Jira Align Reviews

I have experience with these products. I have experience with Jira and ADO. You can ask me a few questions about my experience. I use it as an Application Lifecycle Management suite, but we are just using it for Agile software development.

I know Jira as Jira; I have used the cloud and I have used on-premise. It is an issue tracker.

My experience has been positive, as it is an okay tool, but I like Azure DevOps better.

I assess the dependency management feature as okay, but again, Azure DevOps is better; it is more customizable.

I find the scenario planning features are okay, but if you have a good Scrum Master or Agile coach, you can get a lot better insights just by looking at the data. We export most of what is in Jira to Power BI so we can run better reports.

I think it is probably better in almost all aspects over Jira; the dashboards are better, the filters or the queries are better, and it is more aligned to Scaled Agile.

To sum it up, the main room for improvement for Jira should be better queries and better dashboards; the queries cannot handle child-parent relationships very well. To do that, I need to extract into Excel and do VLOOKUPs, whereas Azure DevOps handles tree or nested queries a great deal better.

I think the customizable reporting in Jira is inadequate as well compared to Azure DevOps.

I have probably been dealing with it for about ten years.

When it comes to pricing, the last time we did pricing options, they were pretty comparable; it all depends on what sort of Microsoft licensing agreements the company has as to whether one is going to be better than the other.

I have not used Planview in a long time; when I used it, it did not really have the visualization or the features that it does now, as Mik Kersten created some really good flow metrics around that with his product.

I am more like a consultant.

If I had to recommend for companies, if there was an option on the table for both products, I would not; I would recommend Azure DevOps.

Some companies still choose Jira if they have Confluence or if they already have licensing and other considerations like that; sometimes it is hard to make a switch to Azure DevOps.

I have not been a partner or reseller of Jira; I have just been a consultant and a contractor.

I have not been a partner with Microsoft.

I left 2degrees a long time ago; I am now with Foodstuffs New Zealand.

I am using it right now to manage the project implementation with my internal teams.

Jira Align has become a standard in this industry, so everybody knows how to use it. Everybody knows Jira Align, so it is not hard to adapt to projects and customers. That is the aspect I appreciate the most.

It is very scalable, and I appreciate that.

Because it is a standard, as I mentioned, though not an official one, Jira Align is adapting to the latest approaches such as Scrum and Kanban. It is really easy to set up a project and start working with the team. Everybody knows Scrum, everybody knows Kanban, or a combination of both. That is the benefit I see, and the UI is very intuitive.

The way that you set it up presents challenges. The problem that Jira Align has is when you get it out of the box, all the configuration that you have to do is just a lot of work. A lot of work to get it to a point that makes sense to you.

The configuration is not easy. It requires a lot of customization from the admin perspective, and it is very time and effort consuming.

It is an easy tool to use but not an easy tool to set up.

The only challenge I have faced has been licensing because I depend on budget approvals. Besides that, it was very easy to scale, to add new projects, and to add new people. I have not had any issues on that end.

On Cloud, in all this time, Jira Align has failed only a handful of times. It is very stable. I have not been in a situation where I cannot use Jira Align for a long time, so I am very comfortable with that.

Jira Align is very scalable, and I appreciate that.

I have used the support team a couple of times in the past, and they were mainly for answering questions about the product. They were very helpful. They have a support knowledge base area on their website, and usually, they are very good at answering questions. I have had no issues so far. They are great.

Positive

My advice would be before getting a license from Jira Align or even starting to use it, they have to document their current processes, understand what is working and what is not working, and try to fix it before thinking about Jira Align. Use Jira Align when you have a pretty good idea of what you are trying to get out of it. This will save a lot of time, effort, and money.

On a scale of one to ten, I would give Jira Align a rating of eight.

Jira Align is primarily used in our environment to align our teams at scale and to connect strategy to execution, while ensuring teams are working towards achieving the same goals. It helps to determine the scope, roadmaps and dependencies easier and thus  accelerate enterprise agility and better business outcomes.

Jira Align has helped to improve provide more more optimized and predictable delivery with fully aligned organizations across every level of scale. It bridges the gap between business and technical delivery. Leading across the organization and innovation with agility.

AI is utilized worldwide; they could implement the functionality for notifications and other organizational operations in the product. It would be beneficial in planning, issues tracking, and setting reminders.

Our organization has around 200 Jira Align users working in different departments.

