Over 200,000 businesses rely on Atlassian products every day. While the average developer or marketer is likely familiar with Jira, the same level of recognition doesn’t extend to the name “Atlassian.”
What is Atlassian? What’s the range of products they offer? Who’s their target audience for each? Join us as we delve into the ever-evolving world of Atlassian!
What is Atlassian?
Atlassian is an Australian collaboration software company founded in 2002, by Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar. Their first product — Jira Software — was released that same year, while Confluence joined the product lineup a year later.
In 2011, Atlassian embraced cloud technology and started offering cloud versions of both, Jira and Confluence. Fast forward to 2023, Atlassian cloud products are a pillar of the overall business.
Over the years, the company has maintained steady growth, in terms of product range and revenue; which is why, today, Atlassian is a multi-billion dollar business, and one of the leaders in the collaboration software industry.
Atlassian’s main products
Jira Software
Jira Software (Jira) is the company’s flagship product, described by Atlassian as an “issue and project tracking software.” Jira supports teams in organizing, planning, releasing, and reporting everyday work; it can easily be the one place where the entire organization keeps all tasks, issues, and ideas. And when multiple departments use the same software, exchanging information is easier.
One of Jira’s strong suits is the automation of processes and workflows; users can set up rules that perform actions automatically, when certain conditions are met.
Jira Software’s project management capabilities are particularly suitable for the software development industry, yet various organizations use it to manage projects. Agile teams that work in frameworks such as Scrum or Kanban, for example, get a lot of tools at their disposal when using Jira Software.
- Agile boards
- Backlog
- Reports
- Velocity chart
- Sprint burndown chart
- Epic burndown chart
- And more
Whether you’re looking to release new software, track bugs, manage issues, or do Agile reporting, Jira Software is a solid choice.
Jira Service Management
Jira Service Management (JSM) is Atlassian’s IT Service Management platform. It enables IT service teams to centralize all ITSM-related activities — such as receiving customer requests, tracking and managing requests, and sending related information to other tools, amongst others.
The tool allows IT teams to embed widgets, so that customers can conveniently send requests and questions. Jira Service Management provides various options with respect to categorizing requests, and sending them to the appropriate spaces. As a result, the right messages will flow through to the right teams, that can then process and respond quickly.
Thanks to customizable workflows, each team is able to adapt the tool to their existing processes, and automate actions — which saves precious time and ensures that the data flows correctly. Built-in dashboards and reports help gather and present information about any team’s activity and results.
Moreover, Jira Service Management allows organizations to monitor crucial customer service metrics. For example, the tool enables teams to set up and measure compliance with Service Level Agreements (SLA); a valuable metric that can make or break customer contracts, in many organizations.
You can integrate Jira Service Management with other tools to improve communication and data transfer across various types of software. JSM is compatible with the other Jira products, as well as Jira apps such as Appfire’s ITSM apps.
Confluence
You can think of Confluence as a document command center that can be used in many ways; as a knowledge base for your customers, a project documentation hub, or a content library – to name a few. This content collaboration platform aims to streamline communication and knowledge exchange within and without the organization.
Spaces enable teams to organize individual pages, so that the right users can easily find and access content. Each page features collaborative editing, with space owners having complete control over other people’s access and edit levels. That strengthens information security — essential in a digital world.
To speed things up, Confluence offers over 100 editable templates; each containing use-case-specific elements that facilitate collaboration.
Being able to connect other tools to your content hub is critical. Fortunately, Confluence is fully synchronizable with Jira, Trello, and other Atlassian software, as well as thousands of other apps. As a result, adding issues or boards is a breeze.
Bitbucket
Atlassian’s Bitbucket is a Git repository for software development teams, designed to build, test, deploy, and collaborate freely. Bitbucket serves as a hub for all repositories in an organization; it’s where developers can store, manage, and share repositories to improve the visibility and transfer of their work.
The software supports the CI/CD process, which speeds up the flow of code through the development stages. As a result, the developers have to perform fewer manual tasks to push the work forward, and release bug-free code to production.
Bitbucket integrates seamlessly with Jira and Trello. It makes it easy for developers to connect information — such as user stories — with the work needed to deliver them.
Trello
Trello is a work management software enabling teams to plan, track, and collaborate better using customizable boards, lists, and task cards. Think of it as Jira’s little sibling, without all the bells and whistles.
Teams looking for a simple tool to track tasks will appreciate the clarity of the board. On top of that, they’re able to contain all relevant details of their work on task cards, and organize them in columns for better visibility.
Like Jira Software, Trello features workflow automation options, but to a lesser extent. Still, teams can create custom workflows to suit their needs, and use the tool to improve cooperation.
Jira Align
Jira Align is Atlassian’s project portfolio management tool. It enables users to manage, track, and report on a wider scale of projects — at once. It eliminates various limitations of Jira Software in project and portfolio management.
Jira Align enables organizations to view the entire range of projects and portfolios in a single place. On top of that, executives can track the progress of company-wide objectives across multiple programs and projects.
The PPM tool uses Jira Software as a base and expands on it; teams can use Jira Software in everyday work, then have the data flow into Jira Align where it’s further grouped into projects, programs, and portfolios.
Reports reflect these categories, as well. As a result, managers can create reports with larger data pools; in contrast, Jira Software limits the data range to a single project.
The tool is applicable to large enterprises, especially those that run many Agile initiatives. Be it for traditional or scaled Agile frameworks, Jira Align supports the holistic management of all projects, programs, and portfolios in an organization.
Who uses Atlassian products?
Atlassian tools seamlessly integrate into various use cases, proving invaluable across many industries and organizational roles. He’s a quick overview of the primary roles that frequently leverage Atlassian products:
- IT Service Management
- Customer Service
- DevOps
- Marketing
- Project Management Office
- Sales
- HR
- Legal
- Design
- Engineering
Atlassian products are built with interconnectivity in mind. As a result, data is sent across tools and teams, therefore improving the cross-team exchange of information. For example, product development teams can send new release code through Bitbucket and track work in Jira. In contrast, marketing teams can track the completion of iterations simultaneously while preparing in advance for product announcements.
The “Atlassian ecosystem” is a real thing; it helps diverse teams work together, and the integration of apps is a key contributor to that. However, these apps also extend beyond the ecosystem’s boundaries, allowing users to seamlessly connect products like Jira, Confluence, and more, with a wide range of software apps.
Integrations are nothing new in the software game, but Atlassian’s approach to third-party applications and developers is unique. And the Atlassian Marketplace is at the center of it all.
Atlassian Marketplace
While Atlassian improves its products regularly, there’s a way to get even more out of it. It’s called the Atlassian Marketplace; a platform where customers can find, test, and purchase third-party products that can increase the functionality of Atlassian products.
Best of all, it empowers developers to create software that’s compatible with Atlassian products and solve customer problems.
The marketplace features over 5,000 third-party apps for Jira, Confluence, Jira Service Management, and Bitbucket, among others. With over 30 categories, users have a wide choice of apps tailored to their use cases. And before you ask, BigPicture is there, too.
Each Atlassian Marketplace listing goes through a verification process before appearing on the marketplace. This ensures that the app is compliant with Atlassian’s security guidelines.
Whether you’re using a Cloud, Data Center, or Server (for now) instance, you can be sure to find apps that can improve your Atlassian experience.
Now that you’ve got your Atlassian basics covered, you know exactly what is what from now on!
