Is Jira a suitable tool for my workflow?

[Philipp Donth]

Hey there,

I was using Jira couple years ago as a tool to manage typical first level support issues.

For a new project in my company, I need a tool to manage incoming transportation tenders. My workflow should be something like this:

1. new tender arrives

2. gather all information about this tender, download documents from tendering company

3. create a new "ticket":

This ticket should contain all necessary information about this tender. Since there are some basics which are almost the same in every tender, I´d like to have like checkboxes to choose the relevant things like "type of truck", "full truck load oder partial load", "national or international", ...

And there are several things like the deadline of this tender, contact information and stuff like this. I need to upload all the documents belonging to this tender as well.

4. Send info to team about new "ticket"

team members should receive an email if there is a new tender, if possible just a summary each day.

5. Reply to the ticket

each team member should now have the possibility to login to jira to read the ticket and download the documents. If it is interresting, the user should be able to set a status like "interresting for international" or "interresting for local" or even a "decline".

Would be great to have an overview who of the members has read the ticket.

not only the status is interresting, if a user can comment each ticket, would be helpful.

6. automatic reminders

if the ticket is commented yet, the system should send reminders until the tender ends

7. after the end date of a tender

if the end date is over, there are 2 possible status:

- 1 not offered -> no further action necessary. move to archive

- 2 sent an offer -> ticket is still "open", waiting for customer response.

after customer response, the ticket should act like a documentation system. every mail, document, replys from the customer should get into the system to be visible for all team members. new deadlines for a 2nd round can occur.

Do you guys think that this is a workflow that fits to jira or is this too special?

As I was just user of Jira couple years ago, please don´t be too hard if this is completely bullshit :-)

thank you for your replies,

Philipp

[Jacob Vu · Accepted solution]

Hi @Philipp Donth

This is doable in both Jira and Jira Service Management but I'd suggest using Jira Service Management as it's more of a ticketing system. You'd be able to send in tickets to your team and create custom workflows, automation, etc. to do what you've laid out as a process.

Let me know if you need some help doing this as it's a service my organization offers.

Jacob

[Julia Shcherbyna _SaaSJet_ · Accepted solution]

Hello @Philipp Donth 

It seems that with Jira Cloud it is not possible to completely solve your problem. However, you can try to use third-party apps by Atlassian Marketplace.

You can build workflows using BPM (Business Process Manager) - a simple way to build and run team-friendly business processes using Jira Cloud.

It can help to organize your process. Create a process template with all the steps required to decide on a tender.

You can add a custom form to each step, which the assignee must submit (e.g. check the details of the tender, find out information about the company, give an opinion from the director, etc.).

By running this template, you can be sure that no important steps have been missed. Of course, real-time statistics allow you to monitor the status of all processes.

This add-on is developed by my team, so if you have a question, be free to ask.

[Dea Mandija · Accepted solution]

Hello @Philipp Donth 

As @Jacob Vu mentioned, this is both doable on Jira and Jira Service Management. 

I would definitely go with the latter. Here is a comprehensive documentation with features from Jira Service Management, most of which you've mentioned in your question as well: https://support.atlassian.com/jira-service-management-cloud/docs/get-to-know-the-main-jira-service-management-features/

Good luck!

[said kouzibry]

Yes Jira can be used for such a process, however I would suggest to create the ticket before gathering the information and documents needed, this way all the info about the tender can be stored at a single place, the ticket itself, this would also allow you to have some level of reporting about the information gathering part, what tender's still require information, whether or not you have already requested the information and waiting, whether the other party has responded or not,

As for which product to use, Jira Work Management or Jira Service Management, I would say it depends mostly on whether or not you would want your "customers" to act on the tickets (add comments, reply with information/documents, provide feedback, motinor the progress of the ticket...) and also the size of your team, as JWM Cloud can be used for free up to 10 users, while JSM is free up to 3 agents (customers don't count as paid users),

For the addons, it doesn't seem you would need any specific add-on, however this may change when you setup all your business goals in detail for this project.

If you need further help or have further questions, please feel free to let us know.

[Philipp Donth]

Thank you @Jacob Vu and  @Dea Mandija for your answers. I will try the Service Management tool to fit my needs.

Thanks a lot,

Phil

[Jacob Vu]

Hi @Philipp Donth

No worries - Atlassian offers free basic access to their software so you could create a Jira Service Management instance, play around in it and then make a final decision on if it fits your needs. Would highly recommend you do that before committing fully.

Jacob