The technical support services are excellent.

Positive

The initial setup was a bit complex. However with the use of documentation we were able to successfully implement. I rate the process a 7/10.

Jira Align was reasonably priced then, especially for a bundle license that accommodated around 50 monthly users.

Jira Align supports program increment planning by facilitating the planning aspect, including team setup, dependency management, and defining the layout for each step or stage in a project. The platform aids in breaking down targets into parts, aligning with Agile principles, and ensuring a structured layout.

The most impactful feature of Jira Align for project management lies in its capabilities related to planning and setting up projects.

The platform visually understands targets, offering a clear and detailed layout. We can determine when to speed up the process or access the project. We can address the issues related to planning and development efficiently.

It is a great product to use, aiding in project planning and alignment. I recommend it to others and rate it a ten out of ten.

We use Jira Align primarily for IT service management (ITSM), including incident, change, and problem management processes.

One of the key benefits of Jira Align for our organization is its ability to help us maintain compliance with various regulations related to incident and change management.

The biggest advantage of Jira Align, in my opinion, is its user-friendly interface, making it simple and easy for end users to navigate and utilize. The most valuable feature of Jira Align for me is its automation capabilities, allowing us to create automation rules based on logical conditions for our projects.

In terms of cross-team collaboration, Jira Align's integration with our project squads has been highly effective. It enables seamless creation of stories linked to incidents and changes, facilitating better visibility and understanding of the relationships between them. Regarding road mapping and dependency tracking, Jira Align enhances our project planning by aligning with our best practices and providing robust capabilities for mapping out dependencies and tracking progress.

One area where Jira Align could improve is in its licensing model. There was a significant change in the licensing module about six months ago, which resulted in increased costs for customers like us. This change wasn't communicated clearly, and it made it challenging for companies to adopt Jira Align without facing higher expenses. In terms of features, I would like to see improved workflows in the next release, as that would greatly benefit our organization.

I have been using Jira Align for the last five years.

The stability of Jira Align is quite good, rated at around a nine on a scale of ten, with minimal issues occurring every six months.

I would rate Jira Align's scalability as satisfactory. While we are currently content with the capacity of the Jira products overall, we do not have immediate plans to increase our usage due to a freeze on projects during a merger and acquisition process. Approximately a hundred to a hundred and fifty users in our company, mostly from IT and some from business operations, utilize Jira Align. 

In terms of customer support, I would rate it around an eight. Although generally stable with rare issues, there have been occasional challenges with documentation, especially for certain modules like Apache.

As for the deployment process, it was relatively easy for us, and we had the assistance of a third-party service provider who guided us through the steps of setting up and deploying Jira Align.

The maintenance and technical support are handled by the service provider, Three Layer.

Despite this, the return on investment is rated at around an eight, considering the positive outcomes but also acknowledging the pricing imbalance.

The pricing and licensing costs are rated lower, around six mainly due to significant increases in licensing costs that were not well-received by users.

I would rate Jira Align as a solid product with room for improvement, especially in terms of licensing and pricing models. The rating is an eight out of ten. 

We have a group of several teams, each working within agile teams. These teams are organized into various solution levels, and we also have portfolio-level views that we manage. The product has facilitated alignment between our business strategy and all teams by enabling strategic planning and backlog creation at a high level. We've implemented lean portfolio management, which involves lean budgeting and brainstorming on various epics. These epics are then assigned to the respective value streams. 

Jira is one of the most widely used tools in the market, and it has a vast amount of data already stored in it. Jira Align is crucial in orchestrating this data and providing valuable views and insights. However, it's essential for tools like Jira Align to offer configurable features. While complete customization might not always be feasible for enterprise-level tools, configurable features allow organizations to drive transformation accordingly. 

The feature I've found most valuable for improving my team's productivity is the Gantt chart view. It helps organize our backlog and track our progress toward achieving our goals. Additionally, the ability to connect dependencies within the tool has been very beneficial for us.

Jira Align offers a one-stop solution for managing projects and platforms. However, its biggest competitor could arguably be considered an Excel sheet.

I've encountered limitations in using Jira Align for certain aspects, particularly in implementing OKRs. Jira Align's highest hierarchy is Epic, which may not always align perfectly for specific initiatives. Additionally, while Jira Align offers functionality for tracking OKRs and generating dashboards, I've found that it lacks in some areas. As a result, we've explored alternative solutions that better meet our needs in these areas. Its Kanban feature is also limited. 

