Satish Gungabeesoon - PeerSpot reviewer
CTO, Digital Transformation at next pathway
Real User
It makes our lives better by streamlining the tedious daily work of project management
Pros and Cons
  • "In terms of product management, Jira increases productivity and visibility into the product. Those are the top benefits this tool provides to the team. Also, it's accessible to the executives and whoever wants to sign on to Jira to see what's going on."
  • "Reporting is something Jira could work on. The reporting capabilities should have the same flexibility we see in Excel, including the ability to manipulate data and create graphs. They need to have that, so we don't need to export to a spreadsheet."

What is our primary use case?

We use Jira to manage agile development from beginning to end. First of all, we lay out a backlog of everything that needs to be done. Within the backlog, We define a sprint of three to four weeks and prioritize in Jira. The backlog is stored and the sprints are defined in Jira.

The tasks or stories fall under the umbrella label "issues." The issues are created and assigned to developers, and the testing is tracked in Jira. After one is done, it moves into the QA stage. We track that all the way until we get to what is called "non-performance testing," which is part of production. We use Jira to track the status throughout, and we have daily stand-up meetings where all the developers get together to talk about their blockers, interdependencies, the net, etc. All of this is captured in Jira.

Our client is a bank, and we use a cloud version of Jira. We are the supplier, so we're onboarded and get a login for whatever they're using. Right now it's a cloud version that we are signed onto. They use a hybrid cloud because they have their own cloud because some of their systems are private, and some are in the public cloud. 

The bank works with a few cloud providers. They are using Google for this project. We are heavy into developing microservices, which use JKE, Google layer, Google Cloud Platform, Google Communities Engine, and all the other Google components for microservices development. Most of their stuff is deployed on Google, but they are also affiliated with a bigger bank that uses Azure, so some of their systems are deployed on Azure.

How has it helped my organization?

In terms of product management, Jira increases productivity and visibility into the product. Those are the top benefits this tool provides to the team. Also, it's accessible to the executives and whoever wants to sign on to Jira to see what's going on. 

There are different levels at which they can see the project. It depends on what they want. Somebody can, for example, create a report, but some of the reporting capabilities are not quite there. However, Jira can export all the data to a spreadsheet. Once it's in a spreadsheet, the sky's the limit.

What is most valuable?

Jira has a dashboard called Active Sprint. The board has a button on it for every developer, and when you click on it, you can see every task assigned to them along with the status. It's great to have visibility at that level. Every developer and test is there. 

What needs improvement?

Reporting is something Jira could work on. The reporting capabilities should have the same flexibility we see in Excel, including the ability to manipulate data and create graphs. They need to have that, so we don't need to export to a spreadsheet.

Jira should add some features from another Atlassian product called Confluence, which we use to track all the documents we need for development and testing. There should be better integration between Confluence and Jira. I like to use Confluence to do my reporting, and I should be able to go into Confluence and launch reporting at the source. 

Jira acts as a data source, and Confluence is where the dashboards are. It would be easy for Atlassian to develop all the dashboarding capabilities for executives so they don't need to log into Jira. There's too much there. It would be better if executives could log into Confluence, which is a document-based tool.

Buyer's Guide
Jira
March 2024
Learn what your peers think about Jira. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
770,141 professionals have used our research since 2012.

For how long have I used the solution?

We've been using Jira for nearly three years, but I've only been directly using and trying to generate reports from it for probably two years. Before that, I had my project manager do everything with Jira, but lately I've been working with it directly. I might sign on and looking at things because I want to understand what's happening with the project. There are a few things that are not right with Jira though.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Jira's stability is pretty good. I haven't had any problems. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We've never had an issue scaling up Jira for big teams. It's not a problem for the banks I work with or our in-house development.

How are customer service and support?

I give Atlassian support eight on 10. 

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I worked at IBM for many years, and we used an IBM product called CMVC. The difference is night and day. Jira is much better. 

How was the initial setup?

Infrastructure is all set up for us, and we go back to the bank's infrastructure team if there's a problem.

What other advice do I have?

I rate Jira eight out of 10. It boosts productivity tremendously by eliminating the chaos between development and QA. Jira manages the entire pipeline from development to production. If you're thinking about implementing Jira, you should go for it. It will make your life better by streamlining the tedious daily work of project management.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Senior Technical Project Manager at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Very extensible with ability to integrate other tools and different interfaces into it
Pros and Cons
  • "Offers a common language set so we can bring people into projects and get them up and running almost immediately."
  • "Lacks some common building block approaches to certain things."

