Atlassian upgrading us automatically to Premium

[Jens]

I'm a happy user of the Automation for Jira addon from Codebarrel. Atlassian recently acquired Codebarrel and just sent out an email saying they will incorporate the functionality from the addon into Jira. That is all great.

However, the email also stated that when the functionality has been added to Jira, they will automatically upgrade addon customers to a trial of their Jira Premium plan for 90 days. When the trial expires, the customers must downgrade the plan to Standard to avoid being billed for Premium.

We're using the Standard plan and have no use for the extended support that is currently the main difference between Standard and Premium (https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/pricing).

For me this is not a decent way to treat your customers. Why should existing customers that have already chosen a specific plan take care to downgrade from this trial to avoid the additional cost?

Am I the only one who thinks this is a strange move from Atlassian?

[Jens]

Hi John

Atlassian is forcing me to opt-out of a 100% price increase. I don't think that is a reasonable way to treat a customer.

If you are so concerned about minimizing disruptions, don't introduce limits to how much the product can be used. Everything would work just as they do now, except that you wouldn't force customers to upgrade to a more expensive plan to get the same features they had before. It seems to me, it is not the customers you are concerned about, but your bottom line.

[Jens]

Hi Jessica

You can spin this any way you like, but this is not an optimal change for ANYONE, except Atlassian.

You're increasing the price of Team Calendars to a ridiculous level by including it in Premium.

You're forcing your customers to OPT-OUT of a 100% price increase of their Confluence subscription.

But hey, this isn't exactly the first time you do this - it happened with the automation add-on you bought, then moved into Jira Premium. In that case you also forced us to OPT-OUT to avoid a 100% price increase. Apparently we must be on a constant lookout to ensure we don't get overcharged for Premium features we don't want.

[Jay Martinsen]

Atlassian did compensate us by extending our Premium "trial" by almost a year, which I thought was a fair compromise, so thank you for that.

[Deleted user]

Hi @John McKiernan1 ,

It appears we were also auto upgraded.   I'm disappointed in this behavior.  I generally advocate for Atlassian products and we use many of them across our large organization.  But this goes against ethical boundaries & potential legal ones in the USA. 

I'd like to talk to someone about a $1200 credit for the auto-upgrade as we did NOT elect this and I just happened to notice a spike in our bill.  This crossed a trust boundary that I will now have to hawk Atlassian for ethical issues going forward and may well be in the realms of reporting to the BBB.  I don't understand why this has been noted for over a year by the original poster but has not been reversed.  There seems to be some additional bureaucracy at play here.  

What is the Atlassian course of action going forward to promise your customers you will not secretly upgrade them and cost them double their current charge?  

Please have someone contact me from your team to give a credit for next month & answer the above question.  This is simply unacceptable behavior. 

Thanks,
-jp

[John McKiernan]

Hey Julien,

thanks for your feedback. John from the Automation team here. 

We designed these changes in order to minimize any disruption to your work and with the assumption that most paid Automation for Jira customers would be interested in continuing to use the automation feature at scale.

I understand where you are coming from. Our desire was to ensure we didn't stop anyones automation rules from executing (as we know what impact that can have on a Jira instance). I'd love to chat through any concerns from your side. Let me know if you want to arrange a time. (jmckiernan@atlassian.com). 

Thanks,

John

[Jessica Taylor]

Hi there - Jessica from the Confluence team here. I hear your frustration and apologize if this came as a surprise. We notified existing customers of the Team Calendars add-on that it was becoming a Premium feature in November 2020. We did this to accommodate a growing need from customers to increase team efficiency as they scale. We know this isn’t an optimal change for everyone, and like with Automation for Jira Software above, we’re offering current customers an extended Confluence Premium trial (which they may de-activate if they choose.)

[Jens]

Yeah, their new business motto must be "Screw the customers". This change forced us to stop using Team Calendars

[Carl Ebbage]

They've only done it again!!

[John McKiernan]

Hi @[deleted] ,

Thanks for your message. I can certainly understand where you are coming from if it wasn't something you expected. 

As mentioned above, we know that people rely on automation and if automation rules stop running, it can break your processes in work. We wanted to ensure that there was minimal disruption. 

There was definitely no intention of it being secretive. We sent 6 emails over the past months, included in-product prompts and posted on the community to try and ensure every customer had the opportunity to make the best decision for them and their business. We also extended the free Premium trial by a further three months.

I know this doesn't necessarily answer your concerns above but please do feel free to email at jmckiernan@atlassian.com 

(also just a note that I will be going on Paternity leave from Dec 1st so if I do not respond to a post on this thread, it is because of that) 

Many thanks,

John 

[John McKiernan]

Hey @Tristan Douville ,

Yes all of your rules will remain the same and no action is needed on your side. IF you choose to move over to Premium, you have unlimited automation rules as well as access to all of the other Premium features like Advanced Roadmaps.

