4 Hacks to Increase Your Team’s Engagement with Jira Email Notifications.

by | Jan 23, 2020

Patrick Berry, a  JAVA middleware developer, gave an interesting presentation for Atlassian on Jira:

As technology workers and managers we often have more things to do than we have time, so we are constantly on the lookout for time savers. They say that time is money and we all know that to make money you have to spend money. A similar concept applies to time in that you have to spend time to save time. Jira helps you do this.

As developers, we are all about creating systems and automations to make the best use of our time. That’s what Notification Assistant for Jira – Email provides. 

Notifications are a powerful way of communicating with your team that are currently ineffectively used by developers. The secret is sending personalized Jira email notifications to the right users at the optimal times. Jira Notification Assistant has helped a lot of organizations send the right email to the right people at the right time. Pulling from our experience in the industry, here are the 5 best practises to craft a successful notification strategy.

#1: Manage Jira email notification settings. Stop the SPAM!

Manage Jira email notification settings

We all hate those cold calling agents who say:

“Hi, am I speaking to Mr Smith?”

Your heart sinks and all you think about is:
“What are you trying to sell me and how can I get rid of you?”

That’s the same problem with generalized Jira notifications – which are often as resented as dreaded SPAM mail. 

When notifications aren’t personalized, people get the same feeling. How to get rid of this inbox clutter as quickly as possible? The answer is easy; give up on inbox zero and never open the notifications, or quickly click on it, then change the settings to never receive any more Jira SPAM. 

The key is to ensure the Jira notifications are sent to the right person, with the right information, at the right time, with the right context. 

#2: Attaching Media to Jira Notifications is a must.

Attach media to Jira Notifications

Thanks to millennials, and the generations after, we can no longer use just text… it’s boring and our ADD/ADHD selves can’t stand reading too much text without some excitement or colour. Instead, a healthy balance of images, short videos, action buttons, and icons get users excited about clicking into your notifications. 

The reality is that everyone gets notifications on a daily basis… what’s going to make yours stand out?

Manage Jira Notification Email Scheme

The right content at the right time – that is the key. Let’s say that you have a new employee onboarding in Jira. This is the perfect time to send a notification with a YouTube video outlining the company’s values and an infographic with some interesting industry-related data. 

Rich media isn’t just pictures and icons, it means that the content you share is valuable.

For instance, instead of sending your senior managers a series of notifications for every action taken by their staff, send ONE notification with a summary of all action items, and a button allowing them to approve or reject them. Saving your managers’ time will ensure they engage with future notifications. 

 

#3: Timing is everything. Schedule notifications in Jira.

Schedule notifications in Jira

Depending on your project, you may have developers all over the world. Sending a notification that triggers at 8 am LA time (just in time for the morning caffeine to have kicked in) will hit your Hong Kong developers at midnight. Unless they are dreaming about the project, chances are they won’t be triggered at the right time. 

Also, some cultures have an early rising mentality. Some cultures are more in tune with the night owl approach, where their most productive work is in the late afternoon. You need to ensure that your notifications are displayed during the recipients’ productive time. 

“I’m too busy to …” Everyone

I’m sure you’ve heard someone use that excuse before. In our digital era we’re bombarded with information overload. 10 friend requests, 17 work notifications, 22 unread emails, 13 news feed updates and 3 missed calls… and it’s only 8:03am. 

Turn off email notifications for Jira

It’s not all doom and gloom. There is a silver lining:

You can’t have information overload if you only show relevant information.

Does a user really need 20 emails to wake up to from every issue being updated overnight? Of course not. Instead, save the user time, a headache and potentially a melt down by sending a summary email at 8am with a bulleted list of “What happened overnight.” 

 

#4: Use tools to enhance Jira notification creation schemes.

Enhance Jira notification schemes

Notification Assistant for Jira Email, developed by an Atlassian Top Vendor, allows you to improve your notifications and get your developers better engaged with your notifications.

This tool will help you send customized notifications to a targeted group of people; avoid spamming your users by triggering notifications at given intervals, style the notifications with various email templates, automatically publish notifications to Slack and much much more…

Notification Assistant for Jira can help you hack your notifications and get your developers engaging and communicating more often, with less spam.

Notification Assistant for Jira

The application of choice to create custom notifications and stay up to date on the latest aspects of your project. Some of the key benefits include;

Using JQL queries to build notifications

Creating notifications has never been easier. Use JQL queries, choose the recipients and notify Jira users or Service Desk customers based on their roles, groups, or email addresses.

Customize email templates to suit your needs

Pick an email template from our various options or create a custom email theme. Effortlessly include the subject, choose a color, write an email message and select the Jira fields to display in notifications.

Send notifications to your systems via API

Notify your internal or external REST-API. Specify a JSON post-data that contains values from the issue that is triggered. Use placeholders to give your JSON the specific data you want to post.

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