Jira 

has evolved into a powerful work management tool for all kinds of use cases, from
requirements and test case management to agile software development.

Jira products overview

Jira Software Jira Service Desk Jira Core

Manage any business project
Give your customers an easy way to
Plan, track and release including marketing campaigns,
ask for help and your agents a faster
world-class software. HR onboarding, approvals and
way to deliver it.
legal document reviews.
Users
Software developers Customers
Project managers Service desk agents
SCRUM masters IT managers
Business users
  Support agents
  Support managers
  Non-technical users
Use cases
Non-technical team
Bug tracking IT Helpdesk
projects
Project management ITSM Workflow approvals
Product management Customer Support Task management
Enterprise Service  
Process management
Management
Task management Ticketing support  
Software  
Service Request Management
development
Agile software  
Incident Management
development
  Problem Management  
  Change Management  
Important integrations
Confluence  
Bitbucket
Confluence
Slack
GitHub
Hosting options
 Cloud, Server, Data
Cloud, Server, Data Center Cloud, Server, Data Center
Center
Licensing
All Jira Software users
All Jira Software users can All Jira Software users can
can access Jira Core
access Jira Core features access Jira Core features.
features

Users have access to

Users have access Users have access Business Projects & features
(Dashboards, Reports, etc).
Software projects &  
Software projects & features
features
Business projects &  
Business projects & features
features

Jira Software hosting options

Jira Software is available in two hosting options: cloud and self-managed. For our self-managed
option, customers can choose between server and data center. 

Cloud Server Data Center

With Jira Software
With Jira Software
Server, you host Jira
Cloud, we host and set
Software on your own
up your Jira Software With Jira Software Data Center,
hardware and customize
site in the cloud for you can host Jira Software on
your setup however you'd
you. This is generally your own hardware or with IaaS
like. This is generally the
the best option for vendors like AWS and Azure.
best option for teams who
teams who want to get This is generally the best option
need to manage all the
started quickly and for enterprise teams who need
details, have stricter
easily, and for teams uninterrupted access to Jira
requirements for data
who don't want to Software and performance at
governance, and don't
manage the technical scale.
mind the additional
complexity of hosting
complexity of hosting
themselves.
themselves.

Key terms to know

Issues
A Jira 'issue' refers to a single work item of any type or size that is tracked from creation to
completion. For example, an issue could be a feature being developed by a software team, a to-
do item for a marketing team, or a contract that needs to be written by a legal team.

Tip: Other commonly used terms for issues are 'requests', 'tickets' or 'tasks'. We recommend
using 'issues' to help your team stay on the same page when working across the Jira product
family.

Projects
A project is, quite simply, a collection of issues that are held in common by purpose or context.
Issues grouped into projects can be configured in a variety of ways, ranging from visibility
restrictions to available workflows.

Jira Software projects are flexible working spaces that allow you to group like issues by team,
business unit, product, or stream of work. Projects don't need to be tied to the same delivery
date. For example, if you group your issues by team, you could have a marketing project, a
development project, and a legal project, all of which would track ongoing work of those
particular teams. Every issue would be represented by an issue keys (specific to a project) and
an issue number, i.e. MKT-13, DEV-4, LEG-1.

Workflows
Workflows represent the sequential path an issues takes from creation to completion. A basic
workflow might look something like this:

In this case, Open, Done, and the labels in between represent the status an issue can take,
while the arrows represent potential transitions from one status to another. Workflows can be
simple or complex, with conditions, triggers, validators and post functions. We'll dive deeper into
these advanced configurations later in this guide. For now, it is recommended for novice Jira
Software admins to keep their workflows as simple as possible, until business needs determine
the requirements for complex workflow configurations.

What is Jira used for?

Jira for requirements & test case management

An increasing number of teams today are developing more iteratively, and Jira Software is the central
hub for the coding, collaboration, and release stages. For test management, Jira integrates with a variety
of add-ons so the QA’s testing slides seamlessly into the software development cycle. Teams can test
effectively and iteratively. QA teams Use Jira issues, customized screens, fields, and workflows to
manage manual and automated tests.

