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

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

JIRA is primarily used as our bug database for issues that are found while testing our software. It houses our 20+ projects and works great for housing our bug tickets in a very organized manor. JIRA is also used for tracking the development of the current sprint that the engineers are working on. JIRA has some great features and links to other software tools such as TestRail and Confluence.

Pros and Cons

Linking JIRA tickets to a test planning software life TestRail is great tool as you can link the JIRA ticket in TestRail and then see the results to the test in JIRA or have a quick link to open the ticket in a new browser from TestRail.
The organization that we are able to create with JIRA is invaluable between grouping tickets via build numbers or creating central location for information on a development sprint.
Using JIRA as a tool to create a task orientated ticket that has instructions and information that can be given to a third party contractor in order for them to run a detailed test plan on your software.

JIRA does have a tendency to make visual changes to the UI more often than is wanted or warranted. It does seem like just as you get used to one UI a new one is available.
When searching tickets for a specific type of issue it can be difficult to find what you are looking for unless you are very specific.
If used incorrectly the workflow life cycle of a regular JIRA bug ticket can have create road blocks that requires you to restart the life cycle and retread the steps in order to finalize and close out a bug after it has been fixed.

Return on Investment

We would not be very organized as a software company without using JIRA and it would in turn reflect negatively across the entire studio and the products that we release.
Almost everyone in our company uses JIRA in one way or another from developers to testers to marketing and every team in between.
The only time I have witnessed that JIRA has a negative effect on our objectives is if they suffer a major failure on their part and JIRA is not accessable or usable for a length of time. Thankfully in over 3 years of using JIRA this has only occurred a handful of times.

Alternatives Considered

I do not have experience with similar products

Other Software Used

Atlassian Confluence, Flurry Analytics

Likelihood to Recommend

Organizing a software project with tickets ranging from Bugs to Tasks to Feedback, JIRA works very well to house a wide variety to tickets for different situations or scenarios. The ability to link JIRA tickets to other software tools is invaluable and beyond useful for seeing the progress or keeping track or work done in a separate software application. The ease of adding in attachments is great so that you can show what problem you found via a picture or video file.

House of Organization

Overall Satisfaction with JIRA Service Desk