Jira is developed by Atlassian and it allows bug tracking and Agile project management. When initially launched in 2002, the product was majorly used as tracking software and targeted at software developers. It was later adopted by non-IT organizations as a software management tool.
Jira software is developed for every member of your team to plan, track and release great software.
| Jira | Ratings |
| Ease of use | 4.5 |
| Pricing | 4.5 |
| Automation | 4 |
| Integration | 4.5 |
| Analytics | 3.5 |
Getting Started With Jira
1. Select Get It Free on the right side of the screen.
2. Select/Pick a product (Confluence/Jira Service Management) and select Next. I selected Confluence and clicked on Next.
3. Input your (work) email and your worksite. Your worksite should have at least 3 or more lowercase letters and/or numbers. Agree to the terms and conditions.
4. You personalize your Jira experience by answering some questions or you can skip them. If you answered the questions, select Next.
5. Enter a team name, milestone or project goal and select Create.
6. Select tools that will help you connect and get work done easier or select Skip.
This is your Jira account or dashboard.
PRICING
With Jira, you are billed monthly or annually and users on your team determine your bill. The pricing plans include:
1. Free Plan ($0)
This plan is always free for 10 users and has 2GB of storage, unlimited project boards, insights and reporting, community support, backlogs & basic roadmaps.
2. Standard Plan ($7.75 per user; $77.50 if you’re billed monthly and $790 per year for 10 users)
($7.75 per user; $387.5 if you’re billed monthly and $3900 per year for 50 users)
This plan comes with everything in the free plan including up to 35,000 users, audit logs, 250GB of storage space, business hour support, data residency, user roles and permissions.
3. Premium Plan ($15.25 per user; $152.50 if you’re billed monthly and $1,525 per year for 10 users)
($15.25 per user, $762.50 if you’re billed monthly and $7,650 per year for 50 users)
This plan comes with everything in the standard plan including unlimited storage, advanced roadmaps, 24/7 premium support, project archiving, sandbox and release tracks, and guaranteed uptime SLA.
4. Enterprise Plan
This plan is available for teams with more than 801 users. You’ll have to contact Jira’s sales team to get your billing statement. The plan comes with everything in the Premium Plan including unlimited sites, centralized security controls, 24/7 enterprise support, and centralized user subscriptions.
How Jira’s Dashboard Works
1. Your Work option lets you know if briefs, and projects have been assigned to you. It lets you see your recent works and boards you’re on.
2. Projects option lets you view your projects and the option of creating a new project.
3. Filters option lets you categorically search for team members, projects and tasks using tags.
4. Dashboard option lets you track the status of your projects.
5. People option lets you create a team and/or invite teammates or people to Jira.
6. Apps option gives you the opportunity of exploring, integrating and searching for apps to integrate your team’s tools.
Features Of Jira
1. Customisable Dashboard
How It Works
Select the Dashboard option and click on create dashboard. Input a name, description, and viewers and choose if you want it in a private view, a group view or an organization view. Select Save.
You can add gadgets by selecting gadget options on the right side of your screen. You can decide if you want your gadgets under Wallboard, Jira or Charts option. Select Add on any gadget you wish to add.
Click on change layout to pick/select a layout for your dashboard. When you’ve chosen the desired layout, select Done. Each gadget can be minimised or maximised.
To add more gadgets, select Edit at the top of the dashboard. The three dots beside the Edit button gives you the options of renaming or sharing that particular dashboard, viewing it as a wallboard, copying it, moving to trash or configuring automatic refresh.
2. Boards
How It Works
Click on Boards and select your recent project – the one you created when you were onboarding – and click on Board. You are presented with 5 categorised boards that let you identify and assign tasks to them.
On the first board – Opportunity, select +Create and input what needs to be done. You can create more than one. When you hover over each created task, select the yellow-like option to enlarge and make further edits.
I made two tasks – Import Contacts and Set up meetings with the local clients. I selected the Import Contacts task to make further edits. You select Attach to add attachments, you can include a description and choose what activity you wish to use.
On the other side, you determine or choose which board to assign your tasks – could be contacted, lost, won or in negotiation. You add labels, due date, start date, opportunity value and category. You can also add watchers to this task, tasks can be upvoted and can also be shared. The three dots beside the Share option gives you the flexibility to connect to a Slack channel, delete, move, clone, and print and gives you action menu.
You add more boards by going to the end of the board menu and selecting the + option. To add people/teammates, click on the avatar beside yours, input a name, group or email address and assign roles to them.
Boards can be renamed, expanded, collapsed and customised.
3. Views
This includes how you choose to view or see your projects/boards.
How It Works
Select List to see your boards in a list view. It has various fields and another task can be created by selecting the +Create option.
Select Timeline and see your boards in a timeline view arranged in weeks, months and quarters. You can also create new tasks by selecting the +Create option.
4. Form management
This feature ensures that you collect, use and manage gotten information.
How It Works
Select the Forms option. Read through the brief write-up on how it’s used and select +Create Form. You add text and instructions that will help in filling out the form. You drag fields at the side to add and build the form. (Added) fields can be renamed.
When done, select Share at the top of the top-right of the form, enter a name or team and a message, and then select Share. Alternatively, you can select copy link and paste it into a chat or email. Select Preview to see how your form will look like. At this point, your form is ready to be shared and used.
