Who would have thought back in 2002 that this product called Jira few people knew about would come to be the go-to tool for IT teams globally? If you’re like me, you’ll be kicking yourself for not buying shares in Atlassian sooner. Jira has come a long way since 2002 with vast functionality improvements, additional value with tools like Jira Service Desk coming into play and general UX improvements (to name a few).
Both Jira and Jira Service Desk I’m sure we can all agree are amazing tools, but for non-technical users, or those outside of IT they don’t always appeal. This is where Refined comes into the picture. Refined is a site building tool not only to add an appealing entry point to Jira and Jira Service Desk, but most importantly to improve communication and project management within and across teams. Refined is traditionally known for its theming expertise on Confluence. This theming expertise was extended to Jira Service Desk back in 2017. Now in 2020, we are very excited to introduce Refined to Jira.
The power of Jira and Jira Service Desk brought to every team
Refined is a site building tool to build beautiful branded sites to communicate to users who needn’t see the full Jira view. Jira users continue to use Jira as they would today. At the same time, they can use Refined to communicate with other teams or customers via a clean, branded version of a Jira project. Teams accessing Jira via your organization’s branded (Refined) site can report a bug, track tasks and projects from the Refined issue tracking site, without needing to enter full Jira. Similarly, Jira Service Desk agents can work in Jira while their customers visit a clean, branded service desk portal.
How Refined for Jira works
Refined for Jira 3.0 is an app installed onto Jira/Jira Service Desk that connects a customizable, branded and easy to use site. Customers visit the Refined site, while Jira users stick to the standard Jira. This app until the recent release was known as Refined for Jira Service Desk. The recent release (3.0) added new support for Jira Core and Jira Software as well as continued support for Jira Service Desk, hence the name change to Refined for Jira.
In practice Refined for Jira gives you the tools to build an ITSM service, a project management site, and a public issue tracker. In fact, you can build all three use cases connected to one Jira instance.
What’s included in Refined for Jira?
Added Site Structure
Jira projects and /or Service Desk projects can be re-organized into Refined categories and sites. Each site has a top navigation menu for quick access to the project in mind. It’s possible to just use Jira Service Desk projects or just Jira projects. This decision depends on your site’s purpose.
Theming
The feature Refined is arguably most known for is the theming capability. Refined for Jira includes the powerful inbuilt theme editor used in all Refined apps and with the latest release 3.0 we have worked hard to make the UX simpler and more enjoyable.
Customization
Refined includes a simple layout editor to add a search, navigation content, quick links, requests, issues and more to your layouts.
Improved Search
Use the enhanced search UI to display search results from Jira issues, request types, knowledge base articles and recommended links. Included in this search is the option of connecting more than one Confluence knowledge base.
Personalized Content
Add permissions to sites, categories (groups of service desks and projects) and selected content to show relevant content to users.
Enterprise Features
The latest release has a focus on enterprise customers. We released a new admin delegation feature so that Jira admins can delegate the management of Refined sites to Refined specific administrators. This and performance improvements have made larger instances with multiple sites in use much smoother.
Read up on the latest release from Refined for Jira 3.0
Try Refined for Jira free from the Atlassian Marketplace
Like what you hear? Talk to one of the experts from Valiantys about getting this setup for your organization now. As experts in Atlassian, they are ready to work with you and provide you with the right solutions for your organization.
Contact one of our consultants now
