Jira’s fresh look and navigation

[#1]

Many of you have been asking when you can adopt Atlassian’s new navigation—now you can! We’re thrilled to announce its General Availability (GA) for Jira, Jira Service Management, Jira Product Discovery, Confluence, and Atlassian Home. In this article, you’ll find key details about what’s changing and when those changes will occur.

Read about how we built the new navigation.

What’s changing in Jira products?

Here’s what’s changing for Jira, Jira Service Management, and Jira Product Discovery:

All Jira products
Work across multiple projects more efficiently	Switch between your Jira projects easily, and select a starred or recent project from the sidebar navigation on the left.
Jira has a fresh new look and feel	We’re in the process of refreshing the Jira product family to bring you a cleaner, more modern feel to your workspace. Enjoy a polished experience that enhances productivity allowing you to focus on what matters most.
Customize your sidebar	Show, reorder, or hide navigation items in the sidebar to keep the focus on what’s important to you. Customize your sidebar Drag the line to customize Drag the item to show, reorder, or hide. Note: Any changes that you make to your sidebar are visible to you only
Software and business projects in Jira
Horizontal project navigation	The project navigation allows you to seamlessly navigate through software and business projects. Easily switch between various views and features relevant to the project you're viewing.
Customize your project navigation	As a project admin, you have control over your project navigation by reordering and removing project tabs for your team. Customize your project tabs to suit your team’s needs so your users can seamlessly switch between views with less clutter.
Create a board more easily for your company-managed software project	You'll still be able to create a board for your company-managed software projects directly from the sidebar navigation. Boards can also be starred, allowing you to easily navigate to the areas where you most often work.
Set colorful backgrounds in projects and boards	We’re bringing a splash of color to software projects. Project admins can customize their teams' projects and boards with colored backgrounds. Select More actions () next to your project or board name in the sidebar or header, and select Set project background.
Jira Service Management
View your queues without losing sight of your navigation	You’ll be able to view your queues in the sidebar with the rest of your navigation items. Expand and collapse them as you need, and if you prefer to work with the sidebar collapsed, just pop your queues into your main work area.
Switch between related content with tabs	We’re consolidating some pages and introducing tabs. You’ll be able to switch between: Articles, Drafts, and Categories in Knowledge base Change calendar, Services, Alerts, and On-call in Operations Customers, Organizations, and Products in Directory
Access Operations from your sidebar	Respond to alerts and view other IT operations features without leaving the main navigation.

What to expect?

With strong adoption and positive feedback for the EAP and Beta phases, we’re accelerating our rollout strategy to efficiently bring the new navigation to all customers. Starting March 17, 2025, we’ll begin a phased rollout over the next few months for Standard, Premium, and Enterprise plan.

See the table below to know when you can expect the new navigation for your sites.

Note:

• The rollout will begin at the indicated date, but it may take up to 3-7 days to reach all sites.
• Rollout timing is based on PST, typically at 5.45 p.m.
• The timelines are subject to change, and we’ll provide more details as the dates approach. Keep an eye on this page and check the public roadmap for the latest updates and more information on the new navigation.

