Our review of Jira

Jira is the project management software developed by software giant Atlassian. This tool is available in three versions:

• Jira Core: The basic Jira project and task management platform for users with no IT expertise.
• Jira Software: A specialized version of the tool designed for software developers.
• Jira Service Desk: The platform for customer support and IT professionals.

Jira Software is used by over 65,000 teams worldwide. It’s a great back office tool to use alongside a customer communication tool.

While its advanced personalization features make it suitable for all types of business, it is particularly well suited to marketing, HR and web development teams.

Read our review of Jira in this article!

My opinion of Jira in a nutshell

The advantages of Jira:

• Functional depth: One of the most advanced software packages on the market. An extensive customization offering makes it a product for a wide variety of structures – and always UX-friendly.
• Tracking: One of Jira’s greatest strengths is its tracking capabilities. Reporting is highly developed and customizable to track all issues and improve team performance. Jira’s Kanban and Scrum tools have practically become the industry standard.

The disadvantages of Jira:

• Difficulty of adaptation: The counterpart of functional depth is the difficulty of getting used to it. The tool is cumbersome and time-consuming to set up within a team, which can make it difficult to manage difficult tasks at first. This is mainly due to the fact that it is primarily designed for engineering and software development teams. On the plus side, the highly-developed support can help you get up to speed a little faster.
• Price: Even if the price isn’t excessive, it can be a deterrent for smaller structures. Especially considering the difficulty of adaptation.

Jira: the impressive functional scope

At Jira, every function has a purpose. And every one of them is highly developed, hence the success of this software.

#1 Ticket management

Originally, Jira was a ticket tracking software. Today, it is one of the best available on the market.

You gain insight into your customers’ needs, bugs and any other potential malfunctions. Tracking is highly developed: each ticket has a life cycle and can be linked to other past events.

There are 3 ways to manage tickets in Jira:

• Ticket manager: this function is very powerful, but it also implies a certain complexity. The manager therefore requires a mastery of basic code, and is more suited to software developers.
• Scrum and Kanban boards: Easier to use, they’re the choice of Agile teams.
• Jira queues: More for novice users.

#2 Scrum & Kanban: project management tools

These are Jira’s project management tools. They are useful for visualizing objectives and targets:

• Scrum: The tables allow you to track different “sprints”, corresponding to the duration of a particular task, and which are broken down into sub-tasks.
• Kanban: Similar to Scrum, but with a more global function. He manages the project as a whole, taking into account the time needed to complete it.

Jira guides you through the 5-step creation process: choosing the project type, filling in the backlog, creating the sprint, visualizing the roadmap and improving through reporting.

The great advantage of these two tools is their customizability. The tables adapt to the workflow of software development, marketing and project management teams.

#3 Roadmap

With Jira Portfolio, the roadmap tool, you have a clear vision of the product you’re developing. Jira Portfolio is a specialized integration designed to manage your roadmaps and share them with the relevant teams. It also includes a schedule, a product backlog and short- and long-term objectives.

Jira Portfolio adapts to every user:

• Team managers: To monitor the progress of the development team
• Agile development teams: To follow the project realization process
• Sales teams: to promote new functionalities to users before launch

#4 Automation

Jira’s “rules” function saves time and eliminates the need to handle repetitive tasks manually. Rules are specific conditions to be set in order to launch automation, which breaks down into 3 parts: triggers (predefined rules), conditions and actions (task execution).

When you trigger a rule or all conditions are met, Jira sends a notification. You are also informed if the conditions are met but the action is not triggered due to conflicting conditions.

Reporting on Jira

Jira has one of the most extensive reporting capabilities of any project management software. They offer many reports, including Sprint reporting, which provides an in-depth analysis of each sprint on your Scrum board. Here you can find the following reports:

• Progress chart: Shows you the progress of your sprints.
• Release Burndown: Track product release dates for software development teams
• Velocity chart: tracks the time it takes to move from one sprint to the next.
• Cumulative flow chart: To track problems and blockages within a Kanban board
• Control charts: They determine the future performance of cycles on a Kanban board.

There are also reports on time tracking, average age, most recent tickets, agent workload, time to resolution, etc.

Jira: what customers say

Customers are generally satisfied with the product, praising its advanced features (tracking in particular). The recurring negative point is the difficulty of adapting to the complexity of the tool.

Customer support at Jira

To give you a brief overview of Jira’s customer support:

• Contact options: Support is available by chat and email, during office hours for the Standard and Premium plans, and 24 hours a day for the Enterprise plan. Please note that telephone support is only available for the corporate plan.
• Helpdesk: The helpdesk is well-stocked and the platform well organized. The idea is to be able to solve your problems independently thanks to documentation.

• User community: The community is just like Jira: highly developed. You can also take advantage of user self-help with their dedicated blog.

Jira integrations & mobile applications

Jira’s marketplace of integrations

Here again, Jira’s marketplace of integrations is extremely rich. Here are just a few of these integrations:

• Channels: Whatsapp, Twitter, Gmail, etc. So you can respond quickly to your messages thanks to automatic synchronization.
• CRM: Atlas, Salesforce, Hubspot, etc. to update your contacts, transactions and activities.
• Project management software: Worklog, Deep Clone, Timesheet, etc. This lets you manage all your projects without leaving your inbox.
• Internal communication & collaboration: Slack and Zoom to initiate video meetings with your colleagues.

The mobile application

It’s a watered-down version of the software. The user interface is optimized for the smaller display of mobile devices, providing quick access to key functions.

Note, however, that possible activities are limited to displaying tickets, adding comments and assigning them to users. You cannot create or modify tickets without using the software.

Jira rates

Jira offers 4 different plans depending on the tool (Core, Software and Service Desk). Jira Software’s prices are detailed here:

• Free: Limited to 10 users. Access to Scrum and Kanban boards, backlogs and customized workflows. The full catalog of integrations is available. 2GB maximum storage.
• Standard: $7.50/month per agent. Limited to 20,000 users. Support is available during office hours. 250 GB of storage.
• Premium: $14.50/month per agent. You benefit from 24-hour customer support and access to advanced reporting features. 250 GB of storage.
• Company: Prices on request, for an offer tailored to your needs. You benefit from all Premium features, including access to Atlassian Analytics and telephone support.