Enhancing Project Management in JSM Customer Portal for Complex Client Projects

[Alexey]

Hello Atlassian Community,

I'm seeking advice on improving the project management experience for our B2B clients using Jira Service Management (JSM). Our company uses JSM to serve B2B clients by setting up dedicated projects and organisations for each. It essentially works as an ITSM setup where clients create new feature requests, report bugs, and similar tasks. Our agents manage these requests, escalating them to our internal Jira when needed and then reporting back for UAT when the development team completes the work.

However, we're facing challenges when dealing with complex client projects that involve multiple phases and numerous tasks. While our internal Jira might have over 100 tasks for a single project, the client's ticket in JSM remains 'in progress' for several months. The issue becomes more complicated when the client starts adding change requests mid-project, requiring prioritisation. The JSM portal offers only a basic list of tasks without the ability to group or filter them, making it difficult to provide a clear overview of the project's progress.

Currently, we end up creating an Excel sheet to track and manage these tasks, which agents then share during weekly meetings with the client to negotiate priorities, discuss changes, and report progress. This process is inefficient and creates unnecessary work for our team.

I believe there should be a better way to make the Customer Portal more useful for our clients. My ideal solution would:

1. Eliminate the need for manually updating Excel sheets.
2. Provide clients with 24/7 access to project data in a clear, organised manner. (like Kanban or roadmap)
3. Remove the necessity of screen sharing during calls, allowing agents to make updates while the client views them in the JSM portal.

We also have a Confluence space, and I’ve tested some gadgets like Great Gadget for Confluence and Routermap. However, these don’t seem to work when rendered via the Customer Portal for JSM users. Granting access to Jira Software directly isn’t an option for us. Someone suggested using Trello to mirror some tasks from Jira and auto-sync them, but I’m aiming to keep everything within the JSM Customer Portal as a single point of contact.

Has anyone encountered similar issues, and how did you resolve them? Are there any solutions or add-ons that can transform the JSM Customer Portal into a more powerful project management tool for complex client projects?

Your insights and suggestions would be greatly appreciated!