Everyday use · 5 min read
Getting started
Where ImproveDesk appears in Jira, how to open your project register, and what the four screens and the attention banner 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 six places.
| Where | What you get |
|---|---|
| Project sidebar ImproveDesk | 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, approval policy, publishing to Jira issues and the email digest. 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. |
| Jira dashboards ImproveDesk gadget | One project's register on a Jira dashboard: four figures and the five improvements waiting longest. See The dashboard gadget. |
| Manage apps ImproveDesk → Configure | Site settings that hold for every project — whether any project may email its attention digest, and what a digest may contain. Jira administrators only. See Emailing the attention digest. |
Opening your register
- From a project Open the Jira project, then choose ImproveDesk 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 with no owner.
The date at the end matters. The banner is produced by a job that runs once a day — the daily sweep — so it tells you when the figures were last recomputed. A summary that has frozen looks exactly like a backlog that is under control, so the banner does not leave you to notice: it changes when the sweep itself needs looking at.
| What the banner says | What it means |
|---|---|
| 10 improvements need attention: … | The normal case, in amber, with the date of the last sweep. |
| Nothing needs attention as at … | The sweep ran and found nothing overdue, stale, due for review or with no owner. |
| The daily sweep last completed on … These figures may be out of date. | The last sweep finished more than 48 hours ago, so the banner shows this warning instead of figures that may no longer be true. Worth raising with whoever looks after the app. |
| The daily sweep last failed on … | The last sweep failed. The reason follows where one was recorded. |
| The daily sweep has not run yet. Attention figures will appear after its first run. | A newly installed app. Expected for up to a day; the banner fills in after the first run. |
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 with no owner 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.
One thing needs more: ImproveDesk's site settings page, reached from Apps → Manage your apps → ImproveDesk → Configure, is for Jira administrators only. It is checked on every read and every save, however the page was reached.
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.