In the beginning
In the early days of Biznas we used Trello to manage tasks. And while Trello is a great tool, and it’s free, we quickly needed to implement a proper project management tool that could handle the needs of a growing software development company.
So we moved to Jira, the platform most of our developers had used in previous jobs, and the platform our CTO preferred.
Jira
Jira is powerful. In fact, I found that it’s entirely too powerful.
You can do pretty much anything in Jira. Setting up a custom workflow, adding custom fields, and reporting to name a few. But with all of this robust capability and endless customization comes a complex configuration and user onboarding process.
SaaS tools should make our lives easier, shouldn’t they?
So we searched for a new solution.
YouTrack
When we were using Jira I would search for “Jira alternatives” once or twice a month to sooth my growing frustrations. I would scan landing pages for a number of Jira’s top competitors, but nothing really jumped out at me.
Then I came across YouTrack.
The landing page for YouTrack makes the same claims that all agile project management software makes: empower your team, drive development, and reporting.
But as I started to become more familiar with YouTrack and see how easy it was to configure, I started to get more and more excited. And here are the three main benefits which sold me:
1 — Commands
Tired of clicking over and over again to add, update, or assign issues? So am I. With YouTrack you can use keyboard shortcuts to do pretty much everything.
2 — Search
Anyone who manages agile projects knows how quickly the system can fill up with data. How do you find what you’re looking for once your system is bulging with data?
You just search. Youtrack is built around a intuitive search function to help you find what you’re looking for. Check it out:
3 — Reporting & exporting
Reporting. This is one of the main pillars which holds up a successful project. But a report is only useful if you can generate it. What’s so good about YouTrack reporting? You don’t have to be a data scientist to generate helpful reports.
A customized report can be created with just a few clicks.
But what really sold me is exporting. Any report, or any search for that matter, can be exported to a CSV file with one click.
And as you know, once your data is in CSV format you can analyze it in a spreadsheet (which is quite a bit simpler than using BI add-ons in Jira).
Another perk of CSV: you can share spreadsheets with project stakeholders to keep them updated and allow them to interact with the data in a format they’re familiar with.
To conclude
If you’re using Jira and have it configured in a way that works for you, awesome. Keep rocking. But if you’re not happy with the complexity of Jira, check out YouTrack.
ps. here’s an overview of YouTrack