I have been using the product for two years. 

The tool has been stable since we moved to the cloud. 

Jira Align is highly scalable. The number of licenses purchased primarily determines its scalability. As you buy more licenses, the scalability of the tool increases accordingly. 

The number of users using the product varies depending on the organization. For example, at one client, there are approximately 250 users, while at another organization, there are around 550 users.  I haven't had the opportunity to work with organizations with thousands of users.

The tool's setup depends on the user's familiarity with the tool. It may seem intuitive for individuals with extensive experience using Jira, like myself, after sixteen years of usage. However, Jira can appear daunting for newcomers, akin to navigating an ocean. Deploying Jira effectively requires expertise and support, ideally from external consultants who can guide the implementation process. 

While external consultants can provide expertise, having knowledgeable individuals within the company who can guide its use is also beneficial. Companies often rely on employees with experience to make changes and manage Jira Align. Many companies have complex workflows that may not be optimized, leading to challenges in effectively utilizing Jira Align's capabilities. I name this scenario growth pain. 

Our customers buy licenses. We are not involved in its purchase. 

The reporting analytics feature in Jira Align provides valuable insights into our job processes. However, it's important to note that while analytics can offer perspectives based on the data we input into Jira Align, it's just one aspect of how organizations evaluate success.

Organizations also require insights into revenue realization, overall throughput, customer satisfaction (NPS), and other metrics that may not be directly captured in Jira Align. Therefore, while Jira Align's analytics tools work well within their scope, a broader perspective necessitates integration with business intelligence tools to gather insights comprehensively across the organization.

I rate the overall product a seven out of ten. I would recommend Jira Align to others, and I have some advice for those who want to start using it. My advice is directed more towards Atlassian. They should focus on being more empathetic and creating awareness about Jira Align. It would benefit them to allow people to use Jira Align for longer to experience its full potential. Understanding the diverse perspectives of different user groups, such as business, product, engineering, and infrastructure teams, is crucial. Atlassian should consider a wider range of personas and conduct deeper inquiries to address the various needs effectively. This approach would help establish Jira Align as a trusted partner for users. If I were to rate Jira Align as a trusted partner on a scale of one to five, I would give it above three. 

I mainly use Jira Align to manage my software development tasks for Apache. It helps me create user stories, organize tasks, and set up test plans and cases, making the whole process more organized and efficient.

The most valuable features in Jira Align are the dashboard for tracking my team's work progress, which helps me monitor story movement, and the reporting feature to track time estimates versus actual work done. This reporting is crucial for sharing project progress with senior management. I also find the integration with various testing tools essential for ensuring proper test case management and traceability.

One area where Jira Align could be improved is mobile accessibility. Right now, it is mostly for laptops, but it would be more user-friendly if it had a mobile-friendly interface. This way, senior management and others could easily check progress on their mobile devices when they are not using a computer.

I have been using Jira Align for almost five years.

I would rate the stability of the solution as a nine out of ten.

Jira Align is highly scalable. I would give it a ten out of ten for scalability. In my company, we have about 600 users of Jira Align, and we plan to expand its usage in the future. These users include engineers, team leaders, and architects. The majority, around 60%, are engineers, while the remaining 40% are in leadership or higher-level roles.

I would rate the technical support as an eight out of ten.

Positive

I would rate the easiness of the initial setup as a seven out of ten.

The pricing for Jira Align is quite high, especially when compared to Azure DevOps. While Jira Align has more features, the cost is a major concern for my organization. As a result, we are thinking of switching to Azure DevOps because of the cost, even though it offers fewer features. I would give it an eight out of ten in terms of costliness.

My advice to those considering using Jira Align is that it is a valuable tool for project management, especially for handling large-scale projects. It offers scalability and is relatively easy to manage and customize to your specific needs. It is a good choice for project management and agile practices. Overall, I would rate Jira Align as an eight out of ten.

The solution was useful in monitoring and observing the status of different environments.

We have a dedicated team to monitor the solution and keep everyone updated about the status of our environments, tools, and applications. The tool enabled everyone to see the status of each environment. Based on the availability, they could decide whether to use the environment at a particular time or set up some test sessions for a day and block the environment for themselves or the team for testing or maintenance. The board meetings took much less time to figure out where we would be at a point when we needed to do some activities. Everyone was aware of the status. We could be better prepared for the meeting.

