With the start of Q4 comes preparations and planning as companies across industries contemplate new business goals for the year ahead. Part of that process requires taking stock of what tools you have at your disposal to meet new challenges and opportunities.
For teams that use Atlassian, there will be several new tools at your disposal as Atlassian rolls out nearly four dozen updates over the next few months. These features harness cutting-edge artificial intelligence, supercharge migration capabilities ahead of the server product sunset in February 2024, and offer new settings with regard to visibility and approvals.
AI-fueled tech adds new capabilities
A recent report from McKinsey Research called 2023 generative AI's breakout year, and the Atlassian toolstack is no exception. Across Confluence, Jira Software, and Jira Service Management (JSM), some teams have gained early access to the Atlassian Intelligence AI features.
Atlassian Intelligence already serves as a virtual teammate in JSM. Offering suggested responses to service agents helps to speed both their workflows and service response times. Atlassian Intelligence can also synthesize product information. For instance, a user can highlight a project name and ask the AI to explain it, and it will return a brief explanation accompanied by relevant projects and issues in Jira as well as relevant documents from Confluence.
In Q4, Natural language search in Jira will make Jira’s search function even easier and faster to use. Atlassian Intelligence, fueled by natural language processing, will interpret natural-language requests, implement the restrictions and criteria the user is looking for, and return the results they need. Instead of crafting a search in Jira Query Language and needing to double-check formatting, users will be able to type in a request as they would to a search engine.
Atlassian will also be rolling out early access to a new AI-assisted code review tool in Bitbucket.
This in-app tool will help developers better review their peers’ code when they ask for a second look during a pull request review. The new tool will flag areas for improvement and provide interpretation of code, helping developers give more comprehensive feedback (and saving everyone’s time).
Migration features help teams seamlessly move everything they need
Ahead of the server sunset date on February 15, 2024, many Atlassian organizations have been in the process of transitioning to cloud. Rather than a one-and-done switch, cloud migration requires the careful, thoughtful movement of tool and user data, as well as consideration of what configurations should transfer to the new environment.
New features coming in Q4 will help users transfer over details that previously had to be manually set up again in the new environment. In Jira, a migration path for team calendars and support for migration of cross-project boards and filters will allow teams to port over more of their existing Jira configuration and data. Moving these new kinds of data will allow teams who have already migrated and teams who are still in the process to hit the ground running on their new instance. New features will also help users make smarter choices about migration. In Confluence, improvements to the migration space selector will help users more easily choose which spaces to migrate, making for more efficient migration planning and configuration.
New accessibility settings in Jira and Confluence
With Atlassian’s cloud-first strategy, users will have more options to increase—and limit—accessibility and visibility to different tools and workstreams. This allows for more effective collaboration, as well as more opportunities for self-service.
- In Confluence, administrators will be able to make knowledge base articles publicly accessible using public links. Public-facing knowledge base articles could be used for customer support and self-service, or simply easier reference by employees.
- For Jira cloud users, custom domains will become available, enabling easier employee access to the Jira site, as well as easier customer access to JSM-fueled support portals.
- And in Jira Work Management, approvals in workflows will allow users to add approvers who need to approve a project before it progresses any further. This option helps to avoid downstream errors.
No matter your plans for 2024, Atlassian’s new offerings power speed and efficiency across workstreams. With new functionality from code reviews to workflows, teams can look forward to a more productive year ahead.
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