Item: Jira Service Management
Rating: 8
Author: Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

It's used internally for developers, QA and BAs during testing phases to help with issues on a network scale (not Code). For UAT it is opened to our customers. We also had it open to our 3rd party developers as a general knowledge base, but also as a system to report issues. It was a good platform for our third party developers to get answers for their initial questions. It freed up out technical staff from answering 1st level support issues.

Pros and Cons

It organizes and prioritizes the plan of all the stakeholders of our teams.
It manages and aligns project management and operations (Support - Ticketing) phases with the same application.
It's easy to create a power customer portal that is smart and powerful.
Provides great real-time KPIs, and informative Dashboards.

If your an OnDemand user, its tough to perform config.
Provide an Open set of tool.
Being a product that is not that mature yet, modules that other companies provide are not present yet. I expect that to fade as the tool matures.
There is no real easy way to create varying service levels for types of users.
Access to data for detailed reporting. When using the cloud version there are a few crucial fields that you cannot query with the "Issues Search"
Some of our Admins report that Automation triggers don't always work when they thought they would. Specifically around emails. it could be a training issue on our end.

Return on Investment

As I said previously, it has freed up a lot of our highly paid technical staff that used to spend a lot of time answer simple 1st level support from our 3rd party API developers.
It has also provided a great platform for consolidating much of our knowledge base, removing repetitive services like SharePoint for information management.
I have not seen a real negative impact on the ROI.

Alternatives Considered

They are all pretty similar when it comes to the ticketing aspect of things, but where JIRA Service Desk sets itself apart was the ability to create a knowledge base portal for customers and 3rd party developers. As a knowealge base AND support ticket system, the others really could not equal that.

Other Software Used

IBM Rational ALM, HP Quality Center, Team Foundation Server, Bugzilla

Likelihood to Recommend

I would say it is very suitable if you have a large 3rd party development pool that use your APIs. It provides a quick reference to Requirements and tech specs, as well as great and easy 1st level support which is a gain for your organization. Its good as an internal product as well if there are many silo'd teams across a geographic distance.

A small company that is general self contained may not see a huge impact from this tool.

Users and Roles

9 - They are Tech Writers, BA, QA, Developers, PMs and V level personnel The tech writers publish tech documents that our 3rd party devs use. BAs and QA use it as reference for older functions, PMs use it to identify potential new project while the V level use the dashboards to get a feel of how everything is flowing.

Products Replaced

Key Differentiators

Product Features
Product Usability
Positive Sales Experience with the Vendor
Analyst Reports
Third-party Reviews

It came down to what JIRA had to offer over the competition, and that it was in a single tool. Specifically, a help desk functions and consumer portal in one.

Evaluation Lessons Learned

I might have take more time in evaluating the version. Not from a module perspective, but from a support perspective. The Cloud services are less inclined to allow your own self service as far as creating reports.

JIRA Service Desk: Young, but in charge.

Overall Satisfaction with JIRA Service Desk