Jira, a popular SaaS project Management tool developed by Atlassian, contains various features to help you manage projects efficiently.

There are many project management solutions, from high-end online solutions like Asana to simpler methods like Trello. However, JIRA is still the best choice if you are looking for a powerful standalone project management solution, especially for software development.

This well-known project management tool developed by Atlassian contains various features to help you manage projects easily.

The Jira user guide below will surprise you if you’ve never heard of JIRA or just want to know what it does.

This article shows you what this project management software considered a technology village phenomenon, can do. It also teaches you how to get started and how to use Jira effectively.

JIRA basic overview

• Who should use JIRA?
• JIRA Components
• Start a new project with JIRA
• Learn more about project settings
• Plug-ins & JIRA integration
• JIRA fees

JIRA is a highly customizable centralized project management system. Each project goes to a central database, and each project goes through a specific workflow.

This workflow or workflow will help control the project’s state and the rules involved in transitioning from one state to another.

According to a 2017 Gartner report, JIRA is one of the best project management tools available.

The unit said, “As a leader, you should consider using JIRA as a solution to operate conventional projects and agile software development projects (also known as Agile projects) and have a limited need for portfolio management functionality.”

The Agile methodology is built within JIRA. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s a framework for developing software that works according to the following four principles:

• Personal feedback & interaction on processes & tools
• The software works better than overview documents
• Collaborating with customers is more valuable than negotiating contracts.
• Responding to change is more important than going according to plan.
• Atlassian created a project management system based on these principles, taking flexibility & user customization as key factors.

(More info: software name comes from “Gojira”, a Japanese word pronounced like “Godzilla” in English)

Who should use Jira?

Initially, JIRA was created only for programmers who specialize in software development. But later on, any department can use it to manage projects effectively, especially useful for teams that need to collaborate and deal with issues regularly.

Here are some examples of how teams other than programming can take advantage of the benefits of JIRA in managing their projects:

Marketing Department: When a company needs to build a project, you can use JIRA to send a directive message to the copywriter and provide a graphic request to the designer, and the department head can be marked as completed, indicating that the project has been completed.

Support Department: Banks or commercial companies, as well as most small businesses, have a need to accurately track their workflow. Whether your support requires documentation or an audit, JIRA provides it.

Remote companies & teams: If you own a company that specializes in remote work or specializes in hiring freelancers and collaborators, JIRA’s ability to organize teams will be useful to you. This tool provides a central system, helping employees and collaborators check assigned tasks. Managers will appreciate a tool that can report detailed work progress like JIRA.

Jira Core Features

As a powerful and highly customizable project management tool, it would take hours to talk about JIRA’s full overview features. However, to understand how this tool works, you need to understand a few key features:

Custom workflow

Project management workflows at JIRA typically represent the operational stages of your organization and can be customized for each project, issue, or subsection of tasks. Anything that needs to go through a process or process is part of the workflow.

Here is an example of a typical workflow in JIRA

Colored columns represent states; arrows represent processes. Each workflow has its own state and process.

By customizing your workflow to fit each project, you’ll be able to track every step, tracking every task at hand accurately.

JIRA is used to create workflows, but its real power lies in its ability to customize. You can design your workflow from scratch or download a pre-built one from the Atlassian Marketplace.

There are a number of other useful features besides the ability to control and track pre-installs in workflows. You can set a pass condition for each type of task or start the feature automatically when the process occurs.

Workflows are at the core of JIRA, and the features that come with them make them an invaluable tool.

Time & Progress Tracking (Control time & work progress)

By integrating with feature-rich time-tracking software, you can check uptime to categorize details or professionalize your tasks and projects.

Track work progress through flexible screenshots (turn off tasks completely or take screenshots once, twice, and thrice every 10 minutes), then schedule the right hours for the whole team.

Using a time tracking tool via a Chrome extension like Hubstaff, you can track the time for the tasks you perform on JIRA.

With the click of a button, you can activate or deactivate the timer when switching tasks. JIRA is packed with the best time trackers, available on mobile and desktop apps with various operating systems. So everyone on your team can use it effectively.

Permission (Decentralized)

JIRA’s Decentralized or Permissions feature is very flexible and customizable. You can empower specific members to edit (edit), comment (comment), or assign tasks within the team. It won’t be difficult even if you need to change permissions in the middle of the project.

You can also grant permissions to members based on security. For example, you might not want certain team members to see some project issues. You can do some decentralization; they will only see the project on the surface. Project issues will be hidden.

This will help your collaborators or seasonal partners do their job well while your company’s sensitive information is still highly confidential, avoiding clutter.

Project Phases & Milestones

Segmenting projects in JIRA into four levels or stages helps you keep things neat, organized, and easy to find.

