Transforming support system with Jira Service Management

Having support teams in different countries that need to work together on support requests can be complex and challenging. To address this, we migrated nearly all support processes to Jira Service Management (JSM).

From challenge to multi-tiered support model

In large ecosystems like ours, with different areas of work - from development, IT & support, to business operations, it is important to use tools that support complexity and offer flexibility to adjust to an organization’s unique needs and workflows.

We implemented a multi-tiered support model, where support teams operate with a certain degree of autonomy but maintain strong inter-team connections. This approach ensures a seamless and smooth workflow across all relevant support levels.

To make this model work, we rely on tools like Jira Automation and Backbone Issue Sync. They help us streamline collaboration, enforce data consistency, and significantly reduce manual effort.

Sharing best practices with Atlassian community

End of May, our Atlassian product admins Nena Kruljac and Martin Špernjak shared our transformation story at the Atlassian Community event in Zagreb. They explained how JSM became essential to our support operations and what strategies we employed to implement it successfully. 

Martin showed how we organize service management in four levels, which helps us to manage different types of requests more efficiently. Nena gave more detail on how to configure automation rules and implement a smart request prioritization, so that the most important requests get done first.

Request prioritization

Support teams had different perspectives on how to set priorities. We introduced an approach based on four attributes:

• Impact and Urgency – defined by customers when creating a ticket. By default, these are set to the lowest values.
• Priority - automatically calculated by an automation rule. JSM agents then review and adjust it manually if it is too high or too low.
• Severity - used in development.

What we wanted to achieve with prioritization:

• Ensure that JSM agents work on higher-priority request first,
• Enable email escalation for blocker issues,
• Standardize the process,
• Deliver faster and better service to customers.
  

Meet our Atlassian admins

Nena is an experienced Atlassian products admin. With deep understanding of the ecosystem and attention to details, she knows how to implement and configure these tools to meet specific and complex needs of support operations, improving both productivity and team collaboration.

Martin was a Tech Support Specialist and Support Team Lead, when he first witnessed the positive impact of Atlassian tools. His interest in these tools grew, and eventually led him to the role of Atlassian products admin. Today, he is skilled in optimizing Jira, JSM, and Confluence in cloud environments, exploring how they can improve collaboration and operations in other IT and business areas.