Cohort	Timeline	Details
EAP and Beta participants	Ongoing	If you enrolled your site for new navigation during the EAP/Beta phase, the rollout process doesn’t impact you as we’ll not be disabling it for you and your users. You and users can continue the new navigation. We’ll remove the option to turn off the new navigation and enable the new navigation for all users on the site by mid-April 2025.
5% of sites on the Standard plan	March 17, 2025	We’ll start the new navigation rollout for 5% of sites on the Standard plan. The sites are chosen randomly and your admins are notified about the changes to the products.
Free plan	Match 17, 2025	We’ll transition sites on the Free plan to the new navigation. Admins and users won’t be able to turn off the new navigation.
All sites for all plans have optional opt-in	April 14, 2025	If you’re an admin of a site, you can turn on the new navigation: For just yourself For everyone on the site
Sandbox environments	April 14, 2025	If your site has a Sandbox environment, admins can self-serve and choose to turn on the new navigation.
Standard plan	Mid-April to mid-May 2025	We’ll begin rolling out the new navigation to sites on the Standard plan in mid April 2025. If you’re an admin, we’ll remove the option to turn off the new navigation and enable the new navigation for all users on the site. For Jira and Atlassian Home, users can still turn off the new navigation only for themselves till the end of May 2025. This will not affect anyone else on the site.
Premium and Enterprise plan	Early to late July 2025	We’ll begin rolling out the new navigation to sites on the Premium and Enterprise plan in early July 2025. If you’re an admin, we’ll remove the option to turn off the new navigation and enable the new navigation for all users on the site. For Jira and Atlassian Home, users can still turn off the new navigation only for themselves till the end of July 2025. This will not affect anyone else on the site.
100% rollout	End of July 2025	All users of all plans are on the new navigation with no ability to turn it off.

Timeline change log:

• March 31, 2025: Changed sandbox and opt-in date from mid-April 2025 to April 14, 2025. Shifted Premium and Enterprise timeline from the end of June to early-late July 2025. Updated "edition" terminology to "plan" to reflect Admin Hub labelling.
• April 4, 2025: Changed user opt-out for Premium and Enterprise plan.
• April 16, 2025: Added a note for rollout timing and what to expect.

Admin controls for new navigation

We know that change can be challenging, and introducing new changes to your team needs planning. So to ensure you and your team are comfortable with the new navigation, we’re giving admins additional flexibility.

If you’re an admin:

• You can turn on the new navigation only for yourself

• You can turn on the new navigation for everyone on the site

Jira labs for admins

Turn on the new navigation To access admin controls for new navigation: From the top right corner, select Settings > Personal Jira settings. Go to Jira Labs to see the controls for New navigation. After changing the toggle, please refresh your browser window to see the changes reflected.

Turn off the new navigation To access admin controls for new navigation: From the top right corner, select Settings > General settings. Go to Jira Labs to see the controls for New navigation. After changing the toggle, please refresh your browser window to see the changes reflected.

As an admin, you can delay turning on the new navigation for everyone on your site for a few weeks before we enable it for everyone by default. After the new navigation has been turned on for everyone on the site, your users can still turn it on/off for a certain time (3-8 weeks) before the option is removed.

Jira labs for users

When your admin turns on the new navigation for your site, you can turn on/off the new navigation for a few weeks. This will only affect you and not all users on the site.

To turn on the new navigation: From the top right corner, select Settings > Personal Jira settings. Under Jira Labs, you can toggle the switch on for New navigation. After changing the toggle, please refresh your browser window to see the changes reflected.

To turn off the new navigation: From the top right corner, select Settings > General settings. Under Jira Labs, you can toggle the switch off for New navigation. After changing the toggle, please refresh your browser window to see the changes reflected.