As Jay mentioned, the Premium plan does cost more (this will depend on the size of your instance). However, you also need to take into account that you no will no longer pay for the Automation for Jira app (as this is now native).

I hope that helps you make the right decision but let me know if you have any other questions.

Cheers,

John 

[Jay Martinsen]

Everything will remain the same but you can expect to pay double now.

[Tristan Douville]

We currently pay for Automation as a subscription on top of our Jira Software standard plan. IF we were to upgrade to premium I assume everything would be transferred over automatically and won't require anything from our end? 

[John McKiernan]

Hi Angelo, 

Sorry to hear you feel that way. Certainly not the intention. You can of course choose to move to Standard for one or both products at any time plus you will no longer be paying for the Automation for Jira app (plus you will have unlimited single-project automation rules across both Jira Software and Jira Service Desk). 

I know it's not for everyone and I appreciate your candid feedback. Do let me know if there is any way I can help. 

Cheers,

John

[Angelo Loria]

We were also automatically enrolled, in both Service Desk and Software Premium. I won't ever recommend an Atlassian product to anyone going forward, these tactics are disgusting.

[John McKiernan]

Hey @Maurizio Margiotta ,

Thanks for your message. I hear your frustration. 

It is a tricky one. When making these changes, we were conscious of interrupting anyones existing automation rules. Your point is valid about emails potentially getting lost, etc. We have sent several emails and also included an in product message for several weeks just to ensure everyone was aware and there wouldn't be any surprises. 

You are correct. During the extended Jira Premium trial, you do not pay for Premium but you do continue to pay for the price of the app. Essentially your bill stays the same until the end of your trial. 

With regards to your pricing, I would need to look into your account to check what the difference will be. 3x price doesn't sound right. Could you ping me with your account info at jmckiernan@atlassian.com? 

There are unlimited single-project rules for all Cloud users. You could downgrade to a Standard plan and use only single-project rules. In this case, you would not be paying for Jira Premium or the Automation for Jira app which means your bill would reduce. However, there is no option to use global automation (more than the 500 per month limit) in Standard. For this, you would need a Premium plan with either Jira Software or Jira Service Desk.

I know this probably isn't the answer you are looking for and I am not going to try and sell you on something you don't want/need. However, I would like to help you find a solution that suits. Please do email and we can try and sort through it. 

Thanks,

John

[Maurizio Margiotta]

We have been moved to Jira Premium trial too without any explicit consent and to me, it sounds illegal. I could be wrong, but it's definitely an inacceptable behavior, because if an email is lost (spam or whatever reason) we cannot get suddenly charged double!

If switching to Jira Premium is needed to continue using the full features of Automation for Jira, why we are still paying for this plugin? It's still in the billing!

In any case, it's really outrageous to be forced to pay 7$/user more (for Premium), instead of 2.5$/user of Automation for Jira, when we don't need Premium at all. You just increased the cost of the plugin 3 times! And stop selling that premium has other features... we never asked for it!

So, please let me understand. If we are still paying for Automation for Jira Cloud, can we just opt-out from Jira Premium and keep paying for the automation?

[Carl Ebbage]

Consistent then?

[Jens]

On my tenant JSD was upgraded to Premium, Confluence was not.

[Carl Ebbage]

Can you confirm which products other than Confluence will be auto-upgraded to Premium?

[Jay Martinsen]

Yea this is not cool, we were auto upgraded to Confluence Premium from Standard. We weren't using any of the features that come with Premium, why do you think you have the right to do that?

[John McKiernan]

Hi Christopher,

thanks for your message. I appreciate your feedback. 

We have heard this from customers like yourself, Jens and others and I have taken all of this collated information back to the team for consideration. 

We will email all customers if there are indeed any changes to the proposal as soon as possible. 

I apologize this is a slightly vague answer but really appreciate your patience here as we try to find the right balance. 

Thanks again,

John

[Christopher Hsu]

I agree with Jens, we have the Automation for Jira add-on and have built Global and Multi-Project rules.  This acquisition means that these rules will be null, unless we convert to Premium.  Premium is 2X the cost and the benefits get me what I currently have at a lower cost with the Automation for Jira add-on, unlimited cloud storage (don't need) and premier service (never used or needed).

I'm surprised more Atlassian customers that use the Automation for Jira add-on aren't up in arms about this significant change.  

We are currently, exploring how to update our rules in anticipation of this forced change, but our organization is exploring other solutions that we originally ruled out with cost as a factor, like BMC TrackIT|Footprints and ServiceNow for our service desk options.  Not to mention other solutions that support agile. 

[John McKiernan]

Hi Jens, 

I appreciate your feedback. We are listening and I am passing everything back to the teams.

Jira Premium does have a lot more to offer than just more automation executions. There is also a lot more on the way. However, I understand this isn't something that every customer will want.

I want to ensure that you aren't disrupted in your work and know all of the options open. Please just reach out if you do want to talk in more depth. 

thanks,

John