JIRA Portfolio Reviews

I am a software developer and we use this product for end-to-end SDLC. It begins with the requirements gathering, then continues with tracking features and planning our sprints. We also use it for tracking bugs.

The most valuable feature is that it fits very well into an agile framework, and it is especially helpful with the planning aspects. For example, if you create a new ticket, issue, or feature, then you classify it accordingly and you can assign it to an ongoing sprint.

You can look at the sprint backlog to see what features are planned, how many are in progress, and how many have been completed. This helps during reviews because you can get information about the velocity of the team. If somebody should leave the team for a while, or are otherwise unavailable for work, then the velocity calculations are readjusted.

Converting a task into an epic is very troublesome. As it is now, if you make the mistake of creating the wrong thing then you just have to delete it and start again. If you could convert between things such as features and tasks then it would be helpful.

I have been using the Jira Portfolio for about four years.

We use Jira on a daily basis and I cannot recall having any issues with stability.

It is easy to scale but of course, the problem is that it needs licenses. As the licenses fit into a plan, it can be kind of tricky. When you want to procure additional licenses, it is a long path.

For example, if you have licenses for 50 users and you see that you need a license for another 10, then you can't just purchase a small number. At a certain point, you have to move up to 500 users, which is quite a jump.

Currently, we have about 60 users.

I have not been in contact with their technical support team, although I do go through the community forums. I get details on new features that are going to be released and other such information, but I have not had to contact support for any specific issue.

The initial setup is pretty straightforward. Somebody who knows Agile well will have no difficulty with Jira. On the other hand, somebody new to Agile may face some problems in the beginning. 

We do not have any dedicated staff for maintenance. For the operation of it, we do have a facilitator and a scrum master who manages things for each project. However, maintenance is very straightforward. We don't need a full-time administrator working on it. A couple of people working part-time can take care of it.

Internally, people within a project may need some help when it comes to things like planning. In this case, they will get help from the scrum master.

We pay our fees annually, although monthly payments are also available.

From a developer's perspective, this tool works fine and I don't have any complaints other than wanting to convert between features, tasks, etc, when a mistake has been made in creating one.

The only advice that I have for people who are implementing Jira Portfolio is to make sure that they manage their licenses properly.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

Our primary use case is to establish agile teams and Release Mgmnt process. Jira was implemented, and also Portfolio but each team manages the app as they wanted. The tool is very open, which leads to a lot of error, confusion, and end problems. Then we set up a rule to manage it, based on best practices but if someone made an error therewas no way to avoid it. It is important to have a clear methodology from the company prior to start to use a tool like Jira.

It was very easy to load tasks, assign responsibility, due dates, etc. Also, it is easy to make follow-ups. The problem is that there is not a log to track how many times the same issue was created or how many times the issue changed the due date. This is a problem when you want to improve the way of work of your team. 

Additionally, with Jira Portfolio, we had the possibility to track all the projects in the old way with some gannets but you need to be very careful with the filters. One wrong filter and the data is totally invalid

The way to manage cards as a Kanban is really easy but when you need to track hundreds of projects, you need to be very clear in which way the things must be completed. The versioning for coding the developments for me should be more restrictive. It must be set up in an alphanumeric and unique code for new developments, new functionalities, correctives, and evolutions.

There should be two ways at least to distinguish what is a technical task that will be used for Release (meaning to be deployed into production environments).

Some "help" on each tab should be included in the tool, for those people who do not have previous experience with it like how to filter part of the portfolio or project, how to easily set the versioning based on Release management best practices, and in my opinion, nobody should delete a task inside the team. There should be a log to track all movements of cards, any change on dates, due dates, responsibilities, etc.

Another thing could be to have an easy way to manage the Portfolio and have more ways to share and to show graphics and reports

We have been using JIRA Portfolio for nine months. 

We use JIRA for project management.

We were able to implement the Kanban and Scrum methods using JIRA. That was a really good argument. We had been using the waterfall method, so this really helped us to get that out there to our general way of working.

The customized workflows we can define are very valuable. JIRA's private projects are very useful as well. There are also a lot of plugins that they provide.

I think their view needs to be more user-friendly. The UI makes it difficult to find things. Secondly, the configuration is very complex. JIRA should help people find out what configuration they are using.

There are many issues, but I would say the UI needs to be improved most. Also, some training documents need to be there with respect to their configuration. They don't have training documents easily available. You really need to figure it out by yourself. That is something they must improve.

We've been using this solution for six years.

It's quite stable. We have not had any problems.

It's scalable. We currently have 45 users, with six dev users and two people for maintenance. 

We will keep on using it. Whether we expand our use depends on our entire portfolio and the product growth that we are catering to our customers.

It's not that good. I would give it a rating of three out of five, on the basis of price. They need to add improvements because it is not as easy to reach out to these people as necessary. I would expect them to have a call center or something, but they don't have one. We have to write down our messages and send them to support. It is not easy to solve our issues.

It was definitely complex to set up. It was difficult right from the start, by applying the project setting configurations. Popping up the custom fields and relating it to the workflows was also difficult. Identifying a security policy on top of that and adding the group was really complex, too.

Deployment took almost one month's time to set it up and get started.

I would rate this solution as seven out of ten.

We primarily use the solution for issue management.

The integration is very good. We've more or less integrated with everything including reporting and registering. 

The configuration is excellent. The solution allows for the possibility to configure to your specifications. You can define projects separately, for example. If you want to configure anything, even to do a dashboard for a specific project, or user, or to define rights, etc., you can.

It's hard to say which one feature is the most important. There are many we find extremely useful.

