Review: Atlassian OnDemand May or May Not Be On Demand

You know, the true American Dream has been one of creative license, the ability to make something out of nothing and then call it everything. Raise the flag, friends — let’s show our pride in our great country! Naturally, though, that great pride, that desire, to create something, definitely plays a crucial role in the business sector. Entrepreneurship. Living the corporate dream.

Face it — business, in particular small business — IS creation! It IS creativity! It’s essentially creating something out of nothing to have that something that was nothing be, well, everything. Ask auto attendants, ask call centers, even ask the copy machine, for crying out loud — they have the glory, they know the truth.

And With the Way the Corporate World Has Become, the Truth IS Apps

So let’s get on the subject of apps then. Lately they’ve been revolutionizing the business industry. CEOs everywhere carry around their smartphones with all kinds of business apps to help them with things like customer relationship management, sales, marketing, networking, the whole nine yards.

What happens, though, when there’s a cloud-based app out there that can compartmentalize all apps necessary for any given business into one personal suite of project management?

What do you get? Huh?

You get…. This.

Rating: 3 1/2 out of 5 stars

Introducing Atlassian OnDemand

So what is this insane app? What does it do? What’s this thing called ‘project management,’ and what does that have to do with other apps out there?

The thing is, Atlassian doesn’t simply sit on the home screen of any chairman’s Android phone or anything. It’s more like a central hub for other apps, typically some favorite apps, that can be used easily, without having to click back to this particular app or that particular app.

It’s a handy app for creating custom dashboards with the ability to sync with a Google account and actually create those Google Docs with ease in real time just about anywhere — on a desktop, laptop, even a smartphone.

Of course, any particular device must have the Atlassian OnDemand app installed. But that’s beside the point.

Users can tap into an Activity Bar, a part of the Atlassian cloud site, providing everything from issue tracking, code reviews, result building, wiki pages, e-mail, events, documents, you name it. It’s particularly useful for IT departments.

The major advantage, though, to Atlassian is the simple fact that it can be universally used among your coworkers or employees. Think of it as a universal dashboard for necessary business apps utilized in any corporation.

And everyone only needs to sign in once. And that’s it. Convenience. It’s all about convenience.

Wow, It’s Big — But the Bigger They Are, the Harder They Fall

And they said the same thing about Jack’s giant at the top of the beanstalk. Look what happened to the giant.

The thing about Atlassian is that it can get sort of clunky in its interface. And because it’s so all-inclusive, there are moments when migrations and synchronizations with other apps or services — such as the OpenSocial apps, for instance — fudge up massively.

It can be so annoying that users may dispense with the censoring ‘fudge’ word and opt for a more ‘colorful’ statement to express their frustration. In addition, user management can get a little cumbersome at times, in the sense that the group languages don’t map the same as license allocation languages.

Think of it this way: it’s easier learning just Spanish than it is learning Spanish and French. One more language to have to learn can be a pain, really.

In addition, some links can be misleading — as in certain non-Google plugins actually show up listed as Google, and that can mislead many admins into uncharted territory. And those admins for sure would be saying the word ‘fudge.’

This is the bottom line, people — be prepared for some work to optimize Atlassian how you want….

The Bottom Line of Atlassian

For sure, though, once you’ve got it figured out, it should work quite smoothly. It’s getting through it that may get difficult.

I guess it all depends on what the business needs. On what you need. And that, of course, is an even bigger question for some entrepreneurs.

Crap. Yet another question to ask. Fudge. (And that’s exactly what Jack’s giant said when he fell off the beanstalk)

Related Keywords: information technology, CRM, Google account