Even though they’re one of the biggest tech giants around, many people still don’t know what Atlassian is and what they do. 

One of the most common ideas is that it’s just another name for Jira, a very popular workflow and project management tool.

So, is Atlassian the same as Jira? No, but Jira is part of Atlassian’s range of products. Actually, Jira was the first of Atlassian’s product line. That might be part of the confusion.

In essence, Atlassian is a software company that provides solutions for Agile teams and a wide range of other teams, including IT, marketing, legal, HR, and customer service teams, looking to collaborate and manage projects better.

Their core principle is that everyone works best in smaller, but highly skilled teams. However, that’s true only when they’re enabled to do their work with the right toolset.

This means not only providing your developers with better ways to code but also collaborating on the work. 

Additionally, Atlassian looks to improve the notion of collaboration company-wide for all of their clients, not just for the development department. To empower DevOps, HR, Sales, Marketing and Engineering to have the same objective in mind.

Table of Contents

• Should You Use Atlassian?
• What is Atlassian Used For?
  • Improved and Easy Automation
  • Intuitive and Desirable Collaboration
• Atlassian Solves Miscommunication
• Atlassian Empowers Bottom-Up Cooperation
• Let’s Get You Started

Should You Use Atlassian?

Could your business accomplish its goals better? Could projects be managed more efficiently? Have you noticed that information just doesn’t seem to reach all the right people, and if it does, it’s confusing?

Don’t worry, you simply need Atlassian products to reshape the way that you work. We’re a certified Atlassian partner. If you’re ready to begin improving, we’re ready to assist. 

Purchasing (with a discount), implementation, integrations, any migrations that you might need from your old ITSM and ITIL solutions, etc. We have it all covered.

The Main Goal of Atlassian Products

According to Atlassian’s latest data, over 80% of Fortune 500 companies use Atlassian products in more than 190 countries, including major brands such as HubSpot, Dropbox, Visa, and Domino’s.

If you’re looking to grow your business and focus on constant scalability, you need systems designed to help you achieve that.

Atlassian’s solutions keep hundreds of thousands of people on the same page each and every day. They also provide a toolset for planning, tracking, collaborating, offering support, coding, building and shipping!

Today’s business world is focused on providing services and products at an ever-increasing speed (the concept of Agile project management). Atlassian provides tools that are crucial for Agile teams and also for departments like HR, legal, sales, and customer support.

For example, non-technical teams can use Trello for straightforward task management, or Confluence to store and share knowledge across the company.

What is Atlassian Used For?

In order to accomplish any of your business goals, you need to have skilled teams in place that know how to get their job done.

However, it is significantly harder to complete any task if the knowledge is fragmented and processes and procedures aren’t up to par.

Atlassian’s products are the means through which you can accomplish your goals faster and better.

Atlassian is increasingly focused on its cloud-based offerings. In fact, the company is in the process of discontinuing its server-based products, aiming to shift all customers to the cloud by 2024. This cloud-first approach ensures businesses can collaborate effectively from anywhere, especially in the age of remote work. 

The cloud platform guarantees secure, scalable solutions with simplified maintenance. In other words, simple interconnectivity between all products that you’d use.

What exactly is Atlassian, you ask? A mindset. A belief that great things can only be accomplished together, when people work in harmony and towards the same goal.

All right, but what do you actually do with Atlassian’s solutions on a day-by-day basis? Well, for example:

Improved and Easy Automation

Manual tasks are laborious and waste precious time better spent elsewhere. How does it sound to just auto-generate reports with a click instead?

Or here’s another example: micromanaging. Now, just from the top of your head, how many people do you know that would say that they definitely can’t stand being micromanaged?

Atlassian’s tools enable robust automation through features like Jira Automation, which allows teams to set up rules for repetitive tasks, like transitioning issues between stages, updating tickets, or notifying team members based on triggers. These automations free up valuable time that can be spent on higher-priority work.

The nature of the modern workplace focuses on agility, maneuverability and flexibility. Asking the same question thrice in 8 hours will only annoy and de-focus the people that are actively working on what you’re waiting for.

Instead, there’s Atlassian’s Trello, or its more popular counterpart, Jira Software. Both tools empower teams to easily create, update, track and report on tasks.

One of their fastest-growing products is Jira Service Management (JSM), which is widely used by IT teams to manage service requests, incidents, and changes, improving overall IT service delivery.

Remember though: Atlassian is not the same as Jira or Trello.

The latter ones are actual tools, while the former is the brand that owns them. You can get access to those tools from a partner such as us, and then start using them to bring your organization to the next level.

Atlassian’s Marketplace ecosystem offers over 1,000 apps and integrations, allowing businesses to customize tools like Jira, Confluence, and Trello according to their specific needs. From automation plugins to third-party integrations with apps like Slack, Zendesk, and Microsoft Teams, the Marketplace makes Atlassian products even more versatile and powerful.

Let’s take a practical example:

1. A Scrum Master, Product Lead/Manager, developer or tester creates a task with a clear description (requirements). 
2. The task is assigned to a relevant team member. 
3. Depending on the status of the task, it is moved between columns on its kanban board (i.e. Backlog, In Progress, QA, Ready for Production, Done).
4. During the whole workflow, anyone can leave comments on the task and tag other team members. 
5. If the task isn’t done up to standards, it can be placed in a dedicated “Did Not Pass QA” column. 
6. Similarly to the previous point, each task can also be linked to others which are directly blocking it or are one of its dependencies. 

You can also integrate Jira Software with time tracking tools such as Clockify, allowing for swift logging of hours.

Or, you could tie it in with Slack, and create tasks/issues straight from messages.

