Atlassian ICYMI March 2024

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Welcome to the next instalment in our ICYMI series. In this series we take a look back over the last month for Atlassian products. This blog is not going to be a complete catch up of everything I or someone in the community has noticed over the last month, but more on the larger release items or the new EAP & other important announcements from Atlassian.

With so many updates, we’ll go ahead and take a look over each of the following four tracks:

• Agile & DevOps.

• Work Management & Collaboration.

• Service Management.

• Platform.

So without further or do, let’s get started!

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

March 2024 has been another busy month for Atlassian. We have seen some great things coming from both an overall administration & platform as well as automation improvements this month. In total of 118 updates across all of their products according to their product update log.

AGILE & DEVOPS

Those of us using Jira Plans would have got used to the Gantt view we get being pretty much it. Well not anymore, Jira Plans will now get a calendar view. Starting in March and going over the next couple of months, we will be able to start seeing our plan data on a month by month view. What do you think on this matter?

Over the last 6 months, I have personally noticed a great improvement in the linking of information cross platforms. With the fact we can now view confluence pages from within Jira issues removing context switching and vice versa, it has felt very seamless. The team have taken this one step further and now allowing you to create Confluence pages straight from a Jira issue. If a user is licensed on both applications they can create a page by clicking on the create menu dropdown below the issue’s summary or in the Confluence content section. The page you make will automatically get linked to the issue for future reference.

Another change brought to JSW this month is the ability to now inline edit rename dashboard gadgets. While editing a dashboard, rather then having to click into more actions to rename, just simply click on the name to rename it. This small improvement will make it quicker for users while designing their dashboard reports.

WORK MANAGEMENT & COLLABORATION

Confluence automation has seen some huge improvements yet again over the last month. This month we have three new areas the automation team has been focusing on.

1. Manage public links & guest access using automations.
   These new actions will allow the mass management of space administration in regards to external users. If you want specific pages to be restricted once labels or other elements like page status are present, the automation rule will now handle this all for you. To learn more, follow this link.

2. Create JSM tickets straight from a Confluence page.
   While this seems like not a huge leap as we reported on creating JSW issues last month, this enables all teams now to have access to this functionality. I see some great use of better linking change or problem documentation together or event reviews on KB articles on a more regimented schedule. To learn more, follow this link.

3. New smart value panel in Confluence automation
   Building rules is good, building smart rules is great. I appreciate that not every rule needs smart values but they can often elevate the rule to the next level for teams. The only downside is understanding the options you have available. You’d have to go searching for the information and it could easily get overlooked. Well not now. The Confluence automation team have made a great UX design choice and included a pop out for smart values wherever possible within the editor. You’ll be able to look at all the categories and easily paste the required smart value straight into your rule. To learn more, follow this link.

Over the last month and into next month, the Confluence team are updating how & what we see when editing. Going forward we will now be able to see the full side and nav bar. In my head it is almost like going towards the in line editing people have been wishing for, for quite a while. The aim is to provide the editor with as much context as possible by seeing the titles of other content without leaving their page.

One of the more challenging parts Confluence, in my opinion, has always struggled with is its ability to export data correctly. The PDF & Word exports aren’t bad, that’s not what I am saying, but more that data can often not be displayed correctly, or macros aren’t compatible at all. Well the Confluence team recognised this and have improved the way PDF exports are done. Tables, mentions, dates and other elements have had improvements on their rendering for exports. Hopefully this puts some of these challenges to bed, only time will tell.

SERVICE MANAGEMENT

JSM’s virtual agent has been changing the way our agents interact with customers, but being able to review specific conversations hasn’t been the easiest. Atlassian recognised this and have since created a new set of reports allowing just this. You can now view any and all conversation your virtual agent has had. To check it out, go to Virtual agent and then select Conversations from the navigation on the left. You can use filters to narrow down conversations by things like customer satisfaction (CSAT) score, whether or not an intent was matched, whether or not a conversation was resolved or escalated. Once you have found a conversation you can even open it up in Slack to gain more context into the virtual agent's performance, and jump straight to matched intents from the Conversations page to make improvements on the fly. To learn more, Follow this link.

Being able to deployment gate your changes from JSM has been a great feature for those using Bitbucket. To learn more on deployment gating, follow this link. Over the last month, GitHub has been added to this list meaning GitHub & JSM customers can now approve and gate deployment changes with GitLab soon to be added to this list. Seeing this functionality go across to other products is great news for so many teams.

A new feature is rolling out to JSM projects over the coming months. Products & Entitlements. Entitlements is all around capturing important information relating to a customers access to a product or service you offer. You can use the products and entitlements to track things like support level, product tier, number of licenses, expiry date or any other information about their entitlement. You'll be able to experience the new functionality by using the products page in your JSM project. This will also bring another custom field to the project under “Entitlements”.

PLATFORM

Unmanaged products can be a huge problem for so many teams. Atlassian have recently been making improvements to the discovered products functionality in Access Org admins can now allow you to join the product as admin allowing you to start making decisions. This could definitely help keep teams bills lower and not lead to security challenges. To find out more, follow this link https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Atlassian-Access-articles/Take-control-of-unmanaged-products-with-new-enhancements-to/ba-p/2616410#M422

Authentication policies also saw some focus over the last month. The new addition is the ability for admins to set whether users within that authentication policy to allow or block API token access.

AIntelligence has had additional work this month. We often all have annoying confusing words on issues. Well fear no more. The Intelligence engine can now be used to define words in descriptions on issues. All you have to do is highlight the word and ask AIntelligence to define it. It will use your connected Confluence space to search and define information for you. Even though this is only available for the issue description right now, it certainly is a great addition to the intelligence functionality.

Application tunneled applications now get health checks. If you find yourself using a mix of on prem and cloud instances, you can use the application tunnel to share information between the two. However until now you have not been able to check the health status of the link. This has recently changed. Additional statuses have also been added that can help better describe any encountered problems making investigations faster.

Which one of the latest updates is your favourite? Until the next time.