Setting up a SMB help desk and purchase approval process for a Jira Work environment

[Rob]

I'm the IT manager for a small SAAS business (>75 employees). We have been using Jira Work Management and Confluence for a couple of years, and Slack for IT support.

I've just become aware of Jira Service Management, and I'd like to use it for our internal ticketing system. Ideally, I'd like to be able to show an audit trail and also communicate with other key people whenever a purchase request is made, or a ticket for help is submitted.

Jira Work Management was where I was going to build this, but since Jira Service Management is free for up to three agents (and I like the portal and templates), I figured I'd see if that would speed up the process.

I've been poring over the documentation but can't quite seem to find the proper way to set this up.

• I only want our internal Jira Work Management users to be able to use this.
• No external customer will be using this system (at this time, but perhaps in the future).
• Technical support issues seem easy enough to manage on a 1:1 basis. But I also want to allow conversations between multiple people (the employee and his/her supervisor, especially).

For example, an employee will submit an Application ticket. "We have a contractor who needs Adobe Creative Cloud." Well, I'd like to be able to tag their supervisor and confirm it, and create an audit trail of all the conversation that took place before we made a final decision to confirm it.

I can't figure out how to do that without adding these other people as agents. They're already Jira Work Management users, I just want them to be able to comment publicly so that we can all have a conversation about it.

Is this possible with Jira Service Management or am I way out in left field?

[Mikael Sandberg · Accepted solution]

Hi @Rob,

Welcome to Atlassian Community!

You can do this by adding the manager as a request participant, that way they will have access to the request via the portal and get the same updates as the requestor. You can find more information about request participants here. 

[Jack Brickey]

Yes everyone that needs to open/interact on issues are Customers. They have access via portal and email. 

[Rob]

So they won't have access via Jira Work Management, only the portal and email?

[Mikael Sandberg]

They would still have access to Jira Work Management, but can only interact with your JSM project via email or the portal.

[Jack Brickey]

If they have a JWM license then they will have access to any JSM project where you provide permission. They will not have application level access to JSM unless you give them browse access to the JSM projects. 

[Rob]

Ooh, @jack I think that's what I was looking for! So I can add people to the JSM project, but they won't be an agent?

Since we're training everyone on JWM pretty heavily, I'd rather everyone use the tool at the JWM level and stay out of email or the portal as much as possible. I don't want to teach them a new portal if I can avoid it.

[Jack Brickey]

Not exactly. Your employees can be both customers of your JSM projects and also licensed users of your JWM projects. However, they won't be able to create issues using the create button in the application for the JSM projects. They will have to do that from either the portal or from an email if they are Customers of the JSM project.

[Rob]

OK. All in all, I believe that since we are so invested in the Jira Work Management workflow, and that our best practice for handing off any work between members in our company is using Jira Work Management, I think my best bet is going to be utilizing a JWM project instead of the JSM software.

If JSM offered the ability for JWM users to interact with it like any other JWM project, I'd keep using it. That's just too much complexity at the moment for where my workforce is.

I do love the templates, but for an internal system, I think JWM will better suit my needs. Thank you all for your responses!