And now you’re wondering, how does it work with Jira? Where’s the integration? How do I link an Atlas project to my Jira issues? Can I automate my status updates based on Jira data?

Jira Software is an issue tracking tool, helping you see what your team is working on right down to the nitty-gritty details. In contrast, Atlas enables communication between teams, giving other teams and stakeholders a high-level summary view of how your projects or goals are tracking.

So, Jira helps you work within your immediate team. Atlas helps you communicate outside your team, across teams of teams. Due to the different audiences within these two tools, the type of updates you share needs to be tailored to their proximity to the work.

For example, if you’re launching a new mobile app, do your stakeholders really need to know all the tasks that your team completed in the last week? Or do they simply need to know that the mobile app is on track to being delivered by the targeted due date, and here are the main highlights, risks and next steps?

We understand the appeal of an end-to-end reporting solution, where statistics around progress %, story points and issues completed are pulled from Jira, but we urge you to think about the value of this in practice. Remember, the people following your Atlas projects are very different from those in your Jira boards. Showing dashboards statistics may be visually alluring, but it doesn’t have the same insight and clarity as a short, curated update (read more about why we don’t believe in automated status reports).

This also means there isn’t the double handling our customers initially expect. Since the content shared is different, the extent to which you need to keep things aligned may just be as simple as dates and statuses.

Does this mean we don’t have any integration to Jira? Of course not!

We acknowledge there are scenarios where a tighter relationship is required between Jira and Atlas, particularly when it comes to planning & communication of in-progress work.

We have an Atlas for Jira Cloud app available on the Atlassian Marketplace, which site admins can install on Jira Software. This will enable you to link and sync critical information such as title, target dates and tags between Jira Software epics and Atlas projects. Find out more about how to install it and what it can do here.

We have also built ways for project owners to link their followers to more detail in Jira, if needed without necessarily syncing. Some other ways you can link Atlas and Jira together are:

Reference at the project level e.g. here is our detailed board if you are interested (project links)

Reference a specific issue that is a blocker/at risk in an update or comment (smart cards for single issue)

Embed roadmap for project context in project or goal about briefs

Embed Atlas in other products

You can also embed Atlas in other Atlassian products. Learn more about this here.

So, have we answered your questions on the relationship between Atlas and Jira?

Let us know what you think and if you have any more questions, feedback or challenges to our perspective on this topic!

For further discussion on this topic, join this forum on our Atlas Community: https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Team-Central/The-relationship-between-Team-Central-and-Jira-explained/ba-p/1685737#M31