Atlassian tool suite (Jira, Jira Service Management, Confluence and Trello)

Lehigh has procured the Atlassian suite of tools to revolutionize project and ticket management across our university.

This powerful platform will streamline workflows, improve collaboration, and enhance overall efficiency as part of our Organization of the Future strategic planning initiative.

What is Atlassian?

Atlassian is a leading provider of software development and project management tools. Our university will be utilizing the following core products:

  • Confluence: A collaborative workspace where teams can create, share, and organize information, such as project plans, meeting notes, and knowledge bases.

  • Jira: A versatile issue tracking and project management tool that will help teams organize, track, and manage tasks,bugs, and features.

  • Jira Service Management: A flexible platform designed to help teams manage and deliver services effectively. Fulfill service requests and provide customer support.

  • Trello: A simple project management tool to manage project and team work.

  • Status Page: A dedicated online platform that provides real-time updates on the availability and performance of systems and services.

Benefits of Using Atlassian

  • Improved project visibility and transparency

  • Enhanced collaboration and teamwork

  • Increased productivity and efficiency

  • Streamlined workflows and processes

  • Centralized knowledge base

Training and Support

We understand that adopting new tools may require some adjustment. To ensure a smooth transition, LTS is here to support you in choosing the right tool(s) for your needs. 

Request access and support to get started 

The Basics

Jira & Trello can both be used do track work and both provide the following views of that work depending on your preferences:

  • Kanban or Task board view

  • List view - Sorts all your project’s work into a single “spreadsheet like” list that can be quickly scanned and sorted by field. You can also use the list to add, edit, and view issues.

  • Calendar view - Displays the work in a calendar view based on the due, start, and end dates of work.

  • Timeline view - Gantt chart view that can be used to visualize and plan the timing and sequence of individual issues.

  • Advanced planning views (Jira only)

  • Summary or Dashboard view

Organizing your teams and their work within the Jira Suite of tools.

It can be difficult to figure out how to get started in this environment so do not feel overwhelmed, LTS is here to help.

Determining how to apply these tools to your organization.

Who is defining the work to be done?

Who?

Tool(s)

Why?

Who?

Tool(s)

Why?

Lehigh staff

Jira and Trello

Both tools can support managing work defined by staff with licenses for these tools working within the tools

Students, faculty, external entities that are not working in the tools

JSM

JSM allows tickets to be submitted and collaboration on those tickets without the reporter needing a license for the product.

Technically all of the tools support submitting tasks by sending an email to a specified address but if the submitter wants to continue collaborating on the task once submitted JSM works best.

 

What is the scope of the work?

 

Scope?

Tool(s)

Why?

 

Scope?

Tool(s)

Why?

Single organizational team

Single project or board in Jira or Trello

Multiple project can be tracked within a single environment if only one team is working on it.

Cross team within a single stem

Separate projects or boards within a certain category or Workspace within Jira or Trello

We can use categories in the Jira projects and Workspaces in Trello to tie together multiple projects or boards that fall within specific stems. Projects can only have one category and boards can only reside in one workspace.

Cross department

Separate projects within Jira that can be tied together using either Overviews, Dashboards or Jira Advanced Planning.

The Jira tools provide advanced sharing, linking, and visualizations to better support cross department work. Trello no longer works well in this environment.

Staff requesting Trello licenses will be added to our Lehigh University general Workspace that is open to anybody at Lehigh with a Trello license. Department workspace owners will need to request that their staff be added to their department workspace. Trello workspace and/or individual board owners are responsible for controlling the security and access to boards within their workspace.

Staff requesting Jira licenses should work with the project leads for the projects they are requesting access to or should request a project be set up for their use. New projects are given a category when they are created that will allow teams to view related work across multiple projects in one place. By default, the Atlassian administration team will set the category to be your stem unless otherwise requested (Examples: President & Provost Office, LTS, College of Business, etc.). Using stem categories allows leadership to view the work being performed across their organizations. Projects can only have one category associated with them. Only Atlassian administers can create new categories but project leads can edit the categories associated with their projects.

LTS has configured company managed projects for projects created across the Jira suite (Jira Service Management and Jira) to provide consistency, flexibility and the maximum amount of capability available to our users. By default Jira projects are set up with the following issue types: epic, story, task, and subtask and use a standard default project management workflow (To Do, Planned, In Progress, Stalled, Done). LTS can work with you to further customize projects when necessary but we encourage people to at least start with the default workflow.

Each project has a project lead that is responsible for managing the people and the permissions those people have for their project.

Lehigh staff can request licenses and/or support for these products. When a license is requested, the user is added to an Active Directory group that is synced to Atlassian which will allow us to leverage our account cleanup processes to release licenses when people leave the organization.

Feature

Jira

Jira Service Management

Trello

 

Feature

Jira

Jira Service Management

Trello

 

List/ Board view

X

X

X

Calendar/Time line view

X

 

X

View all work regardless of tool

X - Jira, JSM

 

 

Executive leadership views

Advanced Roadmaps comprehensive capability

 

 

Filters/Dashboards/Reports

X

X

Limited filtering/dashboards/reports

Multi levels of issue types

Unlimited

Customizable request types.

Card with embedded checklists

Automations

Extensive

Extensive

Limited

Customization of issue types, workflows, fields

Extensive

Extensive

Limited

Ability to create tasks from email

X

X

X

Customized permissions

X

X

X

Ability to fill out a form to submit tasks without a license

 

X

 

For immediate help, contact the LTS Help Desk (Hours)
EWFM Library | Call: 610-758-4357 (8-HELP) | Text: 610-616-5910 | Chat | helpdesk@lehigh.edu
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