Jira Service Desk (starting at $10 flat rate per month for one to three agents) has seen quite a few updates since our last review of help desk products.
It still holds significant open-source street cred, since it's used by multiple well-known open-source projects as their primary software development issue tracking tool.
That makes it a key component in managing software bugs and their eventual disposition, a task for which this platform is also used in many commercial enterprises.
Updates to the user interface include a new workflow editor, a request type editor, and enhanced screens for viewing agent queues.
The new requests queue screens make it possible to take action directly from each screen.
It's also possible to view and act on open requests from the mobile app.
Administration and Ticket Management
It's possible to use the Create New Users form for a small number of agents.
For larger installations, Jira Service Desk offers a bulk user importing tool that uses a simple CSV file.
The website's administration page also has links to other website admin functions such as managing groups and application access.
If you're looking for plug-ins to extend functionality further, the Atlassian Marketplace presents 2,500 ready-made extensions ranging from an enterprise mail handler to connectors to Salesforce, HubSpot, and Microsoft Dynamics.
A request is the starting point for creating a new ticket for the service desk team.
Gone in this release is the previous use of "issues" to focus only on requests.
Requests can come from an email, an electronic form submitted through the customer portal, or an embedded widget on any website.
Every request in Jira Service Desk has a lifecycle.
Workflows control the status and transitions of requests.
Jira Service Desk ships with basic Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) and customer support workflows.
The new workflow editor adds the ability to graphically design and implement specific actions and automate repetitive actions based on user-defined rules.
Jira now offers seven preconfigured ITSM service desk templates to help speed the process of creating a new request.
An additional five internal and five external service desk template types expand the library for more specific use cases.
Creating a new request type requires just a few mouse clicks and filling in two text fields.
Jira Service Desk uses the concept of queues to help automate request processing.
Each new request must be assigned to a member of the service desk team and ultimately resolved with an answer.
Requests can also be reopened if the requester isn't satisfied with the resolution, and customers can also automate the assigning of issues to agents.
Rules make it possible to automatically transition requests based on an action, such as a customer commenting on a resolved request.
This action will reopen the request, requiring a response on the part of an agent.
Email requests are initially set to "on," which will create a new request only for registered customers.
This prevents spam email from producing a swarm of bogus requests—a backup to Jira's own spam protection mechanism.
Customer Self-Service
The primary customer-facing UI for Jira Service Desk is its customer portal, but customers can also submit requests by using email and embedded widgets.
When a request has been handled, an email will automatically be sent notifying the customer of its status.
A link in the email will open the request in Jira Service Desk, with a full description of the status and any comments by the agent.
A downside here compared to most of the other products we tested is Jira Service Desk's lack of an integrated knowledge base.
According to Atlassian, this will be rectified in the next company fiscal year.
Agents can search issues looking for how to resolve a specific problem, but there isn't a similar mechanism for the typical user.
The company addresses this problem by offering customers the ability to integrate Jira Service Desk with Atlassian Confluence, which the firm describes as a knowledge base for teams to create, organize, and publish articles by using ready-made templates.
It also lets companies connect with their users via blog updates, RSS feeds, and page commenting.
We didn't review Confluence as part of this article, but from the specifications listed on Atlassian's website it looks quite serviceable.
However, you should definitely test it out during your free trial period.
With Confluence installed, Jira Service Desk users and customers can access a global portal with smart search capabilities.
Atlassian Confluence also provides a direct workflow for turning an issue in Jira Service Desk into a published knowledge base entry.
One area in which Atlassian is somewhat deficient is customer access through social media channels such as Facebook or Twitter.
At this time the only option is an integration with Hootsuite which would require an additional license for that product.
This is a feature offered by many of the other players in the category, including full-featured solutions such as Vivantio Pro and even entry-level products such as Freshdesk.
Detailed Reporting and Integrations
Basic reporting features provide information in the form of charts and graphs, based on factors such as Average Age, Created Versus Resolved, Recently Created, and Time to Resolution.
While the canned reports provide a good summary of the requests you would want to track, it's also possible to build your own custom reports by exporting the data to Microsoft Excel.
Overall, however, we found that Jira Service Desk's reporting lagged behind that of Vivantio Pro out of the box.
You can expand report functionality, but you'll wind up adding third-party modules to make that happen.
If you don't need to push the reporting envelope, however, Jira Service Desk has a nice layout.
Each agent can see an Activity Stream with currently open and recently closed requests.
Jira uses dashboards to show the current status of all outstanding service requests plus other pertinent information.
It's possible to build a new dashboard from scratch or to copy and modify an existing one.