It takes a lot of time to maintain the product. There were a lot of changes in our environments during the day. Using the tool might have been more convenient and productive if we did not have hundreds of different environments. The tool must provide better bulk editing features. It must provide more flexibility to make a wide range of changes to many things at once.

I used the solution for a few months.

The product was pretty stable. I rate the stability a seven or eight out of ten. The solution is not the perfect tool for a complex environment.

The tool’s scalability was good. We have around 250 to 300 users in our organization. The technical team had three members.

The setup was straightforward.

The solution increases the productivity and awareness of the team members. It also saves the management’s time.

The tool is good if we do not have many applications or environments to monitor and handle. It can be really useful when we have to make a roadmap with the management team. Sometimes, it can be too much to maintain and handle if we have too many environments. We will always keep forgetting something. To keep everyone using the product and updating it was challenging. Half of our team used it and performed all the necessary actions. Overall, I rate the product an eight out of ten.

I use the solution for task reporting. 

In our workflow, we utilize a dashboard. Our product development backbone relies on two-week sprints. At the beginning of each sprint, we conduct a planning meeting to discuss and challenge the backlogs. Throughout the sprint, we conduct daily sessions to review code, ensure alignment with coding standards, and address any issues. Once all tasks are completed, we proceed with the deployment process.

We conduct daily requirement meetings to facilitate communication.

The product should improve its communication. My English proficiency is not high, but writing in English is another skill that you need. Maybe AI can help here. Because I can see in some other applications, they have AI helpers. So when you write something and you want to do something, it can help. For example, Google Cloud Platform has it. They have a helpdesk for it. When you want to create a cluster, it can help you. 

I have been using the product for more than five years. 

Jira Align is stable. 

The tool's scalability is fine. My company has more than 10,000 users. 

The tool's deployment is complex. While the user interface is fine, when you want to report and obtain information about the previous experiences of a task, you need to search extensively. The search functionality is not effective, especially for accessing historical data on tasks and sub-tasks from, for example, one month or three months prior. It's not perfect for searching.

Our in-house integrators did the deployment. 

Regarding the team, we might benefit from implementing codes for psychology and communication. The presence of people from various countries can lead to challenges in communication. Therefore, it would be valuable to bring in professionals to assist in establishing communication practices. 

We have a team that helps us to plan and fix the product. We have our project reports every month. We email them to our managers and CEO. 

Jira Align stands out as the best product I've ever encountered in my professional life, especially in production and development. It captures the activities of the development team.  Personally, I find the timesheet feature within Jira highly effective.

I use Jira as a tool to keep everything in check for our projects. It helps me track and fix any issues that pop up during development, whether it is sorting out problems with the product or organizing tasks for the team. I also use it to store and manage user stories.

What I like about Jira is that I can easily keep tabs on the status of different issues and what the team is working on. It helps me see if there are any bugs or tasks that need attention before we move on to the next steps. Additionally, it is great for team collaboration. We can pass things back and forth smoothly, from the technical team to testing and the project manager. This way, everyone stays in the loop, and we get a clear view of how things are progressing in the project. It has become a really valuable tool for us.

For future releases of Jira Align, I would suggest making workflows simpler and more user-friendly. It would be helpful to have improved tools for visualizing workloads and an easier way for users to collaborate with administrators to streamline complex workflows. Simplifying communication and customization, especially for managing bulk storage and intricate projects, would enhance the overall user experience.

I have been using Jira Align for five years.

I would rate the stability of Jira Align as a nine out of ten. It is quite stable.

I would rate the scalability of the solution as an eight out of ten. We have approximately 150 users at our company. If the company expands in the future, we will likely use Jira more for upcoming projects.

For those looking to use Jira Align, my advice is to explore its intuitive user interface and ease of use. If any issues arise, don't hesitate to reach out to the admin team for solutions to enhance workflow and performance. Open communication within the company can lead to a more responsive and effective use of Jira Align for project management. Overall, I would rate it as an eight out of ten.

Mainly, we use the solution to maintain our backlogs, scrum processes, and project management. So, we create the entire structure. It is a brief project management tool. Regarding backlog management, the solution includes features apart from using the product for the product backlog, sprint planning, experiments, and defect management.

