Jira Pilot Instructions

Owned by Sean Stockburger (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Sept 17, 2018Version comment
3 min read

Thank you for participating in the Jira Service Desk pilot. As of 8/16/18 we will begin a new phase of testing with Desktop Support. 

  • For now, try to duplicate some of the tickets you enter into KACE in Jira (preferably 6-12 per week)
  • The Help Desk will assign Jira Service Desk tickets to Desktop Support and reference a corresponding KACE ticket ID that will also be assigned to Desktop Support in KACE. 

To get started:

I will invite you to the Jira Service Desk project, so watch your email for the invitation. If you don't receive it and you know I have sent it, check your Junk Mail filter. 

Our Jira Service Desk site is https://wwuhelp.atlassian.net

You will not see the additional articles on navigating Jira, creating tickets, and working with tickets listed at the bottom of this page until you actually sign in to Jira (those articles are restricted).

We do not yet have SSO configured, so create a password for yourself.

We do not yet have a list of customers populated, so choose one of the following for the REPORTER field:

  • Employee
  • Student
  • Alum

You can also practice/test by assigning a coworker as the reporter. We can also add a personal email address if you would like to use that for testing from the reporter perspective.

Use the documentation listed at the bottom of this page to get started. I will try to update the screenshots and other documentation. I may also break up the longer articles to make it a bit easier to read. Please submit your feedback/suggestions or questions to Sean via email, Slack, Jira, in-person... whatever channel you prefer. There are already related posts under the atus_desktop_helpdesk Slack channel as well.

Create Tickets

  1. Go to the Help Desk Project (see the document for Navigating Jira from the list below)
  2. Use the "NEW TICKET" option, or the ISSUE TEMPLATES" shortcut and change the Reporter to Employee
  3. Enter a summary of the issue
  4. Copy/Paste the actual employee's name and contact info from WAM into the Description field.
  5. Select one or more components. We are trying to keep the component list shorter than it was in KACE, so think General. We can add more components if we need to. There are also other options for categorizing tickets we can discuss where there is a need. We can link those options to specific request types (hardware repair, for example). 
  6. Assign the ticket to your group
  7. Assign it to yourself if you will be responsible for it.

Assign a Ticket to your Group

One part of the documentation we did not cover is how to move issue tickets between groups. There is an "Assigned to Group" field with a drop-down list. Just remember that for now not everyone is participating. The only groups we should assign things to are the following:

  • Help Desk
  • Help Desk T2
  • Desktop Support

Create a Subtask, or clone an issue

We didn't cover subtasks in the training, but you can create subtasks within a ticket and even assign those subtasks to other groups and individuals. 

This document from Atlassian's online help covers the following topics

  • Create a subtask
  • Convert a subtask to an issue, or an issue to a subtask
  • Clone an issue
  • Restrict access to an issue

 Watch for tickets assigned to Desktop Support from the Help Desk

The Help Desk will include a corresponding KACE ticket number for requests we assign to Desktop Support via Jira.

Get the Mobile App!

Atlassian offers iOS and Android apps for both Jira and Confluence. The Jira app covers Jira and Jira Service Desk.

Write a KB article

Want to contribute to the growing wealth of knowledge? Navigate to the Help Desk Space and use the big Plus+ sign to create an article. There are templates to choose from, but most KB articles will be "How To" articles. 

  • You can add existing labels to KB articles, and I think you can create new labels.
  • KB articles are visible to anyone who has the link to our Help Desk space, but you can restrict permissions if you want to write an article visible only to ITS staff.
    • We can create additional spaces for internal use only.

Explore Integrations on the Atlassian Marketplace

Just be sure to filter by "Cloud" because many integrations are available only for Server or Cloud instances of Jira Service Desk. If an integration you are interested in is only available for Server at this time, you might contact the developer to see if they have plans to make it available for the Cloud. 


Your feedback is valuable! We still have many decisions to make about how we configure Jira. I will schedule a Q&A session or two for the next couple of weeks.
Please submit your feedback/suggestions or questions to Sean via email, Slack, Jira, in-person... whatever channel you prefer. There are already related posts under the atus_desktop_helpdesk Slack channel as well.