What are my options for shadow IT apps?
Who can do this? |
When you review your list of shadow IT apps (also known as discovered apps), we recommend that you contact the admins of these apps to understand whether their app is still in use and the kind of data it contains. How to review shadow IT apps
You can manage user requests for new apps and prevent them from signing up for new apps when you have these eligible app plans:
Confluence Enterprise
Jira Enterprise
Jira Service Management Enterprise
Teamwork Collection Enterprise (excluding Loom)
Trello – only if you have any of the Enterprise plans listed above
Bitbucket Premium
Manage your users' requests for shadow IT apps
Join as an admin
This option is only available if the shadow IT app is created in an organization with the centralized user management experience. If the app is created in an organization with the original user management experience, you need to contact support to join the organization as an admin.
When you need to see the apps your managed accounts use outside of your organization, you can join the organizations the shadow IT apps are created in as an organization admin. When you become an organization admin, you can manage all apps in that organization. You’ll also receive access to billing details for the organization. If you decide to delete the app, we suggest you save or move its data to your company’s organization before deleting it.
To join as an admin of a shadow IT organization:
Go to Atlassian Administration. Select your organization if you have more than one.
Select Apps > Shadow IT > Shadow IT apps.
Select Actions (•••) > Join as admin.
If you remove the managed account as an organization admin for the shadow IT organization, the app remains a shadow IT app (discovered app) of your company’s organization, but you won’t see any contact information for the managed account when you select View organization admins for the app. You also won’t be able to Join as admin for this app.
Talk to the admins
When you contact admins, you may encounter one of the following situations:
You find out the admin is currently using the app with their team. You can have a further discussion about the kind of data the app contains. You may allow them to keep using the app or ask that they consolidate its data with an app you already administer.
The employee responds that they forgot that the app exists or that they're no longer actively using the app. You can ask them to delete the app or make you an organization admin so you can delete it.
The employee may not respond, which means that you’ll need to spend more time tracking down their team or manager. If you don’t hear anything, it’s possible that the employee has left the company. If so, you can reactivate and take over their Atlassian account.
Decide what to do about the app
You have various options for shadow IT apps. What you decide to do depends on your organization and how you want to manage apps. Most of these options require you to be an organization admin for the shadow IT organization.
Delete the app
You could join a discovered app and see how the employee is using it. If you choose this option, you can manage or delete any other apps under the same organization. You may want to let the employee consolidate their data with an app you already administer before deleting the discovered app.
If you determine that an app isn’t useful, you can permanently delete it. To delete the app, you need to cancel its subscription.
To cancel the subscription:
Go to Atlassian Administration. Select your organization if you have more than one.
Select Billing.
Select Manage > Manage subscriptions.
In Manage subscriptions, go to Active subscriptions > (•••)
Follow the prompts on the screen
Do nothing and allow apps to remain separate
Depending on your company size or how employees are using the app, you may decide to do nothing about a discovered app. If you choose this option, these apps will remain in the Shadow IT apps list, and users will continue managing them separately.
Allow users to keep using apps after you transfer them
Transferring apps won’t work if you have the centralized user management experience. Contact support to transfer your apps to another organization.
If you prefer to manage all apps from the same place, transfer the app to your company’s organization. After the transfer, you can give its users an app admin role so that they can continue to manage the app. Transfer all apps to another organization
Ask users to start using apps that already exist
Your users may not be aware that your organization has already set up apps that meet their needs. To avoid duplicate costs, you may want employees to use apps that already exist within your organization. This may require you to grant them access to apps that already exist.
If they don’t want to lose the Jira issues or Confluence spaces they were already using, you can import issues and individual spaces to your existing apps.
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