Last week Atlassian announced a shift in Jira Service Desk to further support non-IT teams and business divisions, increasing JSD’s flexibility when deployed with a customer. Specifically targeting HR, Legal and Facilities groups, Atlassian added out-of-the-box templates for JSD Next-Gen projects. Templates include request types that are tailored to a specific business unit with workflows that reflect typical internal processes. This enables non-IT groups to quickly get a functioning Help Portal online without much effort.

The one caveat with these templates is that they are limited to Next-Gen projects, which are slightly different from the Classic projects we know and love. The role of Next-Gen projects has been to provide lighter-weight, user-controlled projects to reduce the need for an admin. This can be useful in smaller companies to reduce the need for a dedicated admin, allowing teams to manage their own Help Portal. For business teams like HR and Legal, this is a great idea because the service they provide isn’t usually time sensitive. However, for IT teams, Facilities, or any other active support team, uptime and efficiency of the Service Portal is paramount to business function, and as such many customers prefer to have tight admin control over business-critical software. The saving grace for these types of teams, as well as any customers/teams that currently use Server or Data Center, is that all of the new functionality that Atlassian is advertising in the new Next-Gen projects already exists in the Classic projects.

Atlassian created their products with the express intent of being incredibly flexible, and built into Jira the ability to customize workflows, request types, and every other object in the ecosystem, to reflect the needs of any business. For years, Expium, a Platinum Solutions Partner, has specialized in customizing Atlassian Products including Jira and Jira Service Desk to meet the needs of a wide variety of non-technical customers and industries and these types of customization are available above and beyond what is shown in the new templates.

Jira and Jira Service Desk have always had the capability to serve non-technical teams through available out-of-the-box customization, or on a more advanced level with the help of a Solutions Partner like Expium. We have assisted countless customers on their journey to a customized instance, picking up priceless experience along the way. If you are struggling with adapting Jira to your teams or are wondering if the tool is capable of serving your needs, let us help you find your way to customized solution.