Jira Software cuts time you’d spend organizing and managing in half, or even more! It’s all about what you’re looking to do with it and then receiving the appropriate training and consulting.

Intuitive and Desirable Collaboration

The way in which a designer works will directly affect and/or influence your development speed and efficiency.

If a copywriter hasn’t finished the text for time-essential PPC ad, then the PPC expert can’t do their job to the end.

We’re sure you get the idea and that you’ve had such events happen in your organization. But here’s the great thing: they can stop happening ASAP. You just have to switch to Atlassian methods.

Atlassian products such as Confluence and Jira Software can be used to create an integrated workflow. For example, Jira issues can be linked directly into Confluence project documentation, keeping all stakeholders updated. Additionally, integrations with Slack or Microsoft Teams enable real-time collaboration, so teams can create and track Jira tasks from within chat conversations.

However, some people work better in teams, while others prefer going at it alone. But if you really look into the matter, it’s because of the lack of quality cooperation.

After all, why would you be opposed to teamwork if it’s in your interest?

Here’s an example

A collaborative workplace culture is to the benefit of all, but you must have the tools that make it all possible too. And that is exactly what Atlassian is used for.

Well, not directly, as that’s not what Atlassian is actually. More precisely, you’d use a solution such as Atlassian’s Confluence.

• Confluence works in “spaces” and “pages”.
• Spaces are where you find all the pages.
• Pages are documents made by team members.

All too often, projects can be riddled with misinformation, lack of information, or improper communication.

How many times have your own teams been confused about what deliverables they should be working on, or what the requirements are?

One of the underlying problems is that knowledge is fragmented; scattered into pieces in emails, Google Drive folders, Slack groups, and channels, etc.

It’s time to put a stop to all of that.

Atlassian’s mission is to advance the way humanity works together through intuitive and powerful software. Every team member deserves the chance to unleash their full potential.

With Confluence, communication stays in a single place, even for remote teams.

ATLASSIAN SOLVES MISCOMMUNICATION

You just got a new project and all relevant teams went through an onboarding process during an all-hands-on-deck call.

Sure, some people might have noted down a few ideas, but how can you be sure they’re the right ideas?

We each add our own interpretations to the information we receive, even when it’s factual and logical to begin with.

What will happen next is that people will remain with the general idea in mind, but then face the situation where their colleagues remember it just slightly differently. Of course, they could ask their manager.

But, where will the manager get the information from if they don’t remember for sure? The project manager.

And just like that, a needlessly long information chain was formed, with miscommunication likely to happen all over again.

The Better Alternative

Instead of the above, just use Confluence, a centralized source of truth. There are over 100 templates already, but you can start with a custom project plan too.

Confluence’s open platform breaks team silos and brings everyone into the same space (hence Confluence having “spaces” and “pages”).

Then, everyone can share and build on knowledge, while collaborating with ease thanks to pages being grouped into a single space (think multiple pages per project/space; very easy to search for and find).

With Confluence, Atlassian focused on assuring complete team alignment for both internal goals, and external objectives.

You can supercharge your workspace with:

• Real-time contributions and edits from the whole team (comments, at-mentions, action items, feedback, etc)
• Integration with tools such sa Slack, Microsoft Teams
• Dynamically-updated roadmaps.
• Linked Jira issues. 
• Integrated Trello boards.
• Organized references to Google .docs.

The best part? All of these features of Confluence (and more) are free of charge.

That’s because, above all, Atlassian is a company dedicated to fostering collaboration and empowering organizations to reach new heights in team play.

Atlassian Empowers Bottom-Up Cooperation

While some details and directions must be sorted in a top-down fashion, it can leave no room for the bottom-up to develop properly.

It’s of no use to ask for initiative and proactivity if you don’t provide the tools and means for people to be self-sufficient.

For example, take Atlassian’s Bitbucket, a Git development solution. It’s a single environment, but planning, executing, testing, and deploying ALL happen there.

Bitbucket is a tool specifically made for cross-functional teams. It’s a private Git repository, sure, but also built from the ground up for coding and DevOps.

Peer reviewing is easy, you can leave comments, and the integrated CI/CD speeds up the whole process.

It lets developers who actually build the software contribute much more than just sending the code to someone for review and awaiting rigid feedback.

Moreover, it connects to Jira! Have an issue that needs fixing? No problem, just make a Jira task for it. This is simply more proof that Atlassian is a holistic approach to effective project management and team collaboration.

For instance, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory used Jira Software to track and manage its Mars 2020 mission’s hardware development and testing. Through automated workflows and Jira’s issue tracking, they ensured precision and accountability across various project milestones.

Another Example

Similarly, look at Atlassian’s Opsgenie. Traditionally, you’d use numerous tools to monitor always-on software services.

However, you end up almost being spammed with email notifications from them, without a lot of context about the actual problem.

So, important events end up ignored or just sent to the wrong people. Opsgenie perfects critical incident response times by assuring that the right people get the right information.

By getting that abundance of reports itself (alerts from ticketing systems, custom applications, monitoring systems), it can categorize them by importance.

Then, it sends multi-channel notifications to on-call, relevant personnel. Automatic escalation happens only if the alert is left unaddressed.

So, team leaders or seniors don’t get involved unless they need to. All team members are equally involved and important.

Let’s Get You Started

Say goodbye to old-school ITSM and lackluster interdepartmental management and communication.

Atlassian is the embodiment of proper business practices, with a focus on team enablement and collaboration.

But, you don’t have to take our word for it. Just get in touch with us and you’ll see for yourself. We’ll set up your own suite of tools and solutions, tailored to your needs.