How Jira users’ collaboration is improved by using Amazon Chime SDK

Anna Odrynska, Chief Strategy Officer at Alpha Serve

This is a guest blog written by Anna Odrynska, Chief Strategy Officer at Alpha Serve. The content and opinions in this post are those of the third-party author and AWS is not responsible for the content or accuracy of this post.

Introduction

For businesses using Atlassian’s Jira issue tracking and agile project management software, real-time collaboration between users is not natively offered within the application. If a customer support representative is diagnosing a customer fault, the representative typically handles communication with the customer through ticket updates and email. Response and resolution times are therefore determined by a reactive process, which is generally slower than a real-time dialogue. Additionally, if a project team is working on a critical, time-dependent release, their real-time communication must be handled outside of Jira, even though they are sharing data within the software.

To solve this collaboration problem, Alpha Serve, who develop enterprise-grade applications for Jira, Confluence, and other Atlassian tools, identified an opportunity to embed real-time collaboration directly into Jira. This improvement is intended to help businesses establish more efficient communication processes across internal teams and with external customers.

Amazon Chime SDK allows developers to easily add real-time voice, video, messaging and advanced machine learning features into third party applications, and was chosen by Alpha Serve for its flexibility, ease of integration, and scalability. The Amazon Chime SDK development framework allowed Alpha Serve to rapidly build voice, audio, and screen sharing features that tightly integrate into the Jira interface. Amazon Chime SDK will also allow Alpha Serve to add phone services and persistent
messaging to the solution, if needed in the future.

This article provides information on the messaging application’s architecture, deployment and use.

Architecture

Amazon Chime SDK was utilized by Alpha Serve to develop the Jira marketplace application called Meetings for Jira with Amazon Chime. Meetings for Jira with Amazon Chime allows users to connect via a call, a video meeting, or a screen sharing session directly from within a Jira Software issue or Jira Service Management ticket.

The following diagram shows the end-to-end architecture of the solution, illustrating the key components of the Amazon Chime SDK used in the solution, and the approach adopted by Alpha Serve in delivering the application.

The application utilized several Amazon Chime SDK libraries including:

• amazon-chime-sdk-js, a JavaScript client library for integrating multi-party communications powered by the Amazon Chime SDK service, and used for the back-end and infrastructure;
• amazon-chime-sdk-component-library-react for the user interface development.

Deployment

To begin using the application, the Jira administrator must download and install Meetings for Jira with Amazon Chime on to their Jira instance. The procedure is described in the accompanying Installation Guide.

To use the application, it is necessary to generate an access key. This is accomplished via the user’s AWS account. After generating and adding the key to the application, the user is then able to configure Meetings for Jira with Amazon Chime by navigating to Apps → Meetings for Jira → Settings.

User experience

Meetings for Jira with Amazon Chime enables Jira users to collaborate and share their screens in audio and video chat sessions, launched directly from Jira Software Issue or Jira Service Management Ticket forms. This is helpful for service desk and support teams, as team members can now schedule or start an instant dialogue with users, customers, or colleagues with just one click. The Meetings for Jira with Amazon Chime application also includes a meeting scheduler.

During chat sessions users are also able to add other Jira users as participants or invite external users simply by sharing a link. The communication history can be tracked as call records are automatically created. The embedded screen-sharing option allows support teams to view a customer’s screen, enabling easier problem resolution. Product and project managers and engineering teams are also able to share and discuss a range of Jira collateral in real-time.

Starting a meeting

The Meetings for Jira with Amazon Chime solution makes it easy to initiate a conversation: navigate to the issue that you would like to discuss with your teammates or customer, and select the “Open Chime Meeting” button as illustrated below.

Select “Create meeting” when prompted, as illustrated below.

You can also invite other Jira users to participate in a meeting by adding them in the Attendees window, as illustrated below.

Scheduling A Meeting

If you need to schedule a call, select the Scheduled meeting checkbox. The Create button will either join you instantly to a meeting or add a scheduled meeting, dependent on the checkbox setting.

To invite anyone outside of your Jira instance to join the conversation, you can simply copy the meeting link and share it with the appropriate people.

Meeting History

A history of meetings will be automatically created as comments in the relevant Jira issue. An example is shown below.

Conclusion

With the Meetings for Jira with Amazon Chime application, Jira users no longer need to switch between different tools to access team collaboration features such as audio and video chat rooms, and screen sharing. Instead, they can focus on their core competency, problem solving, with greater efficiency. Remote teams can now work together more effectively, connecting via voice and video chats on a regular basis, or scheduling meetings, all within Jira.

For Jira Service Management users, support teams can now provide customers with the option of real-time support, linked to the case ticket. This enhances the service level for customers, which can lead to an improved customer experience.

The application can be installed, configured, and in-use within just a few minutes.

The Meetings for Jira with Amazon Chime application is available with a free 30-day trial on the Atlassian Marketplace. It is also offered free of charge for small teams with up to 10 Jira users.

To learn more, please refer to the Amazon Chime SDK website and the Meetings for Jira with Amazon Chime documentation.