What is our primary use case?

Similar to the whole solution stack, we use Jira for security and for operational data storage. We also use it for custom-made API structures, moving data from the cloud to legacy on-prem infrastructures so we can use it to develop failing interfaces. We're customers of Jira and we license the solution. Our company has a form of strategic alliance where we buy the product, pay the fees and use the solution. I'm a senior technical project manager.

How has it helped my organization?

The benefit of Jira to our company is that the product is extensible. We can integrate other tools and different interfaces into it. You can look at what's being done, how it's being done and know how to improve it. That includes things like optimizing performance or scanning the structures we build for security vulnerabilities. Extensibility is the most effective way we can create products and services for our clients.

What is most valuable?

The value of this product is that it offers a common language set so we can bring people into projects and get them up and running almost immediately. We know the language. It's the training and education content that's key and there's enough out there, whether it's paid training or free training, that gets people up to speed pretty quickly. Following on from that is optimizing the training for a given initiative or project. 

What needs improvement?

Although this is a somewhat old-school approach, we'd like to see some common building block approaches to certain things. We do a lot of coding and swapping things because there's a lot of common non-functional capabilities we have to share based on our own company policies. In that sense, it would be helpful to have some sort of modular building blocks that are in some of these up-and-coming extensible capabilities, like how you interface the next level of security scanning code or cloud to cloud capabilities, anything like that would be an improvement. These are expensive things to build and give out for free. At least knowing what's in the headlights for the products together with some good specific industry demos would help, whether related to the financial sector, healthcare sector, whatever. There isn't a lot of that; as things stand, they're generally offering demos with people talking about how you could have a secure way of developing a code for a HIPAA mixed standards or whatever. More documentation on how to precisely use the solution, particularly in a given industry sector, would be helpful.

We use a lot of third-party monitoring and although the extensibility is there, a monitoring tool suite as you get in production would be helpful. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using this solution for 10 years. 

What other advice do I have?

This is a good product, it's served us well. I don't really have a lot of issues with it so I rate the solution eight out of 10. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Private Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Jira
March 2024
Learn what your peers think about Jira. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
770,141 professionals have used our research since 2012.
IT Project Manager at Gravity Diagnostics
Real User
Designed for project management, meets all IT software development needs, and integrates with Power BI
Pros and Cons
  • "The roadmap feature and the ability to integrate with Power BI are probably the most valuable features in it. It is a great solution. I absolutely love it. It is a tool that was designed for project management, and it has been awesome to work with it so far. I also love Confluence."
  • "They can maybe dumb down the directions for building the automation a little bit because to be able to build out the automation, I had to play around with it and learn what all the fields meant and what they were referencing. I don't have an IT background originally. My background is in biology, and I got into project management by chance. I am good at it, but I haven't really worked with coding languages. In terms of writing automation, it is easier for devs because they intuitively know what they're being asked, but as a PM who originally didn't have IT experience, it was a little bit daunting at first. It could also have an extra hierarchy to be able to allow tasks under stories. It could be the way it is set up at our organization, but currently, under stories, you can have sub-tasks, but you can't create a task. Being able to customize your hierarchy a little bit more would be beneficial because sometimes, the devs would say, "Well, here's a story, and now we need sub-tasks," but as we were building out the sub-tasks, sometimes we had to go a step lower to dig in a little bit more, and we couldn't do that."

What is our primary use case?

We used it in my previous organization for project management, product management, and release management. In my current organization, where I started working a week ago, we are using Jira strictly for help-desk tickets. We are using DevOps for our release management. So, we've got DevOps, Jira, and some homegrown stuff, and I'm trying to figure out what's going to work best for this new organization.

I've used Jira and Confluence previously, and this is my first time using the help-desk ticketing system. It is cool and not a whole lot different than SolarWinds or Zendesk, except the appearance of it is more Jira.

How has it helped my organization?

We were using Microsoft OneNote for systems engineering and network engineering. It was being used for our documentation, environments, and services, and it was a nightmare. We transitioned everybody and copied everything into Confluence. We were then able to tag specific tickets to the notes, and there were links between what work was recently done and the most updated notes in Confluence.

What is most valuable?

The roadmap feature and the ability to integrate with Power BI are probably the most valuable features in it. It is a great solution. I absolutely love it. It is a tool that was designed for project management, and it has been awesome to work with it so far. I also love Confluence.