Jira Service Desk supports Webhooks, which let you create a push notification tied to a specific event.
A rich set of Representational State Transfer (REST) application programming interfaces (APIs) make it possible to interact with Jira Service Desk programmatically.
The software also offers some asset management functionality.
We didn't review it as part of our IT asset management review roundup because that isn't the platform's primary purpose, though Atlassian does make it a marketing point.
The company recommends Insight by Riada as an add-on to Jira Service Desk for asset management, but also offers support for Oomnitza, Device42, and Snipe-IT in the Atlassian Marketplace.
If your company uses Google G Suite, Jira's G Suite integration provides a way for you to automatically provision accounts for your licensed users.
One limitation of this is that users will need to log in with their primary email address (which can be on any domain in the linked G Suite account) and cannot log in with any aliases that they're using for that address.
Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) Single Sign-On (SSO) is also available if you're looking to require your licensed users to log in with your identity provider.
Atlassian also announced a partnership with Slack in 2018, with that company acquiring the IP and ceasing production of Atlassian's Stride and Hipchat cloud products.
Pricing and Overview
Like many other help desk products, Jira Service Desk has multiple pricing tiers that get progressively less expensive as you add more customer service agents—$10 monthly for up to three agents, $20 per user per month for the first 15 agents, $15 per user per month for the next 85, and so on.
Jira Service Desk does a good job of leveraging the foundation of Atlassian Corp.
and its surrounding open-source community.
The hosted solution mirrors the capability of the server-based product without the headaches of maintaining the underlying hardware and operating system.
Its cost is comparable to its competitors', although the need to add components to implement a knowledge base and Jira's inability to allow customer access through social media aren't ideal.
However, if those limitations aren't crucial to you, then Jira Service Desk provides a solid foundation for automating your helpdesk operations.
Cons
No integrated knowledge base
No customer access through social media channels
If your Google Apps account is associated with multiple domains, then only users and email addresses from the primary domain can tap into Atlassian Cloud
The Bottom Line
Jira Service Desk is a solid help desk entry for midsize and even large businesses.
Good integration with enterprise vendor Atlassian's other products as well as ample customizability and advanced reporting make this a platform worth considering.
Jira Service Desk Specs
Asset Management
No
Tickets From Social Media
No
Remote Control
No
Knowledge Base
No
Self-Service Portal
Yes
Smartphone Apps
No
Support Widget
Yes
Live Chat
No
Chatbot Support
No
Custom Reporting
Yes
Jira Service Desk (starting at $10 flat rate per month for one to three agents) has seen quite a few updates since our last review of help desk products.
It still holds significant open-source street cred, since it's used by multiple well-known open-source projects as their primary software development issue tracking tool.
That makes it a key component in managing software bugs and their eventual disposition, a task for which this platform is also used in many commercial enterprises.
Updates to the user interface include a new workflow editor, a request type editor, and enhanced screens for viewing agent queues.
The new requests queue screens make it possible to take action directly from each screen.
It's also possible to view and act on open requests from the mobile app.
Administration and Ticket Management
It's possible to use the Create New Users form for a small number of agents.
For larger installations, Jira Service Desk offers a bulk user importing tool that uses a simple CSV file.
The website's administration page also has links to other website admin functions such as managing groups and application access.
If you're looking for plug-ins to extend functionality further, the Atlassian Marketplace presents 2,500 ready-made extensions ranging from an enterprise mail handler to connectors to Salesforce, HubSpot, and Microsoft Dynamics.
A request is the starting point for creating a new ticket for the service desk team.
Gone in this release is the previous use of "issues" to focus only on requests.
Requests can come from an email, an electronic form submitted through the customer portal, or an embedded widget on any website.
Every request in Jira Service Desk has a lifecycle.
Workflows control the status and transitions of requests.
Jira Service Desk ships with basic Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) and customer support workflows.
The new workflow editor adds the ability to graphically design and implement specific actions and automate repetitive actions based on user-defined rules.
Jira now offers seven preconfigured ITSM service desk templates to help speed the process of creating a new request.
An additional five internal and five external service desk template types expand the library for more specific use cases.
Creating a new request type requires just a few mouse clicks and filling in two text fields.
Jira Service Desk uses the concept of queues to help automate request processing.
Each new request must be assigned to a member of the service desk team and ultimately resolved with an answer.
Requests can also be reopened if the requester isn't satisfied with the resolution, and customers can also automate the assigning of issues to agents.
Rules make it possible to automatically transition requests based on an action, such as a customer commenting on a resolved request.
This action will reopen the request, requiring a response on the part of an agent.
