What is Jira used for?
Jira Software is part of a family of products designed to help teams of all types manage work. Originally, Jira was designed as a bug and issue tracker. But today, Jira has evolved into a powerful work management tool for all kinds of use cases, from requirements and test case management to agile software development. In this guide, you'll learn which features and functionalities of Jira can help your team with your unique needs.
This guide is for Jira Software Cloud. If you're using Jira Software Server or Data Center, some of the features listed on this page may vary. Not sure which Jira you have? This guide can help >>
Jira for requirements & test case management
An increasing number of teams today are developing more iteratively, and Jira Software is the central hub for the coding, collaboration, and release stages. For test management, Jira integrates with a variety of add-ons so the QA’s testing slides seamlessly into the software development cycle. Teams can test effectively and iteratively. QA teams use Jira issues, customized screens, fields, and workflows to manage manual and automated tests.
How to do requirements management with Jira in conjunction with other tools?
Explore the Atlassian Marketplace to see all the vendors that provide test management capabilities within Jira.
Jira for agile teams
For teams who practice agile methodologies, Jira Software provides scrum and kanban boards out-of-the box. Boards are task management hubs, where tasks are mapped to customizable workflows. Boards provide transparency across team work and visibility into the status of every work item. Time tracking capabilities, and real-time performance reports (burn-up/down charts, sprint reports, velocity charts) enable teams to closely monitor their productivity over time. Find your agile boards in Jira Software Cloud classic projects.
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|  Kanban boards |
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| Project- level permissions |
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| Project backlogs |
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| Email notifications |
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Whether you are doing scrum, kanban, or something in between, see how Jira can help your team stay on track.
Jira for project management teams
Jira Software Cloud can be configured to fit any type of project. Teams can start with a project template or create their own custom workflow. Jira issues, also known as tasks, tracks each piece of work that needs to pass through the workflow steps to completion. Customizable permissions enable admins to determine who can see and perform which actions. With all project information in place, reports can be generated to track progress, productivity, and ensure nothing slips.
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| Project backlogs |
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| Issue customization |
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| Granular user permissions |
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| Workflow customization |
Jira Software can help your team manage a project from the start, through execution, to the wrap-up.
Jira for software development teams
Jira Software Cloud provides planning and roadmap tools so teams can manage stakeholders, budgets, and feature requirements from day one. Jira integrates with a variety of CI/CD tools to facilitate transparency throughout the software development life cycle. When it’s ready to deploy, live production code status information is surfaced in the Jira issue. Integrated feature flagging tools allow teams to roll out new features gradually and safely.
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| Project Backlog |
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| Jira Service Management integration |
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| Feature flagging |
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| Developer tool integrations |
Teams that integrate Jira Software with Bitbucket release versions 14% more often than those who don't.
Jira for product management teams
In Jira Software Cloud’s next-gen template, teams can build a roadmap that’s associated with each project. The roadmap enables teams to sketch out the longer term view of their work as well as track and share progress for their roadmap. Add more detail to your roadmaps, surfacing dependencies and forecasts for when you might complete your work. Create a view highlighting ‘live’ roadmaps from multiple teams by embedding the Jira Software roadmap into Confluence.
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| Advanced roadmaps |
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| Dependency mapping |
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| Forecasts |
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| Confluence integration |
Build detailed roadmaps, manage dependencies, and share plans and progress.
Jira for task management
Create tasks for yourself and members of your team to work on, complete with its details, due dates, and reminders. Utilize subtasks to breakdown larger items of work. Allow others to watch the task to track its progress and be notified when it’s completed. Create sub-tasks within the parent task to break down the unit of work into digestible pieces for various members of the team. View all tasks on the board to easily visualize each’s status.
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| Custom fields |
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| Task linking / relationships |
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| Project linking |
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Learn about epics, stories, and themes - and how these simple structures can help you manage your work.
Jira for bug tracking
Bugs are just a name for to-do's stemming from problems within the software a team is building. It is important for teams to view all the tasks and bugs in the backlog so they can prioritize big picture goals. Jira’s powerful workflow engine ensures that bugs are automatically assigned and prioritized once they are captured. Teams can then track a bug through to completion.
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| Task / bug linking |
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| Project level configuration |
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| Project rules |
See how Jira Software can help you capture, track, and resolve bugs and issues throughout your entire development process.
Glossary of items
Scrum board
Scrum boards enable teams to manage their sprints and backlog.
Kanban board
A kanban board allows teams to visualize the flow of work and limit work in progress.
Backlogs
A backlog contains outstanding issues for a team to work on.
Epics, User Stories, Issues
An epic represents a large body of work, which may require several sprints to complete. Multiple user stories comprise an epic. A Jira issue represents a single piece of work in a project.
Time Tracking
Time tracking allows teams to record the amount of time they spend working on issues.
Custom workflows
Teams can create a custom workflow to drive the progression of issues on a scrum or kanban board.
Roadmaps
Roadmaps create a visual representation of all the epics a team is working on, so teams can plan large pieces of work in advance.
Advanced search
Advanced search uses Jira Query Language (JQL) to search for specific criteria in issues that can’t be done in quick or basic searches.
Permissions
Utilize permissions to grant team members different levels of access and to lock down sensitive information.