What needs improvement?

They can maybe dumb down the directions for building the automation a little bit because to be able to build out the automation, I had to play around with it and learn what all the fields meant and what they were referencing. I don't have an IT background originally. My background is in biology, and I got into project management by chance. I am good at it, but I haven't really worked with coding languages. In terms of writing automation, it is easier for devs because they intuitively know what they're being asked, but as a PM who originally didn't have IT experience, it was a little bit daunting at first.

It could also have an extra hierarchy to be able to allow tasks under stories. It could be the way it is set up at our organization, but currently, under stories, you can have sub-tasks, but you can't create a task. Being able to customize your hierarchy a little bit more would be beneficial because sometimes, the devs would say, "Well, here's a story, and now we need sub-tasks," but as we were building out the sub-tasks, sometimes we had to go a step lower to dig in a little bit more, and we couldn't do that.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It has never gone down for me. It was always reliable, even from the mobile app.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It was fine. It seemed to integrate with all of our systems with ease. At my previous organization, there were probably 500 or 600 people using Jira. There were many different roles including product management, project management, VPs of IT and Ops, IT data services, developers, network engineers, systems engineers, and CBAs. It was a full scale of IT professionals.

At my current organization, where I started working a week ago, we are using Jira, but there are only a handful of people who are actually using it. It is strictly for help-desk tickets. I am trying to implement it and roll it out to the organization on a much larger scale, and I'm going to have to talk to them about pricing and other things. In this new organization, there are probably about 500 or 600 employees in total. Assuming I get the buy-in from everyone, which I don't think would be a problem, I would probably need at least a hundred licenses for users and then expand from there as needed.

How are customer service and technical support?

I haven't interacted with their technical support, but I bet they would have been awesome.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I have used Smartsheet, MS Project, and Trello. Jira is more software-development-specific and a much easier tool to use.

How was the initial setup?

In my previous organization, I believe its initial setup was complex. I was not at the administrative user level. I was given admin privileges for certain projects but not for the whole Jira. This is the first time I actually have admin privileges over all of Jira, and it was set up for me.

It probably took a few days. It would have also involved a lot of conversations and other stuff.

What about the implementation team?

It would have been in-house. In terms of maintenance, it didn't seem to need maintenance from our side.

What other advice do I have?

I would advise going with the entire Atlassian suite. Don't just use one aspect of Jira, unless you have a very specific need for using bits and pieces. Jira is better when Confluence and everything can be integrated, and you have source code management and all of that from the same software or platform.

I would rate Jira a ten out of ten. I love Jira. It has the ability to just do everything, and it is a one-stop shop for all of your IT software development needs.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Private Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
IT bp at KDR Corp
Real User
Top 20
A reasonably stable solution with an easy setup phase
Pros and Cons
  • "The integration between Confluence and Jira, along with Jira's ticketing system, is a valuable feature the product offers its users."
  • "I have noticed a problem with Jira in the Philippines. In the Philippines, there are only a few companies that offer local support, which is alarming."

What is our primary use case?

I use the solution in my company as an ITSM tool. Our company's service desk and those working with the engineering team use the tool.

What is most valuable?

The integration between Confluence and Jira, along with Jira's ticketing system, is a valuable feature the product offers its users.

What needs improvement?

I opted for Jira since it was offering ITIL V4, and there seems to be a compatibility between ITIL V3 and ITIL V4.

From an improvement perspective, it would be better if Jira could offer more in the area of data analytics similar to what Power BI and Qlik offer to users. The tool currently lacks in the area of data analytics.

Jira needs to consider lowering its prices considering the competition in the market.

I have noticed a problem with Jira in the Philippines. In the Philippines, there are only a few companies that offer local support, which is alarming. In my previous company, when we requested support, basic support was not provided, and we had to schedule and deal with everything on our own.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Jira for around two years. I am a user of the solution.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is a stable solution.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is a pretty much scalable solution.

How are customer service and support?

The solution's technical support is good. I rate the support a nine out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I have experience with ManageEngine and ServiceNow. If I need to deal with a project involving retail business, then Jira would be a poor choice because dealing with a retail business requires a tool to have an approach different from what Jira offers. Compared to ServiceNow, Jira is a bit better.

How was the initial setup?

The product's initial setup phase was straightforward.

The solution is deployed on the cloud.

