Introduction

Jira Service Management (JSM) administrators have a dual role. They need to be well-versed in Jira administration, as well as the specific features of JSM that build upon Jira. Simply knowing Jira administration is not enough, as JSM introduces new features and involves managing customers and portals. Likewise, focusing only on JSM features is insufficient, as everything is based on Jira schemes and infrastructure. Therefore, it's crucial for JSM administrators to have a deep understanding of both Jira administration and JSM features.

‍Let’s explore some best practices that cover both areas of knowledge!

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Integrate JSM and Confluence to create a knowledge base

As your service team interacts with customers, they gain valuable insights into the issues and problems that customers face. These insights can be incredibly useful in helping customers solve their problems independently without requiring the assistance of the service team. Doing so can reduce the number of support requests, and customers can take control of their issues.

It is crucial to create a strong knowledge base to make the most of the insights the service team acquires. A knowledge base is a collection of information that customers can access to seek solutions to their queries or tackle problems. A well-maintained knowledge base can assist customers in resolving their issues more effectively and efficiently, thereby reducing their necessity to reach out to support.

Integrating Jira Service Management with Confluence provides an optimal solution for creating and managing a knowledge base. Jira Service Management is a powerful platform for managing customer requests and workflows, while Confluence is a content collaboration tool that allows teams to create, share, and organize their knowledge. Together, these tools can help service teams create a comprehensive knowledge base that is easily searchable and accessible to customers. By providing customers with the information they need to solve their problems, service teams can reduce the number of support requests and improve customer satisfaction.

A knowledge base (KB) can benefit your internal team and customers. Your internal team can use the KB to document answers to frequently asked questions, which helps to standardize answers to customer questions and create a single source of truth. Moreover, your customers can access the KB to search for resolutions in the help center, which can help solve their requests faster and improve their experience with your business.

Read “How knowledge management works in Jira Service Management” to have the knowledge needed, and if you already have Confluence and would like to

create/connect your knowledge to JSM, check this article in the Atlassian documentation: “5 steps to setting up a knowledge base in Jira Service Management.”

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Use request type and workflow templates

Atlassian introduced templates for Jira service management in Q4 of 2023, designed for various IT, HR, or marketing teams. Instead of creating request types and workflows from scratch, JSM admins can select a template from the library that best suits their requirements. They can then follow simple steps to customize the template according to their needs.

These templates are available in all company-managed projects, and they serve as an excellent starting point for Jira admins who are new to Jira Service Management. These templates are also useful for Jira admins who want to ensure consistency across multiple projects or customize their projects further to meet changing needs. Atlassian plans to make request-type templates available in team-managed projects sometime in 2024.

To create a request type from a template, choose “Create from template, NEW,” then select the template you want to use to create your new request type.

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To use workflow template, choose a request type and select “Replace using template, NEW”, then select the template you want to use to create your new workflow.

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‍Manage notifications

Notifications are crucial in informing agents and customers about important activities and updates. However, if the notifications are too frequent or infrequent, users may ignore them or miss out on critical information.

Let's review the options to customize notifications.

Notification schemes

In Jira Service Management, like in Jira core, notifications are managed in schemes. These schemes help to determine which activities should be notified to which users ( agents in Jira Service Management), ensuring that users receive relevant and timely notifications.

You can configure notification events for individuals, groups, or project roles in Jira. I suggest using Project Roles to make things easier, as they can be configured without Jira's admin involvement.

I also recommend using generic notification schemes, but if a team has a different notification need, be flexible and make changes accordingly.

Automation rules

In special cases, you can use automation rules to send notifications by Microsoft Teams, Slack, or a custom email. However, keep in mind that the number of rule executions is limited based on your plan. The execution counts changed in November 2023; see “How is my usage calculated.”

For more recommended articles about  information about automation rules, see “10 strategies for building, testing and maintaining Jira automation rules” and “Top Use Cases for Jira Automation Rules: Real-World Examples.”

Customer notifications

I also recommend maintaining the customer notifications settings in the project. Those notifications are events-driven to your customers. You can edit the default templates and deactivate or activate any notifications.

In addition to the Notification schemes, automation rules, and customer notification settings, users may customize JSM user notifications.

In the profile personal settings, each agent has the option to choose which events they want to receive notifications for and how often they wish to receive them. Depending on the type of JSM project, the agent could receive notifications every minute for events such as status changes, work log edits, or comments on issues. It's important to find the right balance and not be overwhelmed by the amount of incoming information.

As a Jira Service Management admin, you should let the agents know they have this option without the need for special permissions.

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Design the customer portal

The Help Center and Customer portals are where customers interact with agents. Design them to be user-friendly.

Brand your Help Center portal

To customize the Help Center portal, you must have Jira admin permissions because it is related to all Jira projects and is usually visible to all customers. The default Help Center portal is very basic; I recommend adding your company logo to make it visually pretty for customers.

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You can brand your help center in a number of ways:

• Add a company logo
• Name your help center
• Add a banner image across the top
• Change the color of some components.

Brand your customer portal

Every service project comes with an online portal that your customers use to interact with your service team. The project Jira admin has permission to customize the customer portal.

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The project admin can change the following components on the customer portal:

• Name
• Welcome message
• Logo
• Announcement

‍Manage, test, and track your configuration changes

As an experienced DevOps manager and engineer, I always think about the procedure for testing and tracking changes. In our case, where Jira admin changes configurations that may impact agents and customers, it’s better to have a way to test and track the changes. Working on the production directly is not recommended. So, what’s the best practice here?

I recommend making configuration changes in a testing environment before applying it to production. If you manage Jira Service Management in the cloud and have a Premium plan, the organization admin can create a sandbox environment for testing your changes.

Check “Manage Product Sandboxes” for detailed information on creating and managing a sandbox environment in the cloud. If you are using a Data Center platform, you can create a test environment. Check this article: “Creating a test environment for Jira,” for a step-by-step guide.

Having a test environment is a good start, but this is only part of the solution.

Once you test your configuration change (for example, changing the notification scheme, adding a new project, or changing workflow) and make sure it’s ready for production, you need to merge the changes to production. Doing the merge manually can take time, is risky (you need to remember exactly what you did in the testing environment), and cannot be tracked.

To resolve those issues, you can use a tool that lets you merge your changes and gives you options like other source controls give when you merge a code: one click merge, cherry-pick your desired changes, option to roll back your change, and track your change later.

Those capabilities can be archived by using third-party tools like Salto. Salto allows you to manage and control all your configuration changes like you manage code. Learn more about it here: “Introducing Salto for Jira cloud and Jira data center.”

Salto launched Salto for Jira Service Management in December 2023. You can now manage, test, merge, and track your JSM configuration changes for the agents and the customers using Salto.

Check “Salto now supports Jira Service Management” and “The new git for JSM configuration management” for real-life JSM use cases.

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Summary

Jira Service Management administrators should know both Jira administration and JSM features. Let’s recap the best practices discussed in this article:

1. Integrating JSM and Confluence for Knowledge Management: Integrate JSM and Confluence to create a comprehensive knowledge base, empowering customers to solve issues independently and reduce support requests.
2. Utilizing Request Type and Workflow Templates: Atlassian introduced templates to streamline request types and workflow setup, ensuring consistency and simplifying administration tasks.
3. Efficient Notification Management: Configure notification schemes, automation rules, and user preferences to ensure timely updates without overwhelming users.
4. Customizing Customer Portals: Branding and customizing the Help Center and Customer Portal enhances user experience.
5. Testing and Tracking Configuration Changes: Implement testing environments and version control tools to minimize risk.