Frequently asked questions

Questions	Answers
Can I turn off the new navigation?	Depending on the plan, users can temporarily turn off the new navigation. See the timelines above to find out how long this option will be available. If you’re from the below cohort, you cannot turn off the new navigation: Sites on the Free plan
How long will I have the option to turn off the new navigation?	The option to turn off the new navigation is based on your plan. See the timeline above to see when you won’t be able to switch between experiences anymore. For example, if you’re an admin of a site on the Standard plan, we’ll enable the new navigation for your site on April 14, 2025. You can delay turning on the new navigation for your users until April 28, 2025, after which we’ll enable it for you and your users by default. Your users can switch between the navigation experience till June 2025.
Why can’t I see the New navigation in Jira Labs for my site?	We have disabled the option to opt out for the below cohort: Sites on the Free plan Some sites on trial and new Jira sites are already on the new navigation. All sites on trial and new Jira sites will be moved to the new navigation by mid-June 2025.
My site is on trial, but I have the old navigation. When will I get the new navigation?	Some sites on trial and new Jira sites are already on the new navigation. We'll move all sites on trials and new Jira sites to the new navigation in mid-June 2025.
Where can I find my project and board Settings?	We’ve moved Settings for projects and boards. Project settings  From the sidebar, select the More actions () for Projects to access settings for all projects. From the sidebar, select the More actions () menu next to the project name to access that particular project’s settings. Board settings From the sidebar, select the More actions () menu next to the board name to access that particular board’s settings. From the project navigation, you can access the More actions () menu for the project or board right next to its name.
Who is affected when I customize my sidebar?	From the sidebar, select Customize sidebar to personalize it according to your preference. Customizing the sidebar only affects you, not everyone else on the site. Note: Customizing the sidebar is different from customizing project tabs. If you’re an admin, customizing project tabs affects your whole team.
Who is affected by the customization at the project level?	As an admin, you can customize the project tabs at the project level. This affects the whole team.

In the meantime, join our focus group to stay updated, ask questions, raise concerns, and connect with the team working on the new navigation.

Regards,
The Atlassian navigation team

[Darryl Lee]

Hi @Varsha Patel - thanks for posting this here, although I think it would be useful to also post it in the New navigation forums which many of your EAP and Beta testers are following and have asked about updates to this very timeline.

(The last update on this topic I see from Atlassian in that forum is your Feb 13 post.)

Anyways, I found this very interesting:

All sites for all editions have optional opt-in

Mid-April 2025

If you’re an admin of a site, you can turn on the new navigation: For just yourself For everyone on the site

I feel like it would be more helpful to have an option to make it available (but not active) for everyone on the site, so that people can start playing with it BEFORE it is pushed upon them.

We would be able to put up a "New Jira Navigation is coming in May - try it out now!" with a link to documentation/videos (those are still coming right) as well as a link to the Settings Page where they can enable the feature.

This would go a LONG WAY in easing user anxiety about the new UI.

[Darryl Lee]

Also @Varsha Patel can you please clarify about Sandboxes? You wrote:

Additionally, for Sandbox environments, admins can now self-serve and choose to turn the new navigation on.

I do not have an option in our Sandbox to turn the new navigation on. 

I also don't see Sandbox in your rollout schedule, whereas previous rollout timelines estimated that "Opt in for all Sandboxes" would be available in

• March '25 (Feb, 14 2025 - Boise Atlassian Community YouTube webinar)
• Late March '25 (Mar 5, 2025 - Unpacking the new Atlassian global navigation experience | US webinar) 

I'm reading in various threads that users are able to ask Support for their sites' scheduled rollout date. I wonder if it wouldn't be more efficient to publish this somewhere in the Admin interface? Or provide an API endpoint for it?

[Yatish Madhav]

Thanks for the article @Varsha Patel 

Very valid points from @Darryl Lee 

I like the "All sites for all editions have optional opt-in" - but I am on the same page as Darryl. Changes like this should probably be made available before enforced. Even if it is communicated, giving end-users the power - as you have done for admins makes Atlassian tools all the more powerful! 

Thanks again

[Christian Peper]

Thanks for this status updated, exactly what I was looking for :D

[Varsha Patel]

@Darryl Lee and @Yatish Madhav

Re: More power to end-users
Based on our research with admins from late 2024 to early 2025, we found that managing bespoke workflows at the user level becomes increasingly challenging for admins of the organization. To address this, we're giving admins control over whether to move their users to the new navigation starting in mid-April 2025 before we enforce the transition as per our rollout.

[Carolyn Glendening]

@Varsha Patel thank you for the update. I must ask Atlassian (urgently): Where, oh where are the end-user ready demo videos, preferably a list of short, digestible demos of specific parts of the Jira (and Confluence) UI that we can point our users to? Screenshots are a basic start, but demos are a must!

[Nick]

Hi @Varsha Patel 

Thank you for the update!