The solution can be configured within a week or so. If there are changes to be made in the solution, then it requires more time to configure it.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

If I compare Jira's licensing model with that of other products, I think that the other products have a much better licensing model. Considering what is happening in the market presently, and as people are moving away from Jira and ServiceNow, more and more people have started embracing cheaper products in the market. I rate the product's price a four on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive.

It is important to know that my company uses the free version of the solution since we are not a big organization. My company is currently looking into the configurations and other areas before going for the paid version of the solution.

What other advice do I have?

Performance-wise, Jira is a good solution, but the problem lies in the part of its licensing area.

I rate the product's price an eight out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Flag as inappropriate
PeerSpot user
Cemil Uzun - PeerSpot reviewer
General Manager at WTECHIN
Real User
Useful design, simple implementation, and plenty of support information online
Pros and Cons
  • "We use Jira mostly for task coordination and assignment. Additionally, scrum methodologies defined work items and bug issues. If we create any bugs all of them are fixed."
  • "Jira can improve by making methodologies better, such as scrum and agile. Additionally, improvements in Kanban boards are needed."

What is most valuable?

We use Jira mostly for task coordination and assignment. Additionally, scrum methodologies defined work items and bug issues. If we create any bugs all of them are fixed.

What needs improvement?

Jira can improve by making methodologies better, such as scrum and agile. Additionally, improvements in Kanban boards are needed.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Jira for approximately five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability of Jira is good.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Jira is scalable, this is in part because in our company we use it on the cloud.

How are customer service and support?

We have not needed to use the support from Jira. It is easy to find information on Google or any other search platform. If we encounter an issue we can find the solution online.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup of Jira was simple.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The standard package of Jira is for 100 users. They should offer more packages for other increments, such as 500 or 2,000. In my previous company, there was a free package that provided a minimal number of users.

What other advice do I have?

I rate Jira an eight out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Global Senior Manager at a logistics company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Flexible, easy to use, and simple to learn
Pros and Cons
  • "It's flexible and it can provide a lot of different options, such as dashboards, that you can create and manage."
  • "Sometimes the solution doesn't communicate well with other platforms. It's quite difficult to integrate things and make the data flow from A to B, to Jira, and then back to other areas."

What is our primary use case?

I primarily use the solution for project management. 

What is most valuable?

The product is quite easy to use and simple to navigate.

The solution isn't too difficult to learn.

It's flexible and it can provide a lot of different options, such as dashboards, that you can create and manage. You can really tailor-make your own dashboard depending on your needs.  

It's quick and very stable. 

I don't see many issues while I'm using it.

You can basically communicate with all kinds of different teams that are using Jira and you can do that under the product, as a single platform.

What needs improvement?

Sometimes the solution doesn't communicate well with other platforms. It's quite difficult to integrate things and make the data flow from A to B, to Jira, and then back to other areas.

Nowadays, you see a lot of product management tools, like monday.com and they are very user-friendly. They offer features that allow for cosmetic changes, and you can actually change the color and the form to your own liking. ira is lacking some of that flexibility. It's not critical, however, for the wider user base, many would like to see that.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for three years. It's been a while. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Overall, the performance of the tool is quite reliable with few bugs or glitches, and it runs very fast in the browser It doesn't crash or freeze.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution can handle a lot of tickets. I've seen it handle more than 10,000 with no problem. It's almost unlimited in terms of scalability.

What other advice do I have?

I'm a customer and an end-user.

I'm using the latest version of the solution right now. I cannot speak to the exact version number we are on currently.

I'd rate the solution at a nine out of ten. We've been very happy with its capabilities. 

I would recommend the solution, as it is quite powerful.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Information Technology Program Manager at a wholesaler/distributor with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Very stable with valuable Kanban boards, but needs better reporting capabilities for customized reports
Pros and Cons
  • "Kanban boards are most valuable"
  • "The reporting capabilities, specifically customized reports, should be improved. The out-of-box reports don't meet our needs. We are big into customizing our reports, and being able to do ad hoc reporting would be good."

What is our primary use case?

We are using it for bug tracking and new feature development. We have its latest version.

How has it helped my organization?

Using Kanban boards has allowed us to become a flow-based organization versus a sprint-based organization.

What is most valuable?

Kanban boards are most valuable. 

What needs improvement?

The reporting capabilities, specifically customized reports, should be improved. The out-of-box reports don't meet our needs. We are big into customizing our reports, and being able to do ad hoc reporting would be good.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Jira for about three and a half years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It has been very stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I believe it has been scaling. I don't really work with that group, and I am not sure. We've got at least a thousand people on it, and to my knowledge, it has been fine at least for our needs. It is being used extensively in our company. We don't have any plans to increase its usage. 

