Compare Jira Service Management cloud and server

Jira Service Management Cloud, Jira Service Management Server (formerly Jira Service Desk), and Jira Service Management Data Center (formerly Jira Service Desk) all have the same core functionality: they let you receive, track, manage, and resolve requests from customers.

There is, however, some variation in features and the user interface across these deployment options. Understanding and communicating these differences is essential to planning a successful migration, setting expectations for your stakeholders and users, and landing happily in cloud.

Here is a list of features available in Jira Service Management Cloud that are distinctly different from Jira Service Management Server/Data Center (formerly Jira Service Desk):

More powerful project templates

Jira Service Management Cloud offers a collection of diverse project templates to choose from. These templates, complete with specific request types, will support all sorts of teams (not just ITSM) like HR, legal, finance etc.

Easier request triaging

Queues in Jira Service Management Cloud provide handy inline actions that let you rapidly update tickets, which can save you time when setting assignees or changing status. You can also save queues to your starred items and return to them faster. And all this comes with a simplified issue view and a clean user interface.

Out of the box Atlassian email

Every Jira Service Management Cloud project is provided with an Atlassian email for receiving customer requests. You can also connect a Google, Microsoft or other custom email address to your service project and view email logs for each of these accounts. To provide extra control over who has access to your service project, you can allow or block certain domains.

Simplified access for customers

With Jira Service Management Cloud, you can provide a friction-free help experience to your customers with an improved user interface. You’ll have the option of opening up your portal to a larger audience with login-free portal access. Customers can also get in touch with you via your default Atlassian email or via widgets you’ve embedded on any website you control.

Better knowledge management

You can create a curated experience for your customers by categorizing your knowledge base articles in Confluence. This will help your customers to quickly find the information they need to be able to resolve their own requests.

Request management on the go

The Jira Service Management Cloudmobile, tablet and Mac apps help admins and agents manage requests on the go. Service requests, incidents, approvals, and change management tickets can be easily triaged via the mobile apps.

Improved language support

You can meet your customer’s language preferences by adding additional languages to your service project. Customers can then see your portal and help center in their preferred language. In Jira Service Management Cloud, you can also link Confluence spaces to a specific language, translate your customer satisfaction surveys and search for translated request types in the portal. Learn more about providing help in multiple languages.

External user management

You can integrate your existing G Suite user directory with your Atlassian Cloud site, which makes domain and user management more flexible and manageable. For more information, refer to G Suite integration.

Atlassian Access allows for single sign-on (SSO) and can help you manage authentication and security policies across your Atlassian Cloud users. For more details on Atlassian Access, refer to our Atlassian Access for Cloud FAQs.

Dedicated IT service management template

Jira Service Management Cloud also offers an early access IT service management template that supports rapid and efficient IT service delivery. Using the ITSM template, you can categorize your tickets into incidents, changes, service requests and problems so your team can route and triage tickets quickly and efficiently. You can also respond faster to incidents by looping the right people in straight away using modern incident management powered by Opsgenie. This also allows you to rapidly link and escalate tickets to resolve incidents. You can also deploy changes more confidently by monitoring them through Bitbucket Pipelines or other third-party CI/CD tools, and services created in the services registry.

Features that are not yet available in Jira Service Management Cloud

We’re continuously working on improving our cloud offerings. Some features in Jira Service Management Server / Data Center (formerly Jira Service Desk) that are not available in Jira Service Management Cloud are:

• bulk-watching and reordering queues

• archiving issues and projects

• project-based priority schemes

• direct approval of requests via email

• translating customer email notifications

• importing SLA configurations from other projects

• canned responses in the knowledge base

• integration with Confluence Server

More information and support

We have a number of channels available to help you with your migration.

• For more migration planning information and FAQs, visit the Atlassian Cloud Migration Center.

• Have a technical issue or need more support with strategy and best practices? Get in touch.

• Looking for peer advice? Ask the Atlassian Community.

• Want expert guidance? Work with an Atlassian Partner.