Can you please tell me if there are plans to change the interface for the data center version? The data center version seems to be lagging far behind the cloud version in design.

It would be great to see similar changes for data center.

Thank you!

[David Berclaz _Apwide_]

Great to see the timeline!

FYI, our Jira Free instance (golive-int.atlassian.net) already had the new navigation for some time, and since today we got the old navigation again. Maybe because we installed JSM Standard last week?

Not a big deal, but it's a bit awkward to get this rollback that we cannot revert.

[Morgan Watts]

I do appreciate the timeline, it's nice to see it laid out. 

I also would like to parrot Carolyn's question of when the end-user videos will come out so we can best prepare our users?

While I can share this link: Unpacking the new Atlassian global navigation experience | EU

Watching an hour-long video isn't ideal for everyone. 

[Darryl Lee]

@Morgan Watts hey, I'm happy with ANY video that doesn't require registration. (The US link - which I think is the same video - requires signing up. Must be an EU thing, thanks!)

[Your public name]

The newest, shiniest Jira has come, so it is time for a new whinge.
Replies are no longer on top.
Soon, we will have suggestions or recommended comments instead of the latest messages for improved engagement and likes.

Pending merger with Facebook?

[Varsha Patel]

@David Berclaz _Apwide_ The Free sites are already on the new navigation, but as the JSM subscription was for Standard, you got both experiences. For consistency, we’ve enabled new navigation for your site. 

[Varsha Patel]

@Darryl Lee Re: Sandboxes

I've added a row to include information about the Sandbox environments. As an admin, you should be able to self-serve in Sandboxes mid-April 2025 and turn on/off the navigation.  

[Panteley_Kramarski]

@Varsha Patel where can I open a bug for the new navigation? There is an issue when I try to open board settings on the board list screen.

[Varsha Patel]

@Panteley_Kramarski On the bottom left side, select Give feedback on new navigation to report the bug.

[Darryl Lee]

@Varsha Patel you wrote:

Re: More power to end-users
Based on our research with admins from late 2024 to early 2025, we found that managing bespoke workflows at the user level becomes increasingly challenging for admins of the organization. To address this, we're giving admins control over whether to move their users to the new navigation starting in mid-April 2025 before we enforce the transition as per our rollout.

I just wanted to clarify: From what you've written, it sounds like we will get one "lever" in mid-April:

[ ] Turn New Nav UI ON for all users

And users will be able to opt-out until Mid-June (we are on Premium)

I believe a better approach would would be this lever:

[ ] Make UI available to all users (opt-in)

Again, this will allow users to "try out" the new UI on their schedule, versus having it forced upon them on a certain date.

Yes, if we can control when the "forcing" occurs, and send out comms ahead of time, I guess that helps. 

But I feel it would be a much BETTER message to give people the option to try it out themselves, as opposed to having it thrust upon them.

[Darryl Lee]

@Varsha Patel looking for something else, I found this from the 2020 New Navigation Update:

Way back then, Dennis Walsh wrote:

I appreciate the statement that "We are also putting you in control of this change. Once your instance receives the new navigation, each of your users will be able to switch over to the new navigation on their own timeframe."  These changes look promising, but users still like to at least feel like they're in charge of their environment.

This is much better than the "just get used to it" approach used by certain "other" software companies (which shall remain nameless) who simply force-feed all of their "enhancements" on their users in one swoop, leaving the users either powerless to undo things, or -best case- forced to flail about and try to figure out on their own how to get their interface back to the way they want it.

Dennis is 100% right. I wonder if you consulted with your colleague @Matt Tse who wrote at the time:

We are also putting you in control of this change. Once your instance receives the new navigation, each of your users will be able to switch over to the new navigation on their own timeframe. This option will be provided to your users in the product (see FAQ #5 for more details). If you do not want your instance to automatically receive the new navigation when it's ready, please contact our support team to opt-out.