How are customer service and technical support?

I have not had any interface with their technical support.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I have used Microsoft Team Foundation Server in the past. I switched to Jira because of the job change. Microsoft Team Foundation Server had a number of features that I don't see in Jira. It had good visual charting. 

How was the initial setup?

I wasn't a part of that group.

What other advice do I have?

There are some good and valuable tool plugins that make it a much better tool. I've got plugins that cover most of the features that were lacking. There are some specific plugins that are targeted for specific kinds of use cases.

I would rate Jira a seven out of ten. It all comes down to reporting. It should have better and more robust reporting.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Web Project Lead at Nikon Corp
Real User
Can be used by technical and non-technical people. Unfortunately some interesting Apps from the Marketplace are not available for the Cloud version.
Pros and Cons
  • "The board has been a very valuable feature because it can be very simple for teams that are not technical. It can also be highly technical and have lots of data for teams that are technical. So we use it for both instances."
  • "The next-generation software projects lack a lot, and I found quite a few bugs. There are some really basic things that you still cannot do. For instance, to put a mandatory due date for a task that you create in one of these projects is still not available. That's a bit of a block because people, especially those who are not technical, are not going to add anything if it's not mandatory. It's going to be difficult to teach them that they should do it anyway."

What is our primary use case?

We started using it in the eComm team for the website and all the digital projects. At the beginning was Jira for software development and the Confluence to move the communication away from our mailboxes. Now, we're also using it for marketing and campaign management. Confluence is now our single source of truth and, in general, we are using it in much more content-based projects.

How has it helped my organization?

In many ways: transparency, governance, new comers have a place where to find everything they need, email communications are kept to a miminum, project management is much easier. Also reporting to top management is improved, as there are a lot of nice features like roadmaps and dashboards that can be used for that.

What is most valuable?

The Kanban boards have been a very valuable feature because they can be either very simple for non-technical teams, but also highly detailed and data-driven for teams that are technical. We use them for both types of team.

Jira is also widely used, so whenever we start a collaboration with an agency/vendor we don't need to spend any time in deciding how are we going to communicate.

It is very flexible as well.

What needs improvement?

The next-generation software projects are very easy to use, but they lack a lot, and I found quite a few bugs. There are some really basic things that you still cannot do. For instance, setting a due date for a task that you create as mandatory is still not available. That's a bit of a blocker because people, especially those who are not technical, are not going to add anything if it's not mandatory. It's going to be difficult to teach them that they should do it anyway.

I'm trying to integrate these tools, and I'm trying to open them to different types of teams with different types of people. What I've found is that I read about a macro (App) or about a rule and think that it is what I need, but then find that things are not available for the cloud version. There are some features that are available only in the server version and not in the cloud version. I found a couple of add-ons that we were really interested in, and we couldn't use them because we're in the cloud version.

Sometimes when I tried to set up some macros/add-ons/apps, they didn't work well or were not flexible at all. For instance, you can add only one Excerpt macro to a specific page. And in the that area you cannot have a table, which means you cannot excerpt a table, only content. In general, if you follow the instructions they give you, it works, but when you try to adapt it to your actual needs, it often doesn't work anymore.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using Jira for five years.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We started very small in just one team in the company, and then slowly we've started expanding it to other teams. Now, we are trying to roll it out to all the European digital teams.

How are customer service and technical support?

We have had some big issues with customer support. Lately we have renewed our contract, and it has taken us two months to do so. There is no way to have a phone call with anybody. The chat is not there anymore. So, the only option is email, and these kinds of things are very difficult to communicate through email.

Two of us were contacting two or three different people from their costumer service till we found the one who was willing to go the extra mile and actually listen to what our issues were.

What other advice do I have?

Try to be tidy from day one because it can get messy very easily. Jira is very flexible, and you can still move and migrate stuff around. However, the reality is that nobody is going to have the time later on to migrate and clean-up. I also recommend starting small because at the beginning it can be scary, especially for non-technical people. I'm thinking about the amount of notifications you'll get, for instance.

I would definitely start small and then slowly, while people are getting used to it, keep implementing it and adding features like roadmaps or dashboards. Try to have a plan or a scheme of how you want it to look before you actually start.

It's a great product and is widely used, so I would rate it at 8 on a scale from 1 to 10.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Jira Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: March 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Jira Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.