuichiro Kimura]

Completely agree with you and  your team.

This is dedication, dedication this song for you and your team and group.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEk5s0p3kVc

GLHF and having a good day★

Yuichiro Kimura

[Dave Liao]

Love this article - it's a good reminder to those who've been thinking about getting certified, or more involved in the community.

I was expecting a list of technical to-do's for some reason, but I'm not too disappointed. 😉

[Yuichiro Kimura]

David-san

Glad to see you to I'm really proud to communicate with you, and your friendly.

And I am not mention about "technique" and "waza" "skill" "scheme" "theory" "concept" not yet.

But I'm really welcome to such a matter and things. Also making some List is nice for us.

So why don't we talking and discuss about "technology issue"

I have a plan, but I'm not used to be communicate with Atlassian.

Anyway GLHF and having a good day★

Yuichiro Kimura.

[Katie L [Atlassian]]

@Helen Griffiths {Capgemini} We hope your colleagues had a great time at our London Team Tour this afternoon! Registration for Summit Europe will open next month, stay tuned!

[Helen Griffiths]

Hi @Katie L [Atlassian]

My colleagues really enjoyed themselves at the Team Tour yesterday in London. They've come back today super pumped with all things Atlassian having met some great people yesterday. The networking at the event also enabled them to meet account managers from your Sponsors who we talk to on a regular basis, but have never actually met.

Now I just need September to hurry up! :)

[Yuichiro Kimura]

Helen-san

What a nice tour. And having a good outcome and so on, really nice.

To be honest, I’m just a using(?) Atlassian's "Funds".

I never meant to hurting and not try to insult for your community.

Now this issue is to make more better relationship, thinking.

GLHF and having a good day★

Yuichiro Kimura

[Katie L [Atlassian]]

@Helen Griffiths {Capgemini} glad to hear that your colleagues enjoyed themselves, see you in September! 

[zack]

Looking forward to Team Tour in NYC. Got the whole team coming with me for this one!

[Bridget]

@zack that is so awesome! 

[Jonny Adams]

Great To-Do list! 

I can attest that getting certified is no cake walk. I attempted the Jira Admin certification at Summit 2017 in San Jose and failed miserably despite having setup my companies Jira instance and being the Jira Admin for the last year and a half. I also took several of the courses in the Atlassian University which were insightful and improved our Jira instance, but there was quite a bit that didn't apply to our environment and I think that is what kept me from passing my certification.

The Atlassian Community is excellent and really provides a great deal of answers when I get stuck or enlightens me about features I hadn't thought of trying before.

Now I just need to make my way to the Dallas AUG.

Thanks @Bridget!

[Gary Barg]

@Jonny Adams: Gary from University here. I'm interested in your comment about content that did not apply to your environment. Could you give more detail? What could have been better for you?

Thank you!

[LeKisha Boswell]

@Bridget, this is an excellent read! I think it's important for all administrators to be certified and I'm looking to join the ranks.

@Helen Griffiths {Capgemini} please keep us updated - what a great commitment your team is undergoing!  Best of luck!!

[Jonny Adams]

@Gary Barg Thank you for reaching out to me.

My company has several established products so we primarily use Jira for product maintenance. We occasionally add features, but primarily we work on improvements and bug fixes. Also, within our company the requirement for Jira was pretty simple and straightforward when we began using it. We have gone through various iterations of requirements since then and I have learned much from the Atlassian Community which probably has me better equipped to retake the Jira Admin exam.

I would just advise others that are entertaining the idea of becoming a certified Jira Admin to explore beyond their Jira instance and understand what other businesses may require (Atlassian Community is a great spot to see what others require). There are a variety of scenarios on the exam and you will be tested on your ability to take a set of company requirements and implement changes or not.

While I have you, Gary, there is one thing about the test I did not particularly like and wonder if there is any chance of this being changed. That is the multiple answer questions where you select 3 or 4 items to answer one question and if any 1 of the 3 or 4 are incorrect then you get zero credit for the question. 

Thanks!

[Julia]

@Jonny Adams, we don't plan to change this aspect of the certification exams. However, you can rest assured that the difficulty of answering this type of question is fully taken into account when we determine the passing scores for the exams.  

[Moses Thomas]

Dear Atlassian,

Nice one,  i  am the main guy in my team for several  years,  i  am  going  for system administrator certification.

Have a nice weekend ahead.

[Meg Holbrook]

I forget to comment a while back when I shared this list to my team!

My name is Meg Holbrook and I am a JIRA/Confluence/Stride/allthethingsatlassian administrator for my company.

We are a mid-size mortgage bank, and my team specifically develops for and administers our mortgage origination system. We are the lone agile team in the company, spreading the good word and showing everyone how much communication and good practices increase positive outcomes and smoother projects. 

This to-do list (and some push from community managers), has helped me dedicate to do more and be more in the community this year. 

I attended Summit last year, spoke with a lot of great people, and was fortunate enough to find time to also make it to the Team Tour last month. 

Looking forward to ticking off the list one at a time! #admingoals2018

[Deleted user]

I like the idea of a community for Atlassian administrators, an easy way to ask questions and change ideas.

I'm also trying to make it for Atlassian Summit in Barcelona this year.

About certifications, which certifications do you recommend to start with?

[Gus Fort]

Howdy,

I have been nominated the de facto Admin for my company. We are brand new to Atlassian tools (Jira, Portfolio, and Confluence). Our goal is to use these to better manage our IT projects. This is a pilot for the tools. If IT has good success with them there is potential to expand these to a larger audience.

So as a newbie to the tools, what is the best place for me to start getting my head around all of the capabilities of each tool and how they integrate? I have been looking at the online courses, but they focus on the on-prem version and we have implemented the Cloud versions. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Thanks, in advance.

[Gary Barg]

@Gus Fort: Gary from University here. Regarding the courses being focused on Server...

- We offer the Jira Admin courses for Cloud customers too. We use the Server versions of these courses, which works because the concepts for classic administration are the same on both platforms. The differences to note are in the UI and navigation - if you can get past these differences, you'll find the courses a big help getting you started. See the course descriptions on atlassian.com/university for details.

- The courses for Jira Administration and Portfolio will be useful to you. The Confluence courses will not be.

Let me know if you need any additional help.

[Gus Fort]

@Gary Barg: Thank you for that. I will pursue those courses and reach out if I have any issues or questions.