Jira Align is an intuitive tool that features a roadmap view. This allows users to see the entire program they have set up, following sprint planning. The portfolio summary view provides a user-friendly interface for operational users such as the scrum team, the scrum master, and the product team. In addition, it provides a management dashboard for leadership to monitor progress. The tool enables viewing the entire roadmap for an epic, and users can drill down to the lowest level, the product backlog item.

My company is in the process of moving out from Jira Align. We are planning to transition to another tool called Planisware. Though there are no issues with Jira Align, Planisware offers its users a complete package in terms of portfolio management. Jira Align fails to provide its users with a complete package in terms of portfolio management. In short, Planisware offers many different facilities making it a more comprehensive tool. In a company, we can use Planisware for resource management, especially at a portfolio level. Though it is expensive in terms of licensing, our company has decided to move to Planisware.

I have been using Jira Align for five years. I don't remember the version I am using currently.

We have around 500 users using this solution in our organization. In our company, we are using the solution extensively. Also, we do not plan to increase the number of users since only specific people in our organization use the solution.

In our company, we have a different team who deals with Jira's technical support team.

Previously, we used Azure DevOps in our company. Azure DevOps was earlier known as VSTS. Also, we still use this tool in our organization. So, we use Azure DevOps for all our product backlog items and overall product backlog management at a lower level. We use Jira Align to manage epics and features.

The initial setup was straightforward.

Its setup process is not complex since it's an intuitive tool.

I don't remember how long it took to deploy the solution in our organization since we started using it around four years ago. We did not face any issues during its deployment phase. Regarding the deployment model, I would say that we are using the solution on the cloud. Also, I won't be able to explain the steps involved in the deployment process since a different team did it a long time ago. We have a team of around three or four three members to manage the deployment and maintenance process.

There are two types of maintenance processes. In pure maintenance, if you have an issue with the tool, then you raise a ticket, after which you work with Jira's support team to resolve the issue. And the second type of support that you require is from people who understand the technicalities of the tool and know where to set up certain things in the tools that can get the tool to provide privileges, user access management, and identity management. In our company, we have various pillars. So, each pillar will have a small team of one or two people. There will be a team of those providing support to the people in a particular team on how to use the tool, especially if there is any required setup or administration-related activities. Since it is not our tool and we weren't involved in the coding process of the solution, we need to reach out to Jira if we come across any defects or need to make any customizations in the tool. So, we formed a small team of two or three members to look into such issues and needs.

Jira Align is definitely worth the money.

Even though my company has an enterprise license for Jira Align, I am unaware of the solution's pricing.

I recommend the solution to those planning to go for agile project management since it has all the features. We use Azure DevOps and Jira Align in our company. A lot of maintenance happens if you have multiple tools. So, sticking to one tool is better. So if one has Jira Align, one should develop everything in Jira. However, Jira Align doesn't have code management in it. One should choose only one solution between Jira Align and Azure DevOps as an agile project management tool. Sticking to either one of the tools for a specific or particular project is better. There have been instances when a certain tool does not support a waterfall project model. In our case, we get involved in many deployment activities using different tools. Taking one tool into consideration, it might have limitations. Hence, a person needs to understand the nature of the project before selecting the tool and using the same one for the entire project. In short, it is better not to use Jira for everything since it is meant to be used only for those things for which it was developed. Using multiple tools might create syncing issues or integration issues for its user.

If you use Jira Align for agile project management, you will undoubtedly have a better user experience and more capabilities. On the other hand, if you choose to use Azure DevOps for the same purpose, you may have to make some compromises since it cannot manage agile projects as effectively. However, Jira Align is the recommended solution if you have a larger project with several integrated components and require portfolio summary or roadmap features. Azure DevOps can be a good choice for smaller projects that do not require much visibility. For instance, if there are several MVPs like, let's say, there is a road map of three years for a product. In such a case, Jira works out better from a project management perspective. If you have a support project where you mainly use Kanban or require an operational perspective without the need for extensive visibility for senior management, Azure DevOps is a suitable tool. This is especially true if there are more operational users on the tool than management users. The choice between Azure DevOps and Jira Align will depend on the type of work being done, project size and complexity, number of people involved, levels of management using the tool, and cost considerations. Since enterprise licenses are typically negotiated, Microsoft may offer better pricing due to its existing Microsoft 365 OS license. It is important to make an informed decision by considering the project requirements and ease of tool management.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.