Jira Extends Service Desk Capabilities to Include HR

Jira Service Desk, a tool beloved by IT departments around the world, is adding templates and workflows designed to meet the needs of HR and other business functions.

In a blog post, Jira’s developer, Atlassian, said it expanded the product’s capabilities after a number of existing customers began using it to address issues outside of IT. “With the rise of digital work,” Atlassian said, it realized that “business teams were having the same service management challenges as their IT peers.”

For example, AppDynamics, a provider of performance monitoring software, onboarded some 700 employees using Jira Service Desk, Atlassian said. Other customers that have used Jira for HR service desk work include Airbnb and Twitter.

In response, Atlassian announced templates and workflows that are purpose-built for HR, legal and facilities departments. The HR templates will manage tasks related to onboarding and other areas that could be improved with a digital workflow, the company said.

In its pitch, Atlassian emphasizes ease of use. Jira’s templates simplify the process of creating onboarding templates and workflows, it said. Practitioners can use the templates out of the box, and are designed to be easily customized as necessary.  

Jira also allows employees to access FAQs or create requests for some services. Also, the product’s Automation feature automates the work of syncing employee data between Jira and HCM platforms.

Jira’s Biggest Advantage

For organizations assembling HCM solutions from multiple vendors, Jira’s popularity among IT managers gives it a notable competitive advantage. According to Datanyze, Jira holds nearly 32 percent of the market for issue-tracking products, compared to 18 percent for Microsoft Project and 4.5 percent for Trello (also owned by Atlassian). That means that when business functions face issues Jira could address, IT can implement a solution with a tool that’s familiar and has proven itself to them.  

Atlassian uses the term “enterprise service management” (ESM) to put its extension of Jira in context. The company’s positioning itself as a solution for almost any department that needs service desk functionality by highlighting its simple set up and maintenance steps, which can be completed “with minimal IT involvement.”

The company also said it will continue to add functionality to Jira, though how that will impact its approach to HR isn’t clear.  

Sign up for our newsletter here.

Image: Atlassian