Adding affected services in Jira is a straightforward process typically performed within a change ticket in your Jira Service Management project. This crucial step helps teams understand the potential impact of a change, incident, or problem on various business services.
Step-by-Step Guide to Adding Affected Services
To correctly link services that will be impacted by a ticket, follow these steps:
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Navigate to Your Service Project: From your Jira dashboard, access the specific service project where the change or issue is being managed.
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Go to the Changes Section: In the left-hand navigation menu of your service project, locate and select the Changes section. This will display a list of existing change requests.
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Open the Change Ticket: Click on the specific change ticket to open its details view. This is where you will manage all aspects of the change.
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Locate the 'Affected services' Field: Within the change ticket's details, scroll down to find the Affected services field. This field is typically found among other key fields such as Summary, Description, and Priority.
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Add Services from the Drop-down List: Click inside the Affected services field. A drop-down list will appear, presenting all predefined services available in your Jira Service Management portal. Select one or more services that this change will impact.
- Pro Tip: You can often start typing the name of a service to quickly filter the list if you have many services defined.
Understanding Affected Services in Jira Service Management
In Jira Service Management, "affected services" refer to the business services, applications, or infrastructure components that might experience an impact due to a change, incident, or problem. Linking services to tickets is vital for effective IT Service Management (ITSM).
Why is Linking Affected Services Important?
| Benefit | Description |
|---|---|
| Impact Assessment | Quickly assess which business operations or customer-facing services are at risk or will be affected. |
| Communication | Facilitate targeted communication to relevant stakeholders, service owners, and customers. |
| Prioritization | Help prioritize changes or incident responses based on the criticality of the affected services. |
| Reporting & Analytics | Track change impact over time, identify critical services, and improve future service management processes. |
| Dependency Mapping | Understand how different services rely on each other, enhancing overall service health monitoring. |
Examples of Affected Services
An affected service can represent various elements within your IT ecosystem. Here are some common examples:
- Business Applications:
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM) System
- Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Platform
- Company Website / E-commerce Portal
- Infrastructure Components:
- Database Server
- Network Connectivity
- Cloud Hosting Environment (e.g., AWS, Azure)
- Shared Services:
- Email Service
- User Authentication (SSO)
- Internal File Storage
Best Practices for Managing Services
To maximize the benefits of the "Affected services" field in Jira, consider these best practices:
- Maintain a Clear Service Catalog: Ensure your service catalog in Jira Service Management is up-to-date, clearly defined, and easily understandable. Each service should have a clear owner and description.
- Standardize Service Definitions: Use consistent naming conventions and descriptions for your services to avoid confusion and ensure accurate reporting.
- Train Your Team: Educate all users involved in change management on how to correctly identify and link affected services to tickets.
- Regularly Review Service Dependencies: Understand the relationships between your services to better predict and manage potential impacts.
By diligently adding affected services to your Jira tickets, you enhance visibility, improve communication, and strengthen your overall ITSM capabilities.