Level 1 contains the project portfolio. You can think of this category as an overall theme.

Level 2 is home to each of your projects and shows the smaller items in the project and their achievements.

Level 3 is where you will see the specific problem that needs to be addressed. Think of them as the kind of goals you set for each project. This is what you need to complete to move on to the next level.

Level 4 is the place for subsections. Here, you can manage small parts of complex problems that need to be addressed.

This method of organizing may seem complicated at first, but it becomes very intuitive over time. And with JIRA’s great organizational features, it’s always easy to find what you’re looking for.

Project Summary & Report

Managers can check the project dashboard to see recent activity, ongoing or upcoming issues & other useful information to get an overview of project progress.

You can also set up separate report types for open issues, common issues, or specific team members. This full reporting feature means you can dig into project insights anytime.

Not sure if a particular task met a deadline? Want to see a specific member’s workload? You can do that or many things with just a few mouse clicks.

Components (Small Area)

Complex projects are often divided into many small areas. In projects that often have multiple problems, you need this feature to assign team members to deal with new issues that arise in the middle of a project or to link different group activities.

Components also help you organize different parts of your project: to launch a website; you need design, programming, content, and marketing.

All these sections are put into different sub-areas within this feature for categorization, and separate reports can be prepared.

Sub-task

Complex problems are often simplified by breaking them into small, easy-to-handle tasks. Each of these minor tasks will be completed as an independent problem by different team members with other deadlines and sometimes setting their workflow.

Utilizing subsections makes it easy to measure project progress and helps developers (or others who use JIRA to manage projects) efficiently manage their time.

From there, the entire project will be broken down, making it easy to build specific steps for each problem.

Connecting

You can link any two issues that need to be addressed at JIRA to form a link. These links include things like “related to,” “duplicate,” …” or “blocks.”

The links will help team members understand the relationship between the problems solved in the project. For example, if a problem connects a “block” to another problem, people will know that to solve this problem, the project must first solve the problem.

And, of course, you can create the right kinds of links to the information you need for your project. For example, a link titled “cause” can help us detail information about a specific bug.

You’ll need a few steps to get started with JIRA, but it’s a great app to help you through the steps. So, just download JIRA project management software, and you can easily manage new projects.

Here’s what you need to do after that:

Select the Project button > Create Project from the top bar.

Then choose the right type of Project for you. There are three types you can choose from:

• Scrum is for teams working on iterative projects. These projects usually release new versions or updates on a regular schedule. (Scrum is also a great way to keep your projects simple.)
• Kanban is the type for teams that have a continuous workflow project in a team style with a support platform. This type helps the user to limit the overwork for members.
• Kaplan is a project management model designed to combine the best of both worlds with the addition of a planned backlog available. Kanban style.

Once you’ve chosen the right type of organization, we’ll go into the details. You must choose a name that includes the members involved and the name of the Project. This will make it easier for you to find your Project.

Team settings

Each team member will be assigned a JIRA user. If your team has many members or you employ a lot of seasonal collaborators, you can set up an admin panel to handle this task. If your team or company is small, you can manage it yourself.

To set up a team, go to Settings (gear icon) and select User Management. Then, enter each person’s name and email address. These people will receive an email inviting them to join.

To allow a user (user) or administrator (admin) to add other people, select the object you want to define and click Add Group. Add them to the custom Admins group. And when this happens, they will be able to manage other users on your behalf.

Admin Access

The admin rights type is useful if you have a team or use a lot of seasonal collaborators. To set administrative rights for each Project, you will need quite a long time.

Fortunately, with JIRA, there’s another, better way to do it: the Permit Scheme.

The planning feature allows you to create different types of permissions applicable to varying types of projects. Once you’ve created a plan, you can simply add it to any project you think is appropriate. This will save you a lot of time in the long run.

To prepare an administrative decentralization plan, follow these steps:

• Go to Settings (settings) and select Issues (problems to be handled)
• Select Permission Scheme
• Add Permission Scheme
• Enter a name for the plan and a few lines of short description.
• In the next step, you add a planned plan to a previously created project by:
• Go to Settings (settings) and select Projects (Projects)
• Select the project, go to the admin page Project Summary section (project summary)
• In the Permissions area in the lower right corner, select the package name to view the detailed interface of the administrative authorization plan for this project.
• Select the Action item that appears below the menu bar, and select Use a different scheme.
• On the Associate Permission Scheme to Project page, select the package you want to link to the project you are working on.
• Select the Link button to link to the plan.

Estimate & track

The next part of customization is measuring workloads in the backlog (estimates) and the minimum time (tracking). This will help you manage deadlines, workloads, and project completeness. You can use Story points or other criteria to estimate and track this metric.

