There’s a few neat things about using JIRA for support. We’re eating our own dogfood, as the saying goes, by using our own software day-to-day. Email notification of events is the main way we keep track of what’s happening, and JIRA is great for that. But what I like most is the configurable dashboard, which can do some really neat stuff when combined with a few private filters.
Using JIRA for support thumbnail
Click to see full image.
The top two lists of issues are based on two filters:
* Ready for work is a list of issues which have a status of Open or Waiting for Atlassian, with the oldest first. This is where I can kick off working on the oldest outstanding support tasks.
* Ready to close is a list of issues which have a status of Resolved, Frozen or Pending Closure, with the oldest first. The oldest issues in this list can usually be quickly checked and closed.
The bottom two portlets are both based on the same filter: the list of issues involving me.
* The Involving me list has the most recently updated at the top. This is useful as a ‘history’ list, where I can see what has been updated recently on issues I’ve been involved with. Typically, the last change will be me or the customer, so I quickly see this go back to any issue I’ve worked on recently.
* The Involving me statistics give a summary of the status of issues that I’ve touched. Clicking on a the status brings me directly to a list of those which are Waiting for Atlassian, and I can check on issues that I’ve marked Frozen every couple of weeks.
Not a bad configuration, and it didn’t take too long to set up. Thanks to the JIRA team for making my support work much easier!