Top 11 Questions For a Jira Admin Interview

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Daniel has been an Atlassian enthusiast for a while. He has worked hard and gained skills as a Jira Admin. Now he wants to steer his career in that direction by appearing for an Interview to be a Jira Administrator at Enlightened Corporations. Here is how he aced the interview:

Meghan :- Hello Daniel! Thank you for joining the zoom meeting?

Daniel:- Thankyou.

Meghan :- You have a very interesting profile Daniel and have mentioned some important skills. What is your take on Jira?

(Daniel smiles and replies hesitantly)

Daniel:- Jira is an important tool for companies nowadays. It is the need of the hour. We can’t really change human behaviour, but we can track and manage human activities, especially in a project driven industry such as IT. It fits different teams in their own unique way. So you don’t get a solution per se, but you get a solution model for project management roadblocks. That’s key to success.

The manager listens, observes his body language and makes a mental note of his answers.

She asks this question to gain an insight into Daniel’s work ethics. Daniel replies without breaking eye contact.

Daniel:- I believe that a balanced combination of both hard work and smart work is the secret to success.

“For eg. Jira has- Upfront and fair licensing policy”

• Features that are not available elsewhere
• One gets latest updates on the progress of projects
• It runs everywhere and is recognized by many famous companies
• Easily extensible and customizable.

These features make it the need of our current organizations with a goal of optimum utilization of resources.

Meghan : Ok, What Agile methodologies does JIRA support?

Daniel: SCRUM and Kanban are the two methodologies supported by JIRA.

Meghan: Can you compare Scrum and Kanban ?

Daniel: Yes

Meghan : Okay Daniel, you must be aware of the Next-Gen projects right? Will you throw some light on “How do the Classic projects differ from Next-Gen projects”?

Daniel maintains his calm through the questions, listens to every word attentively and prepares his answers. His multitasking habits and his polished communication skills seem to come in handy .

Daniel: That is a good point of discussion. We’ve seen tremendous growth through Next-Gen projects.

To be precise, Next-gen service desk projects have a better and simpler project configuration. It allows project admins to have extensive control over set up without involving a Jira admin (whereas in Classic projects, a Jira admin would be required to configure schemes and screens).

Enterprise Service Management templates like HR, Facilities, and Legal, and the Information Technology Service Management template that are not available in classic.

For a Classic project a Jira Admin is required to configure screens and schemes that are project related. Therefore, classic projects have the ability to standardize workflows across projects unlike next-gen while also having greater project configuration complexity.When a Jira admin changes a scheme or screen, every classic project that uses that configuration changes accordingly. In next-gen projects, you can only copy workflows within a project and not to another project on your site.

The manager marks some things in her file. She writes a positive remark on Daniel’s knowledge.

Meghan : Okay! What about JIRA cloud site accessibility.. Can it be accessed via mobile?

Daniel responds with a smile:- Yes, it is accessible. URL should be configured on the JIRA Cloud in the mobile web browser and then one can access JIRA through mobile devices.

Meghan : Alright! You must be aware of the rising cyber scams and frauds. How would you explain security settings in JIRA?

Daniel: The security setting is quite good at JIRA, it helps control and manage who should have read or write access to the issues. This can be created while developing issues for managers through admins.

Meghan : That’s for the security settings but what if there are modifications to be made in multiple bulk issues?

Daniel thinks and pauses for a minute. He forms a mental picture of the process and answers.

Daniel: There is a Bulk Change option in the tools menu on the navigator. Following kind of bulk operations can be performed on JIRA:

This is a smooth process and can help solve bulk issues with ease.

Meghan: Daniel, would you explain “What is the major difference in the Jira server vs Jira cloud administration, keeping in mind hosting and security”?

Daniel: Sure,

Instead of installing and maintaining products on your own servers,it; hosts, sets up, secures and maintains your products in the cloud for you.

Server and Data Center

Atlassian’s self-managed products allow you to install, host and run products yourself, either on your own hardware or through cloud hosting services like AWS. Onecan customize their set up according to their liking.

The major difference between the two is that hosting, security, compliance in Server is mostly self-managed by the user company, while it is Atlassian managed in Cloud administration.

Meghan : The next question is a practical question. “What If a user is unable to comment on the ticket in the service desk, what could be the issue here?”

Daniel pauses, takes a minute and replies.

Daniel: According to my understanding, to add comments to an issue, the user needs following two permissions for the relevant project:

• Browse Project project permission — to view the issue to be commented on
• Add Comments project permission — to add a comment to the issue.

If the user is just a customer he will need only Add Comments permission and if these users are customers (with no JIRA access) then they will only be able to comment on issues they reported and the ones they were added as participants.

Meghan : You seem to have a thorough knowledge of this software. I have a few more questions before we settle this interview. How do you feel so far?

Daniel: Thank you, I feel comfortable and at ease. I’m still learning about the s and believe that learning is a continuous process.

Daniel sips water from the glass in front of him.

Meghan : Could you talk briefly on Reports in JIRA?

Daniel thinks and asks for a minute to think. He takes his time to develop his answer and then raises his eyes and answers.

Daniel: To track the progress in Agile, a Burndown Chart shows the actual and estimated amount of work to be done in the sprint. A typical burndown chart is, where the red line indicates the actual task remaining while the blue line indicates the ideal task remaining during the scrum cycle.

Meghan: What would be your quick 5 hacks for a JIRA admin?

Daniel: There are a lot of things that one gets to discover at this job. My top 5 would be:

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