5. Reports and Analytics
This feature helps you analyse progress being made on a project.
How It Works
Select Reports and pick a report. I chose Average Age report and configured it. You indicate the period you wish represented on the graph – hourly, daily quarterly, days to show on the graph and select Next. The three dots at the top are for you to categorise.
You can select another report type – I chose Pie Chart Report. You also configure what type of statistic to display and select Next.
This feature however is a bit technical as you’ll be needing some assistance.
6. Scrum and Kanban board
This feature helps your team plan, commit and deliver chunk-sized workloads known as sprints and also helps you visualize your workflow.
How It Works
Select Your Work and click on Boards. Select view all boards and click on create board. You’re presented with both scrum and Kanban board briefs. Select Create a Scrum board and choose either a new software project or an existing project.
I chose board created with new software project and selected Next. Enter a project name, your project key and your project lead are presented to you and you select Create a board.
On the left side of your screen, select Roadmap under Planning. Select +Create Epic and input what needs to be done; you can assign the created task to a status category – to do, in progress or done.
Select the task to expand, you can attach files, add a child issue, and link webpages or issues. You can also add a description and assign tasks to team members, change the task priority and rename the task. Tasks can be upvoted and shared. You create a new task by selecting +Create Epic and highlighting what needs to be done. You add it to a status category and make edits.
Select Backlog to create a to-do list for your team and rank them in order or priority. Click on Create Sprint and PCA Sprint 1 is created and presented to you. Select the pen icon to edit the sprint; include a sprint name (editable), duration of the sprint, start and end date and sprint goal and select Update.
Create another sprint by selecting Create Sprint and redoing the steps previously done. To make a Sprint run/function, you need to create an issue. Select Create issue at the bottom of the page and include what needs to be done. Drag and drop issues to each sprint and you can select Start sprint.
This feature is also a bit technical as you may request additional help.
You can also create a Kanban board that helps in visualizing your workflow. Select if you want to create a new Kanban board or create a Kanban board with a sample date. Select Create board.
Because I chose a board with a sample data, I have a few templates and works displayed. Creating workflows on the Kanban board is similar to what was done on the Scrum board. Select Create Epic and type in what needs to be done. Select any of your pre-designed tasks to attach files, and categorise where the level of the task is – in progress or done.
Select the Kanban board to visualize your workflow. Select Reports to see various ways to analyse your data and workflows.
7. Third Party Integrations
On Jira, you can integrate tools from various categories to enable work and communication with your team easy.
8. Project Templates
Select Project and select Create project. You can select from the made-for-you option or choose from the various categories. I chose the Sales pipeline under Work Management. Name your milestone, project or team name and select Create.
Your project template is ready to be edited and used.
Jira Ranking & Why We Recommend This Product
1. Scheduling and planning
Jira’s roadmap feature helps you plan tasks, prioritize and give them a timeframe. It also gives or generates a realistic forecast. You’re able to break down tasks based on projects and team members.
On a scale of 1-5, Product Curve ranked it at 4.5
2. Task Management
With Jira, you can track complete/incomplete tasks and have an overview of the progress of each task. You’re able to set reminders, due dates, and subtasks, customise issues and manage activities on the board.
On a scale of 1-5, Product Curve ranked it 4.
3. Communication
This is made possible via assigning tasks to teammates and Slack integration.
On a scale of 1-5, Product Curve ranked it at 4.5
4. Dashboard
5. Integration
6. Monitoring and reporting
7. Security
Comparative Analysis: Jira vs Craft.io
Craft.io is based in Tel Aviv, Israel and they help product managers discover, define and intuitively plan their products.
It’s a private company, founded by Elad Siman and the total funding amounts to $10 million.
Features
1. Strategy
Helps in looking at the bigger picture, zooming in and understanding your team’s long-term goals.
2. Prioritization
Helps in prioritising the best products among what you’re working on.
3. Road-mapping
Helps in crafting a visual unique roadmap for your audience and in turn, you share the right information.
4. Portfolio management
Manages, view and tracks all your product data in and across your company.
PRICING
1. Essential Plan
This helps strengthen your team and build products with confidence. It has a monthly bill of $49/user and $39 if you pay yearly to save 20%.
The plan comes with product roadmaps and specs, integration and sync with dev tools, planning and prioritization of your product work, managing your teams’ product work
2. Pro Plan
The most popular plan is for scaling your product team and collaborating company-wide. It has a monthly plan of $109/editor and $89 if you pay yearly to save 20%.
The plan comes with everything in the essential plan including unlimited contributors and viewers for free, a dedicated feedback portal, live share your product views across the company, workspace and personal views.
3. Enterprise Plan
This plan helps bring enterprise-grade security, support, and onboarding to your organization. It’s a custom plan so you’ll need to contact Craft. Io’s sales team.
The plan comes with everything in the Pro plan including portfolio management, private cloud, multi-factor authentication, enterprise support SLA, and customizable ideation workflow.
Benefits That Make Jira Stand Out
1. Jira has more options and ease with integration.
2. Jira has a free account.
3. Jira has a friendlier UI and can be accessed via mobile
4. Jira is freelance and remote-work friendly.
Conclusion
We’ve come to the end of this article and have covered features that make Jira worth trying out. If is there any particular feature you like or you want more explanation on, don’t forget to drop your comments.
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