Alpha Serve Blog
We publish articles on different topics related to project management, agile methodology and philosophy, software and application development.

5 Important Add-Ons to Accelerate Your Jira Productivity

Published: July 21, 2020

Updated: August 18, 2022

Project Manager in Alpha Serve
Today, there's increased competition in the software development market as well as high expectations from customers. So, there's a need to build better quality products to meet these demands. To achieve this, you'll require an efficient project management tool such as Jira.

If you're managing a software development project or an agile team, you've most likely used Jira, are using it, or have heard about it. Jira is probably the most popular task and team management software in the software development sphere. Jira users can access a variety of plugins and solutions on the Atlassian Marketplace. If you are looking to boost your overall Jira productivity, you could use these five essential
add-ons:

It is a table of contents. Click on the needed subheading and switch between parts of the article.

Communication is key to the management of a project development team. So, a tool that makes it easier is invaluable. Mail Me is a Jira add-on that makes communication to internal and external users via email fast and convenient. Instead of switching between Jira and your email to send issues to the team, client, etc., you can send it while still on Jira.

This solution allows users to send emails in either Html or text format with the option to add attachments. Mail Me also provides email personalization options. That is, you can build custom email templates that can be used for issue communication within the team.

It further makes email sending effortless by enabling an option for default recipient. You can set a particular address or group of addresses as you default receiver and send issues quickly. Mail Me has versions for Jira Cloud, Jira Data Center, and Jira server is especially useful for project managers.

The Cloud version of MailMe is free for small teams up to 10 users.
Not sure how to effectively track smaller tasks? The Checklist for Jira On-the-Fly app allows users to create custom checklists to help complete complex project tasks, track issues, and manage definitions of Done. Deployable in Jira Data Center, Jira Server, and Jira Cloud, this add-on enables users to assign 'open,' 'in progress,' and 'done' statuses to tasks. Checklist for Jira On-the-Fly makes workload easy to sort, share with the team, and follow up.

Elements, options, and templates can be customized to fit any project or business. Checklist for Jira On-the-Fly can boost the overall team's productivity as it helps break down complex jobs into smaller and more manageable tasks. It is an excellent app for project managers, team leaders, as well as developers. You can try it for free at the Atlassian Marketplace.

Read how to improve your Jira workflows with Checklist for Jira On-the-Fly app here.

The Cloud version of Checklist is free for small teams up to 10 users.
It is an uncomplicated tool for tracking work hours and creating comprehensive reports. This solution keeps users from having to monitor time manually and offers several filters, which allow for the creation of more targeted reports. People can apply filters by user, project, leads, etc. With this tool, you can also categorize reports based on several criteria, e.g., worklog and sub-task.

How will it increase Jira's productivity? This tool has since been revamped to eliminate various paint points. It now provides Jira users with excellent work time reports and time reporting, making it invaluable in streamlining the project delivery process. Users are now able to better comprehend their current projects' progress and plan their futures, which, in turn, improves a company's productivity.

Some of the notable features of this plugin are:
  • An automatic time tracker;
  • A broad range of filters, categorizations, and table views;
  • Hassle-free exporting of reports.
It facilitates swift access to specific issues from others by developing particular Jira custom fields. People connect various issues and get useful data.

With this tool, users can make 2 custom fields:
  • Issue Picker (multi-issues): People can join several issues contingent upon access privileges;
  • Issue Picker (single issue): It's where people can only join a single issue.

The standout aspects of this tool are:
  • Easy navigation;
  • Big picture view;
It provides a straightforward means for project collaborators to view their roles in a specific task. With this plugin, it is possible to include the "roles" in the view window. The "roles" window offers details on all participants based on their responsibilities. Each member is identified by the specific duty they have to implement for a particular task.

For more convenience, the project view window can be expanded to an extra page.

Summary

These are five apps by Alpha Serve on the Atlassian marketplace. They are invaluable to Jira project development and are sure to boost the productivity of teams. To ensure the best results, it helps to understand your goals beforehand and to pick the most appropriate plugin.