A fundamental pillar of agile development is continuous improvement. So as the leading provider of agile collaboration and service delivery tools, Atlassian is continuously improving its tools, too.
Here, we’ll explore forecasted Atlassian updates slated to be released over the summer and into the fall. From enhanced migration capabilities to improved approval management features, these updates are designed to provide teams with more control over their Atlassian environment.
New Features Help IT Teams Migrate and Scale
With the February 15, 2024 sunset date for Atlassian self-managed server fast approaching, many organizations are in the process of migrating to the cloud-based version of their Atlassian toolset. This migration offers significant benefits, in particular continued updates and improvements. Atlassian offers Jira, Confluence, and Bitbucket migration assistants designed to help facilitate data transfer.
Soon Jira Cloud Migration Assistant will become even more efficient, gaining new functionality called Migrate-All-Data-At-Once. This new mode facilitates faster migration to the cloud, particularly for customers with large data volumes. This method of transfer operates up to 10 times faster than the current project-by-project migrations.
✅ Autoscale Self-Hosted Runners in Kubernetes
More exciting news for IT teams: organizations using Bitbucket will gain the ability to provision multiple self-hosted runners, and automatically scale them up or down in a Kubernetes cluster by configuring rules. This feature will enhance the scalability and efficiency of Bitbucket workflows, allowing IT departments to optimize resource allocation based on demand—making work more efficient for IT and DevOps alike.
Flexibility Bolsters Utility of Knowledge Management
Customization is a hallmark of Atlassian tools. For instance, in Jira, custom dashboards, filters, and notifications help teams get what they need from their tool more quickly and directly. In Confluence, that flexibility will soon help teams create even more organized, useful knowledge management.
✅ Assign and Transfer Page Owners in Confluence
In the spirit of allowing teams to get the most from Confluence, the tool will soon allow teams to set a page owner. This feature will make it easier to track responsibility and ensure that the right people are in control of managing and updating pages. Maintaining accountability supports page quality and consistency, meaning Confluence stays as useful as possible.
✅ Add a Custom Announcement Banner in Confluence
Also in Confluence, administrators will soon be able to create a customizable announcement banner that will be displayed to their instance’s users. This feature will enable administrators to communicate important information or updates directly.
✅ Create a Jira Issue Using Confluence Automation
To keep work in sync across products, Atlassian will enable users to create a Jira issue using Confluence automation. Setting custom automation rules to create Jira issues from within Confluence will streamline the process of converting Confluence content into actionable tasks in Jira, promoting cross-product collaboration.
Approval Management Supports Agile Workflows
A crucial part of continuous improvement and delivery? Quality control. In order to ensure that every update meets release standards, approvals are an integral part of a team lead’s job. However, approvals vary from project to project and phase to phase. Luckily, to support that, Atlassian offers customizable approvals. Soon, things will get even more flexible.
✅ Assign Approvers within the Releases Hub
As part of the new progressive delivery capabilities, Jira Software will allow release managers to assign approvers to a release. This enhancement ensures that teams can easily obtain sign-off and feedback from the right stakeholders before making the final decision to launch software to the market, keeping everyone on the same page.
✅ Approvals in Workflows in Jira Work Management
Approvals are also coming to workflows Jira Work Management, the version of Jira built to support several types of teams, from HR to legal to marketing. Adding approvals will enable users to design workflows with specific users assigned as approvers for certain steps. This feature ensures that critical tasks are reviewed and approved before the workflow can proceed, improving overall efficiency and quality control.
Looking Ahead to Future Updates
With these updates, teams can better tailor Atlassian tools to their unique needs, and more fully enjoy the efficiency and clarity that agile workflows have to offer. Later in the year, expect to see even more new features like custom domains, better data management, and expanded Atlassian Teams capabilities. Tool functionality is the foundation of ITSM strategy, and these new features allow IT teams to make work easier across the whole organization.
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