Follow these steps:

• Open the interface panel of the project you are working on.
• Select Board > Configuration
• Select the Estimation item
• In the Estimated Statistics field, select Story Points, Business Value, Original Estimates, Number of Issues, or Custom Field.

Other settings in the project management system with JIRA

There are many ways you can create and customize your project management plan at JIRA. Outlined below are just a few of the most useful. You can try this option by going to project settings.

Problem type

Sorting out the issues that need to be addressed will help you have a complete view of your project. From there, you’ll know what to assign to whom is the best, estimate the optimal time, and consider which tasks should be prioritized. Large projects often have multiple issues to track & adjust better (remember, simple projects are just as useful)

For a concrete example of categorizing problems, read Arcbees’s excellent article: “Avoid headaches: Use an Agile problem-type decision tree.”

Once you select an Issue Type in the project settings menu bar, you can edit the name, description, and avatar of any issue type you have defined. You also have the right to add new categories and delete categories you no longer use.

Workflow (workflow)

Setting up a workflow helps you shape the path of Progress of the problem at hand, the transition between states, understand who has the authority to carry out the transformation or development, under what conditions, make it happen, and when to use the type of workflow you want to create.

Workflow creation is arguably one of the most powerful features of the JIRA project management system.

A typical example of a troubleshooting workflow typically has three sections: Open (opened), In Progress (in Progress), and Completed (fixed). You can assign teams to workflows and require approval for changes to each state.

In the Settings section, select Issues and open the Workflow interface; you will see a specific workflow in your project.

You can modify, create new workflow types, and manage workflow plans from this interface. The video below will show you how:

Screen (Interface panel, screen frame)

Screens usually incorporate many separate fields. In Screen settings, you can create or edit them or assign them to specific types of events.

For example, you might want one screen to show the status when the problem was created and the other screen to show when the problem was seen. Each time you skip a step in the workflow, you can select another screen.

Setting up these types of screens will require an investment of time, but in return, you will save a lot of work later.

Making you see only the areas you need to see at any given time will help you resolve issues more quickly.

Custom fields

In addition to the standard fields, you can add or change fields according to your needs in the Custom Field settings. Nic Brough has written small best practice guides for specific fields and systems; you can check them out.

JIRA Plugins & Integrations

Plugins and integrations extend your project management capabilities in JIRA. From Progress tracking to charting or portfolio management, you can find plugins for everything. You can install plugins directly from Atlassian Marketplace or upload plugin files.

Here are some popular integrations & plug-ins for JIRA:

• Hubstaff enables time tracking, task management, uninterrupted performance, and reporting via desktop, web, or mobile apps.
• Slack: Application for Team Communication
• Outlook: provides email integration with JIRA
• Salesforce: automatically migrate data between your CRM platform and Jira
• Google Sheets: export issues directly to Sheets for easy tracking.
• Git integration: display Git commits, branches, and tags in JIRA
• Zephyr: provides test management solutions.
• ScriptRunner: a set of Groovy features for great workflow and automation (also includes a large number of JQL features)
• Structure: add hierarchies by type – level, multi-project
• Mail.Ru Calendar: this allows you to view issues in calendar format.
• JIRA Workflow Toolbox adds conditions, verification, and back-end features to workflows.
• Easy Reports & Charts for JIRA: create electronic reports, charts, and dashboards.

How much does it cost to use Jira?

The most important question is: how much will it cost me to use JIRA? If you’re not sure JIRA is right for you, you can try the 7-day trial to decide. After the trial period, there are several cost options that you can choose from, as follows:

Small team: 10 USD/user/month for a group of up to 10 people.

Development team: 75 USD/user/month for groups of up to 15 people. If you have more than 15 members, there are plans with up to 2000 users.

Cloud subscription:

1 – 10 users: 100 USD/annual subscription plan.

More than ten users: there are plans with levels of up to 2000 users for you to choose from.

To see more about pricing, please visit the details page https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/pricing.

Solve problems with the JIRA project management tool

You will be amazed when you work with JIRA with the power of this software. Especially if you’re just getting used to it. But when you look at the overview, you will understand how JIRA works and know if it is right for your organization.

Of course, becoming a project management expert with JIRA takes time. But once you get there, you will become a leading project management expert. So get started today!

Rating

 JIRA has an average user rating of 4.3/5.

The following is a rating from several sources that can be used as a reference.

G2 Rating

Softwareadvice Rating

Gartner Rating

Final Words

Are you using JIRA? What do you like about this system? Which features do you find most useful? Please share your thoughts by commenting on this article!

The post JIRA – Project Management Solution for Software Development appeared first on Primavera Reader.