The workflow needs improvement.

The product itself could be improved in many ways, but at the moment I don't have anything very specific to discuss.

It might be helpful to have a simple version of the solution built for a small number of users that would be fast and have a straightforward installation process.

I've been using the solution since 2012.

The solution is really stable.

The solution is big enough for what we need. We don't use it at a large scale but have anywhere from 100 to 1000 users. 

We've never had to call technical support.

The initial setup is normal. We didn't find it very complex. Deployment can take a day or two to complete. However, a large scale project might take about a month if you get into a lot of specific configurations.

We use the cloud deployment model.

I'd advise others to start with a good analysis of the solution before implementing it.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

Currently, we use the on-premises deployment model but we are moving to the cloud. Amazon is part of it but we are in the evaluation part. Our primary use case is for workflow and regression testing. 

The dashboard is the most valuable feature. The user experience is very good, it's easy to use.

The stakeholders have to decide to use JIRA and that's the problem. Not all the stakeholders are in touch with JIRA but we need their budget for the whole team to get the opportunity to use JIRA. It's not a problem with the tool, it's our organization. Some of the stakeholders have other opinions and they like to use other tools.

The initial setup could use improvement. 

Stability is very good. It's an easy to use and nice tool. We wanted to and we have bought licenses. For the bank, we have 250 users at the moment. We will increase it up to 500 users.

For maintenance, at the moment we just have a crew that takes part in the maintenance. It's only one or two people. 

We don't contact their technical support very often. Most of the things we do by ourselves, and we look for some videos on YouTube for such things. We are in a group and there we get some information about JIRA. For most things we need, we get our own information.

The initial setup was complex. We have Agile teams and we have classic teams and the waterfall development. We have to integrate both and we have to create a workflow that can be used for all of these aspects. Our governance in Germany for a bank is difficult. We have many things to keep in mind.

The deployment only takes two weeks but the difficulty is that we have many systems. Our old system is divided into 10 subsystems, so when we deploy we have to use other things. We must look for every single system. We'd like to integrate with JIRA but at the moment it's not in our book.

I would rate it a seven out of ten. I don't know everything about the solution and every feature. 

Our primary use case of this solution is for organizing our projects and as a tracking solution for our software projects.

Before JIRA, we used to organize our software with Bitbucket but now, with JIRA, it is more efficient to organize all the work in the timeline, make long-term plans for one or two months, know what our deadlines are, and write short summaries in the backlog. The developers can simplify tasks and each one of them can undertake a task and then they continue with development. Our processes are more efficient and easier for our manager and developers to track them. Their work is more organized. 

We use all of the features. The most valuable features are the reporting of the speed of the team's progress and the long-term organization of our projects in the timeline. 

I think that front-end development is a little bit buggy in some cases. Some of the features take a while to respond and some need to be more clear. Now we are using next-generation projects, so it's simpler to set the projects up than it was in the past. There is some work to be done there to have a clearer interface and workflow of how to organize a simple software project.

We have nine users using this solution. We do have plans to increase the usage. Gradually, all of the people on our team will use it and even more when a new developer or new employee comes to the company. We spend time getting familiar with JIRA then we organize the work to be done in the day in JIRA.

I only needed technical support once. We got a very specific and straightforward answer. From that experience they were good and very efficient.

We were previously using Atlassian Bitbucket. Bitbucket is only good for tracking down issues but it is not helpful to organize everything and see how fast you are proceeding. With JIRA, there are a lot more features actually managing a project.

The initial setup was straightforward. 

We have nine people using it so we have a standard cost of approximately $150 dollar per year. There are only additional costs if you exceed the limit of users, then you start paying by user. The cost is significantly higher.

I would definitely suggest going for it.

I would rate JIRA Portfolio an eight out of ten. To make it a perfect ten it should have a better user interface, be more clear, and more responsive.

We are in a very large company and I am an Agile Coach in our department.

All of the charts, including the Burndown chart, are very useful for us.

The graphics and the resolution of the work are very good.

The JIRA command line is also a very valuable feature.

We would like to have an option for a secure board that we can give to our clients that would allow them to see certain aspects during development, but not so much that they can steal all of our information. A dashboard specifically for customers would improve this solution.

Sometimes I have a customer-solution in addition to the more general solution. I would like to be able to differentiate these using perhaps a different color.

If I get a feature but there is not a user story, and I want to know which epic it belongs to, it is really hard to figure out.

It is hard to work from the bottom up. If you tap on your epic you can see its features, and if you open its features you can see user stores. If you go on, if you are going from top to bottom, it works well. However, if you want to go from the bottom up, it is very hard to do.

The stability of this solution is good enough.

The scalability is ok and we have had no problem with it.

We have used JIRA in this company for many years but we just recently started in this department. In this department, we used to use another solution.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

My primary use case for Jira Portfolio is mainly resourcing capacity managements.

It allows me to do the capacity management and it allows me to qualify my ethics, and that's what the capabilities I was searching for in a solution like Jira Portfolio.

When I want to embed Jira Portfolio in a complete HLI cycle, I'm missing things to evaluate my ethic into my value stream.

In a PC environment, it is quite stable.

For the scalability, in my opinion, with Jira Portfolio you don't need to scale that much because it's only used by management itself.

I did not have an experience with technical support of this solution.

I was not involved with the initial setup of the product.

When evaluating a product like this, make sure to consider:

• Capabilities
• Goals
• Drives

This solution has a comparable pricing in comparison to other similar products on the market. 

We considered ALM Octane. The price of Jira and ALM Octane is comparable. We also looked at Micro Focus and CA PPM.