Jira for agile teams

For teams who practice agile methodologies, Jira Software provides scrum and kanban boards out-of-the
box. Boards are a task management hubs, where tasks are mapped to customizable workflows. Boards
provide transparency across team work and visibility into the status of every work item. Time tracking
capabilities, and real-time performance reports (burn-up/down charts, sprint reports, velocity charts)
enable teams to closely monitor their productivity over time. Find your agile boards in Jira Software
Cloud classic projects.
Issue tracking Customizable workflows Estimation & work logging
Progress reports Scrum boards Kanban boards
Project- level permissions Project backlogs Email notifications

Jira for project management teams

Jira Software Cloud can be configured to fit any type of project. Teams can start with a project template
or create their own custom workflow. Jira issues, also known as tasks, tracks each piece of work that
needs to pass through the workflow steps to completion. Customizable permissions enable admins to
determine who can see and perform which actions. With all project information in place, reports can be
generated to track progress, productivity, and ensure nothing slips.
Issue / Task management Report & Analytics Integrated mobile app
Project customization Project backlogs Issue customization
Granular user permissions Workflow customization

Jira for software development teams

Jira Software Cloud provides planning and roadmap tools so teams can manage stakeholders, budgets,
and feature requirements from day one. Jira integrates with a variety of CI/CD tools to facilitate
transparency throughout the software development life cycle. When it’s ready to deploy, live production
code status information is surfaced in the Jira issue. Integrated feature flagging tools allow teams to roll
out new features gradually and safely.

Jira for software development teams

Jira Software Cloud provides planning and roadmap tools so teams can manage stakeholders, budgets,
and feature requirements from day one. Jira integrates with a variety of CI/CD tools to facilitate
transparency throughout the software development life cycle. When it’s ready to deploy, live production
code status information is surfaced in the Jira issue. Integrated feature flagging tools allow teams to roll
out new features gradually and safely.

Release planning Project Backlog Developer tool integrations

Sprint planning Jira Service Desk integration CI/CD integrations
Feature flagging Issue management

Jira for product management teams

In Jira Software Cloud’s next-gen template, teams can build a roadmap that’s associated with each
project. The roadmap enables teams to sketch out the longer term view of their work as well as track
and share progress for their roadmap. Add more detail to your roadmaps, surfacing dependencies and
forecasts for when you might complete your work. Create a view highlighting ‘live’ roadmaps from
multiple teams by embedding the Jira Software roadmap into Confluence.
Next-gen template Advanced roadmaps Project roadmap
Dependency mapping Roadmap progress tracking Forecasts
Roadmap sharing Confluence integration

Jira for task management

Create tasks for yourself and members of your team to work on, complete with its details, due dates,
and reminders. Utilize subtasks to breakdown larger items of work. Allow others to watch the task to
track its progress and be notified when it’s completed. Create sub-tasks within the parent task to break
down the unit of work into digestible pieces for various members of the team. View all tasks on the
board to easily visualize each’s status.
 Email notifications Custom fields  Issue hierarchy
Task linking / relationships Subtasks  Project linking
Task change log / history

Jira for bug tracking

Bugs are just a name for to-do's stemming from problems within the software a team is building. It is
important for teams to view all the tasks and bugs in the backlog so they can prioritize big picture goals.
Jira’s powerful workflow engine ensures that bugs are automatically assigned and prioritized once they
are captured. Teams can then track a bug through to completion.

Product / Issue backlog Task / bug linking Customizable workflows

Project level configuration Email notifications Project rules

Glossary of items

Scrum board - Scrum boards enable teams to manage their sprints and backlog. 

Kanban board - A kanban board allows teams to visualize the flow of work and limit work in progress.

Backlogs - A backlog contains outstanding issues for a team to work on.

Epics, User Stories, Issues - An epic represents a large body of work, which may require several sprints to
complete. Multiple user stories comprise an epic. A Jira issue represents a single piece of work in a
project.

Time Tracking - Time tracking allows teams to record the amount of time they spend working on issues.

Custom workflows - Teams can create a custom workflow to drive the progression of issues on a scrum
or kanban board.

Roadmaps - Roadmaps create a visual representation of all the epics a team is working on, so teams can
plan large pieces of work in advance.

Advanced search - Advanced search uses Jira Query Language (JQL) to search for specific criteria in
issues that can’t be done in quick or basic searches.

Permissions - Utilize permissions to grant team members different levels of access and to lock down
sensitive information.