Calculating ROI for Glass

Introduction

Whenever you spend money on something, you should consider if its worth it or not. Especially when you spend your company’s money, this questions comes up regularly from your manager, or your manager’s manager. Why should you buy an extra App? Whats the Return Of Investment? Let’s walk through popular use cases, and calculate the price with and without Glass installed.

Average click needed for Getting Information

When you want to get some information, you want it fast. As fast as possible. Lets see some examples, how fast can you get information from your beloved Jira system, as a Simple User, Project Admin and System Admin. Let’s compare these click to reach numbers with Glass in the following table:

 

With Glass

Without Glass

 

With Glass

Without Glass

Clicks needed per Actors

Any User with Glass View Permission

(Starting from Glass Project Page)

Simple User

(Starting from Project Main Page)

Project Admin

(Starting from Project Admin Page)

System Admin

(Starting from Admin Page)

Getting Components

1 click

  • Simply open Components Tab

Components not available.

Still you can explore components from issue screens, where components field applied.

1 click

  • Components shows on Project Sidebar

  • Or Project Admin menu / Components

1 click

  • Components shows on Project Sidebar

  • Or Project Admin menu / Components

Getting Versions

1 click

  • Simply open Versions Tab

Versions not available.

Still you can explore versions from issue screens, where Fix Versions field applied.

1 click

  • Releases shows on Project Sidebar

  • Or Project Admin menu / Versions

1 click

  • Releases shows on Project Sidebar

  • Or Project Admin menu / Versions

Getting Issue Types

1 click

  • Issue types are listed on the General Tab

2 click

You need to click on Create button. If you have Create issue permission on the project, you can browse Issue Types.

1 click

  • Issue Types are listed In the Project admin menu and in the Issue Type Scheme

1 click

  • Issue Types are listed In the Project admin menu and in the Issue Type Scheme

Getting Other People in the Project

1 click

  • Navigate to People Tab

People not available.

You can guess for other people in the project by browsing the user type fields like Assignee.

1 click

  • Users and Roles are listed In the Project admin menu

1 click

  • Users and Roles are listed In the Project admin menu

Getting Permissions in the Project

1 click

  • Navigate to Permissions Tab

Permission overview not available.

You have absolutely no knowledge about Project Permissions, neither the owned Permissions.

1 click

  • Permissions are listed In the Project admin menu

  • Still the Permission overview really hard to understand

1 click

  • Permissions are listed In the Project admin menu

  • Still the Permission overview really hard to understand

Getting Notifications in the Project

1 click

  • Navigate to Notifications Tab

Notifications overview not available.

You have absolutely no knowledge about Events, neither when and who get Emails and why?!

1 click

  • Notifications are listed In the Project admin menu

  • Still the Notification overview really hard to understand

1 click

  • Notifications are listed In the Project admin menu

  • Still the Notification overview really hard to understand

Getting Screens and Fields

2 click

  • Issue Types Tab, then select expected Issue Type

  • Create, Edit, View and Default screen shows up

You can discover screens and containing fields while using Jira. But you have no overview, about fields and Screens.

4 click

  • Screens Schemes are listed in the Project admin menu

  • When opening screen schemes you need to search for issue types and expand them

  • There are links for screens, that you can open on new pages for getting fields

  • Repeat it for every issue types

4 click

  • Screens Schemes are listed in the Project admin menu

  • When opening screen schemes you need to search for issue types and expand them

  • There are links for screens, that you can open on new pages for getting fields

  • Repeat it for every issue types

Getting Workflows for an Issue Type

2 click

  • Issue Types Tab, then select expected Issue Type

  • The expected Workflow appears

4 click - minimum

If you already have issues in the project, you can open them and click on View Workflow. If you don’t, you need to create issues in the project, just to browse the related workflow.

2 click

  • Workflow Schemes are listed in the Project admin menu

  • When opening an issue type, the workflow shows up

2 click

  • Workflow Schemes are listed in the Project admin menu

  • When opening an issue type, the workflow shows up

Analyze Workflow Post Functions, finding Custom Post Functions

2 click

  • Issue Types Tab, then select expected Issue Type

  • The Post Functions are listed for the Workflow

  • Custom Post Functions are highlighted

Simpl not possible. You just can’t know what will happen when you transition an issue.

Still not possible. You still don’t know anything about the existence of Post Functions.

3+(transitions*2) clicks

  • Navigate to Issues / Workflows, search for the expected workflow

  • Edit the workflow

  • Cycle through transitions and check post functions on a new tab

Conclusion about getting information

As a Simple Jira user, you are screwed! Basically your system is a big mystery, you can’t know anything for sure, which can make you depressed and angry. That's bad. Not only for you, but for you productivity, for your admins, your general feedback about Jira and for everyone in your company.

As a Project Admin, you can feel like a small king in your kingdom, you can know many things about your project, you can manage components, version, users, and you can answer Simple User’s questions about your Project. But there are few mysteries, and uncomfortable layouts for you as well.

As a System Admin, you are the true emperor of your system. You know all the answers if you really want, but sometimes it take a little more time as it would be comfortable/affordable for you. Especially questions about projects which created by another administrators, takes much longer to answer.

The cost of a full project configuration documentation

Project documentation helps all the users interacting with the project, also in some industries strict audit rules expect them. If you are not sure why should you create project documentation, read our blog on this topic: https://metainf.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/GLASS/blog/2019/02/22/944734577

Let's try to calculate how much does it cost to create a project documentation for 1 project.

Suppose that an Atlassian Administrator’s hourly rate is 60$ (based on Upwork public data).

Creating a well formatted document, could take 4 to 20 hours, depends on the size and complexity of the project. Lets calculate with an average of 6 hours.

So the documentation of a unique project costs around ~360$.

Let’s compare this to the price table:

 

10 users

25 users

50 users

100 users

250 users

500 users

2000 users

10000 users

10000+ users

 

10 users

25 users

50 users

100 users

250 users

500 users

2000 users

10000 users

10000+ users

Glass Prize / tier

10$

300$

600$

1200$

3000$

5000$

8000$

12000$

16000$

Documentation time for the same money

10 min

5 hours

10 hours

20 hours

50 hours

83 hours

133 hours

200 hours

266 hours

Unique projects can be documented

<1

1 project

~2 projects

~4 projects

8 projects

14 projects

22 projects

33 projects

44 projects

For example if you have an instance with 50 users, you can fully document 2 unique projects manually one time, but if you are on the 2000 user tier, you can create 22 project configuration documentation in 133 man-hours, instead of investing into Glass.

Also don't forget, creating documentation manually will be outdated very soon, there weill be extra maintenance cost as well!

Conclusion about cost and ROI

Glass is an investment, to automate your boring and expensive manual documentation process, makes it easy and sustainable, while your documentation becoming always up to date!

Overall Solution for Project Documentation

At the end Glass saves you lot of time, and time is money.

With Glass, you can create a project documentation with only 1 click / project: https://metainf.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/GLASS/pages/944734549

Over that, you can support your

  • simple Jira users with easy to understand project information (which they could not reach otherwise)

  • project admins to overview their project and educate newcomers

  • system admins to reduce their dependencies, and increase their productivity

Dont hesitate, try Glass now for free!