My Mentions for Jira

My Mentions for Jira
Gather all your Jira mentions in one place
View all your messages on the Issue View
Ping people in many issues with a single message
Reply to important messages instantly

Inspiration

Working intensively with Jira, we all struggled to keep up with all the notifications. Again and again, someone missed an important comment that got buried under hundreds of Jira status updates. So many times we’ve heard our colleagues saying “If only there were some filters for those things“. That’s how we came up with the idea of filtering out all the notifications where someone mentioned us by name. Then, it only got better as we started adding new handy features that made our lives easier, including additional quick filters, instant replies, and bulk comments.

What it does

My Mentions gathers all the Jira comments and descriptions where you’ve been mentioned since the app activation and displays them in the glance panel of any issue. There, you can preview all the details such as the issue status, assignee, reporter, and time elapsed since the mention was added. It allows you to manage all the comments without leaving the issue you’re currently working on.

Filters: Once a list of your mentions is displayed, you can search through them using keywords (Text, Author), quick filters (Read, Unread), and custom JQL. They can be mixed and matched at will - the list shows combined results of all the filters.

Instant replies: You can reply to messages directly in the app, without interrupting your work. No need to skip multiple issues or scroll through tens of notifications anymore. My Mentions will add the comment right where you need it.

Bulk comment: Save time by commenting many issues at once. Quickly ping your colleagues with a default message or write a longer custom message to provide them with more details.

How we built it

My Mentions was built on the Forge platform using Custom UI and Custom UI Bridge for secure integration with Jira. We built the frontend relying on Atlaskit and UI kit. The backend is based on App Storage.

The app consists of a backend part where we communicate with Jira and Forge Storage. All views are built in React. The information is passed to the backend using Forge Bridge.

Challenges we ran into

We hadn't worked in Forge before, so the difficulty was that we had to rely heavily on Atlassian documentation (which is, by the way, very well written and helped us a lot).

An additional challenge was to create a React application that determines the rendering of a proper view depending on where it should be displayed. As a result, our modal dialogs use the Forge Custom UI without us having to create any additional React application.

An unexpected benefit of our difficulties was that we made many connections with other professionals in the industry. You could reach out to the Atlassian Community with any question and there was always someone willing to help you solve the problem.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of our team and everyone involved in the project, because their commitment and skills made it possible to create things that were initially impossible. Starting with a humble idea we developed an app that fulfills our expectations and is exactly what we wanted it to be. Of course, there is still a lot to do around the mentioning system, but implementing our further ideas is just a matter of time.

What we learned

We explored the Forge platform in depth and learned how to cooperate with the people who create it. Additionally, we got to know the direction in which the Atlassian platform is being developed. We also had a chance to learn more about the capabilities of the components from the Atlaskit library.

What's next for My Mentions for Jira

Within a month we're going to submit the app for publication on the Atlassian Marketplace. Then, we plan to support the app and develop new functionalities, such as: