Atlassian Announces Big New Releases of Flagship Software Development and Collaboration Tools

San Francisco, CA (Vocus/PRWEB) March 16, 2011

Atlassian has released the latest versions of JIRA and Confluence, two software development and collaboration tools used by tens of thousands of product development teams globally. The new versions are more tightly integrated and introduce dozens of new features and fixes.

 

“Integration is a theme you’ll see us talk about more frequently with every product release,” said Mike Cannon-Brooks, Atlassian CEO and Co-founder. “The new Universal Application Links feature makes it possible to not only view and search information between each application, but also to create new content from wherever you’re working.”

 

Integration

The improved Application Links feature in JIRA 4.3 and Confluence 3.5 makes it much easier to connect JIRA and Confluence instances. Users can now quickly and easily develop content from a free-form description in Confluence, then turn it into an actionable task in JIRA — all from within a single, streamlined interface.

 

A new ‘Insert JIRA Issues’ dialog in the Confluence editor lets users insert ‘recently viewed’ JIRA issues, create new issues, or search for existing issues using ‘Quick Search’ or JIRA Query Language (JQL).

 

A new User Directory manager in both JIRA and Confluence allows for connection of Confluence to JIRA for users and groups. JIRA and Confluence administrators benefit from easier set-up and maintenance, and will have just one username and password for both systems.

 

Administrators can also use the same groups to secure projects, pages, issues and spaces across both applications.

 

Confluence

This will be the biggest release to date of Confluence, Atlassian’s enterprise wiki and intranet software. Version 3.5 contains dozens of new features to help users share and discover content, embed media such as videos and presentations more easily, and connect with JIRA. When logging into Confluence 3.5 for the first time, users are guided through a ‘What’s New’ feature tour to assist and update them on all of the powerful updates available.

 

Improved notifications ensure users are updated with conversations they care about; a faster way to share pages and blog posts makes it simple to bring the appropriate people into the activity taking place in Confluence; a new Space Directory allows for organization of Spaces into categories; extended Drag and Drop support for attaching and embedding files and documents, and much more.

 

JIRA

Atlassian JIRA 4.3, a bug and project management tool, is packed with new features, from improved search and usability to new admin and reporting capabilities. Last month, Atlassian also announced the acquisition of the Sysbliss JIRA Workflow Designer plugin. The plugin is now free to JIRA users and offers a visual way of creating new workflows and editing existing workflows.

 

Both JIRA 4.3 and Confluence 3.5 are available today to download and try for free at http://www.atlassian.com.

 

About Atlassian

Atlassian provides software development and collaboration tools to help teams conceive, plan, build and launch great products. More than 22,000 organisations of all sizes use Atlassian’s issue tracking, collaboration and software development tools to work smarter and deliver quality results on time. Learn more at http://atlassian.com.

 

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