A tale about two JIRA's and a Support Platform Given by Tony from Atlassian at the NLAUG meetup of Feb 2012

1. as a Support Platform
Tony Atkins <aatkins@atlassian.com>
NL AUG, 09/02/2012

2. Helpdesk Needs
• Manage communication
• Keep track of what requires action
• Provide reports

3. A Tale of Two JIRAs

4. Communication (Good)
• Incoming • Outgoing
• Web Interface • Web
• Email • Email
• Jabber (plugin)

5. Communication (Bad)
• Format of outgoing emails
needs work (stay tuned)
• Email configuration and
administration of email needs
work
• Administration of notifications
needs work

6. What requires action?
• Statuses for each actor • Filters
• Incoming • Incoming issues waiting for
engineers
• Waiting for Customer
• Personal issues
• Waiting for Engineer
• Assigned issues in trouble
• Escalations, etc.
• Conditional transitions

7. SLAs
• Problem • Solutions
• No built-in concept of an • Filters and Notifications
SLA
• Custom Fields
• Difficult to visualize “time to
SLA” for a range of issues • SQL reports
• Custom gadgets

8. Ranking
• Problem • Solutions
• Can only order by one or • Custom fields
more fields
• Custom gadgets
• No complex weighting and
ordering
• Same order for all users

9. Friendly Fire
• Problem • Solutions
• JIRA can’t assign to a group • “Who’s Looking” plugin:
http://bit.ly/zY2R6m
• No real “locking” of issues
• Dedicated Dispatcher or
• Easy to assign issues out Triager
from under each other

10. Reporting
• Real-time
• User-created
• Shareable
• Graphs and Charts

11. Reporting Challenges
• Problem • Solutions
• Source data is a list of issues • SQL reports
(not users or groups)
• Custom gadgets
• Limited ability to group data
• Limited time tracking

13. No Code Required Major Coding Required
Custom Workflows Javascript + Custom Fields
Built-in Custom fields Custom2 Fields
JIRA Toolkit plugin Jelly (for auto-transitions)
Built-in mail handlers Custom mail handlers
Some Code Required “Hercules” log scanner
SQL reports Jabber plugin
Beanshell reports Wallboard plugin

14. Wallboard Plugin

15. Wallboard Plugin
• Started with SQL reports in
Confluence
• Transitioned to Beanshell
(some Java) and SQL, still in
Confluence
• Transitioned to a portlet that
uses SQL on the back end
• In the process of transitioning
to a gadget backed by custom
fields and REST.

16. Questions?

17. Thanks for your time!