So there is precedent for what I'm asking: Let us have the navigation, but ALSO let users opt-in on their own.

[Diane Logsdon]

Perhaps I'm obtuse, but I am finding it difficult to understand exactly what is changed and where and where we (Jira (any Jira/Confluence product) admins have the ability to enable/disable this new navigation functionality. It seems this may be done on project by project basis, but I am not seeing that clearly defined here, or here: https://www.atlassian.com/blog/announcements/introducing-new-navigation?utm_source=sfmc&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=EML-19387&jobid=107032128&subid=1521919322

Unfortunately, the screenshots in these two published articles are missing the mark for me. Are there other resources are available to help me better comprehend what actually is changing, where it can be enabled/disabled and if it is a global or project-based setting? 

[Darryl Lee]

Thank you for the new change log @Varsha Patel. I appreciate the transparency!

I did have a question though. It appears that Premium and Enterprise are now on the same schedule (whereas previously they had different dates):

Premium & Enterprise plan

Early-July to Late-July 2025

---

We’ll begin rolling out the new navigation to sites on the Premium plan in early July 2025.

If you’re an admin, we’ll remove the option to turn off the new navigation and enable the new navigation for all users on the site.

For Jira and Atlassian Home, users can still turn off the new navigation only for themselves till early July 2025. This will not affect anyone else on the site.

For Jira and Atlassian Home, users can still turn off the new navigation only for themselves till early July 2025. This will not affect anyone else on the site.

(Emphasis mine)

If I'm reading this right says rollout for Premium and Enterprise begins in Early July 2025, and that users can opt-out until Early July 2025.

Does that mean that Premium/Enterprise customers (if their admins have not opted their sites in early beginning on April 14), will not have ANY ability to opt-out?

[Piotr_Śmiałek_Deviniti]

If you are app creators, please share our experience with new navigation and your apps there:
https://community.developer.atlassian.com/t/how-are-vendors-adapting-to-the-new-jira-navigation/90867

hope we can help each other :)

[Varsha Patel]

@Darryl Lee 

Re: Premium and Enterprise plan

Users will have the ability to opt out till the end of July 2025. Sorry for the confusion, updated the article to reflect this.

[Don Arsenault]

@Diane Logsdon  Main changes...

• The site navigation links in the page header (Your Work, Projects, Filters, ...) are moving to the side bar. The search bar expands to fill the space.
• The project navigation links in the sidebar (Board, Summary, List, ...) are moving to a new page header line. Admins can reorder and hide individual links.

I'm a Jira user, who's only seen these announcements, and not actually experienced the changes yet.

[Darryl Lee]

@Diane Logsdon and @Don Arsenault as we await Atlassian's official enablement materials, I've created ugly but functional screenshots and a slide deck that I've shared in this discussion:

• Have your say: What enablement materials would best help your teams adjust to the new navigation? 

[Diane Logsdon]

Thank you @Darryl Lee. I've looked a the slide deck. It is a great start, thanks for putting that together.

I think I'm still struggling to determine where this navigation change is being implemented. Is it JIRA or Jira Service Management, or both? What about Confluence? These are the products our organization uses. We have a large group of developers who live/breath in JIRA and an equal amount of non-technical staff who use JSM. A colleague thinks the impact could be huge to JIRA users if they are forced into a navigation change rather then being able to individually adopt a new navigation without any understanding/exposure in advance. It would help if I could see this NOW, even for just my own profile. We are in the Premium plan.  Thanks for the slides again!

[Don Arsenault]

@Diane Logsdon  All the products are changing to be consistent. 

The Confluence change is not so significant compared to Jira. The site navigation links in the page header are moving to the side bar; but the space navigation links are staying in the side bar.

In Jira, I don't like the even bigger non-scrolling header (with the new project links header line). The scrolling part - where I do my actual work - is already too small vertically on my standard laptop. I don't want a large external display just to work with Jira.