Email requests are initially set to "on," which will create a new request only for registered customers.
This prevents spam email from producing a swarm of bogus requests—a backup to Jira's own spam protection mechanism.
Customer Self-Service
The primary customer-facing UI for Jira Service Desk is its customer portal, but customers can also submit requests by using email and embedded widgets.
When a request has been handled, an email will automatically be sent notifying the customer of its status.
A link in the email will open the request in Jira Service Desk, with a full description of the status and any comments by the agent.
A downside here compared to most of the other products we tested is Jira Service Desk's lack of an integrated knowledge base.
According to Atlassian, this will be rectified in the next company fiscal year.
Agents can search issues looking for how to resolve a specific problem, but there isn't a similar mechanism for the typical user.
The company addresses this problem by offering customers the ability to integrate Jira Service Desk with Atlassian Confluence, which the firm describes as a knowledge base for teams to create, organize, and publish articles by using ready-made templates.
It also lets companies connect with their users via blog updates, RSS feeds, and page commenting.
We didn't review Confluence as part of this article, but from the specifications listed on Atlassian's website it looks quite serviceable.
However, you should definitely test it out during your free trial period.
With Confluence installed, Jira Service Desk users and customers can access a global portal with smart search capabilities.
Atlassian Confluence also provides a direct workflow for turning an issue in Jira Service Desk into a published knowledge base entry.
One area in which Atlassian is somewhat deficient is customer access through social media channels such as Facebook or Twitter.
At this time the only option is an integration with Hootsuite which would require an additional license for that product.
This is a feature offered by many of the other players in the category, including full-featured solutions such as Vivantio Pro and even entry-level products such as Freshdesk.
Detailed Reporting and Integrations
Basic reporting features provide information in the form of charts and graphs, based on factors such as Average Age, Created Versus Resolved, Recently Created, and Time to Resolution.
While the canned reports provide a good summary of the requests you would want to track, it's also possible to build your own custom reports by exporting the data to Microsoft Excel.
Overall, however, we found that Jira Service Desk's reporting lagged behind that of Vivantio Pro out of the box.
You can expand report functionality, but you'll wind up adding third-party modules to make that happen.
If you don't need to push the reporting envelope, however, Jira Service Desk has a nice layout.
Each agent can see an Activity Stream with currently open and recently closed requests.
Jira uses dashboards to show the current status of all outstanding service requests plus other pertinent information.
It's possible to build a new dashboard from scratch or to copy and modify an existing one.
Jira Service Desk supports Webhooks, which let you create a push notification tied to a specific event.
A rich set of Representational State Transfer (REST) application programming interfaces (APIs) make it possible to interact with Jira Service Desk programmatically.
The software also offers some asset management functionality.
We didn't review it as part of our IT asset management review roundup because that isn't the platform's primary purpose, though Atlassian does make it a marketing point.
The company recommends Insight by Riada as an add-on to Jira Service Desk for asset management, but also offers support for Oomnitza, Device42, and Snipe-IT in the Atlassian Marketplace.
If your company uses Google G Suite, Jira's G Suite integration provides a way for you to automatically provision accounts for your licensed users.
One limitation of this is that users will need to log in with their primary email address (which can be on any domain in the linked G Suite account) and cannot log in with any aliases that they're using for that address.
Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) Single Sign-On (SSO) is also available if you're looking to require your licensed users to log in with your identity provider.
Atlassian also announced a partnership with Slack in 2018, with that company acquiring the IP and ceasing production of Atlassian's Stride and Hipchat cloud products.
Pricing and Overview
Like many other help desk products, Jira Service Desk has multiple pricing tiers that get progressively less expensive as you add more customer service agents—$10 monthly for up to three agents, $20 per user per month for the first 15 agents, $15 per user per month for the next 85, and so on.
Jira Service Desk does a good job of leveraging the foundation of Atlassian Corp.
and its surrounding open-source community.
The hosted solution mirrors the capability of the server-based product without the headaches of maintaining the underlying hardware and operating system.
Its cost is comparable to its competitors', although the need to add components to implement a knowledge base and Jira's inability to allow customer access through social media aren't ideal.
However, if those limitations aren't crucial to you, then Jira Service Desk provides a solid foundation for automating your helpdesk operations.
Cons
No integrated knowledge base
No customer access through social media channels
If your Google Apps account is associated with multiple domains, then only users and email addresses from the primary domain can tap into Atlassian Cloud
The Bottom Line
Jira Service Desk is a solid help desk entry for midsize and even large businesses.
Good integration with enterprise vendor Atlassian's other products as well as ample customizability and advanced reporting make this a platform worth considering.
