Announcement Feeds
Since every advanced system requires communication with users – even if it’s just to notify them about temporary downtime or configuration changes – doing this via one-time banners or emails isn’t effective.
Announcement Feeds allows you to create personalized information channels targeted at different groups – such as system users or support staff – through which you can communicate everything necessary for their work
Announcement Feeds allow you to transform standard Jira and Service Desk systems into a company intranet. With a system of banners, notifications, and news, employees and customers won’t miss important updates about system upgrades, outages, or changes to your company’s offerings.
Information Feeds can be displayed in 8 different locations. Some of these locations (such as full-screen) are more prominent than others (like the footer), allowing you to prioritize the importance of the displayed information. For Jira, these locations include:
- Banner
- Full screen
- Dialog window
- Flag
- Footer
- Project panel
- Top menu
Benefits
Create Dedicated Communication Channels
To start communicating with users, create a communication channel (referred to as a Feed in English). Specify who the recipients will be, where the information should be sourced from (it can be entered manually or done through tasks in Jira), and where it should be displayed (globally for the Jira system or only within a specific project).
Delegate Work and Save Administrator Time
By creating communication channels, you don’t have to waste time configuring information separately each time, as is the case in other applications. Additionally, instead of offloading all the work onto the Jira administrator, you can grant permissions to create notifications to other users—such as the communication team or the project manager.
Manage Responses and Create Reports
Each notification may require a user response—e.g., “accept” or “reject” in the case of a service terms change. All responses, as well as the fact that the message was read, are recorded in the system and can be easily utilized to generate acceptance reports.
Usage examples
Company intranet
The HR department in a large company is looking for an effective method to communicate with employees. The company intranet is not visited as frequently as they expected. Since most employees use Jira for their daily work, the HR department decides to share information through this channel as well. Together with the system administrator, they install Announcement Feeds, configure separate communication channels for each department, and delegate the creation of information to employees responsible for communication.
From now on, all important notifications are displayed directly in Jira along with a message summary and a link to the intranet. The number of visits to the intranet is increasing, employees are better informed, and the HR department has access to accurate statistics—such as how many people have read the information, when they did so, and what response they clicked (if a response was required).
Technical downtime
The IT department of a large corporation manages a Jira system dedicated to software development. The system is large and complex, requiring regular maintenance breaks, upgrades, data migrations, and other significant tasks. At the same time, users of the system want to be informed about all interruptions, as turning off Jira or Bitbucket for 30 minutes, even after hours, can impact their builds and releases.
To address this issue, the IT department defines various communication channels—divided by the inconvenience of the work—and uses them to keep developers informed about planned tasks, allowing them to adjust their schedules or veto plans linked to the corresponding task.
Customer service
The customer service department uses Jira Service Desk in their daily work. The nature of their job requires staying up to date with changes in the offerings and regulations. These changes are regularly discussed in team meetings and are posted on the company intranet, but it’s best to have them readily available. Instead of printing a lot of paper, the support department decides to install Announcement Feeds and create dedicated communication channels for the support team.
As a result, employees can check the list of recent changes directly in Jira. At the same time, Announcement Feeds allow them to display urgent information (e.g., regarding ongoing work to resolve an issue) directly in the Customer Portal, which reduces the number of support tickets to handle.
