Everyday use · 4 min read
Getting started
Where ImproveDesk appears in Jira, how to open your project register, and what the four screens are for.
Where ImproveDesk lives
ImproveDesk is a Jira app, so there is nothing to log into separately. Once an administrator has installed it from the Atlassian Marketplace, it appears in four places.
| Where | What you get |
|---|---|
| Project sidebar Improvement Register | The main screen. Register, board, dashboard and settings for that one project. This is where you will spend almost all your time. |
| Project settings ImproveDesk Settings | Configuration for the project — categories, currency, cadences, score weights and approval policy. Requires the Jira administer projects permission. |
| Any Jira issue Continual Improvement panel | Shows which improvements that issue contributes to, so somebody working a ticket can see why it matters. |
| Top navigation ImproveDesk Portfolio | A picker listing every project register you are allowed to open. Useful when you look after more than one team. |
Opening your register
- From a project Open the Jira project, then choose Improvement Register in the sidebar. The register you get is scoped to that project — improvements never leak between projects.
- From the portfolio page If you do not know which project holds the register, open ImproveDesk Portfolio from the top navigation and pick from the list.
The list shows projects that hold improvements, filtered to those you may browse. If a colleague can see a register you cannot, that is your Jira project permissions at work, not an ImproveDesk setting.
The four screens
Across the top of the register you will find four tabs. They are all views of the same data for the same project.
- Register — the list. Filter, search, sort and export. See Finding improvements.
- Board — the same improvements grouped into columns by status. Useful in a stand-up or a review meeting when you want to see where work is stuck.
- Dashboard — the numbers. Open and overdue counts, benefits realisation, cycle time and breakdowns. See Reading the dashboard.
- Settings — project configuration, for administrators. See Project settings.
The attention banner
Above the tabs sits a banner summarising what needs looking at: how many improvements are overdue, stale, due for benefit review or unowned.
The date at the end matters. The banner is produced by a job that runs once a day, so it tells you when the figures were last recomputed. If that date stops advancing, the scheduled job has stopped running — which is worth raising, because a digest that has frozen looks exactly like a backlog that is under control.
A record can be counted more than once. The four numbers in the banner are independent counts, so one improvement that is both overdue and unowned appears in both. The total at the front is the number of improvements needing attention for any reason.
What you can do without any special permission
If you can see the Jira project, you can use the register: view it, raise improvements, edit them, move them through the lifecycle, comment, archive and export. Only two things need the Jira administer projects permission — changing project settings, and permanently deleting an improvement.
There is no separate ImproveDesk user list, no roles to assign and nothing to keep in step with Jira. Access follows your Jira project permissions.
Next: put your first record in the register with Raising an improvement.