Functional Differences in Refined for Jira Cloud and On-Premise products

A SAAS product integrating Atlassian Tools

• Refined for Jira Cloud is an app connected to Jira. It reads the API’s from Jira Cloud and pulls in the data. This means on Cloud you will always have native Jira existing in parallel with the Refined version of Jira. Whereas on Server when Refined is installed onto Jira, the Jira Service Desk help center and portals will be replaced with the custom look and feel you’ve created in Refined.

An app installed onto Jira

• On Refined for Jira Server and DC the app is installed onto Jira. Refined on Jira Server replaces the ‘customer facing’ pages. So the service desk portals and help desk is replaced with Refined. Jira projects will remain in native Jira and it is only when a Jira project is added to Refined in the site builder that it creates a Refined version of that project. Think of it as a customer facing portal for a Jira project.

Hosted by Refined

• Refined for Jira Cloud is hosted by Refined at refined.site.

Hosted On-Premise

• Refined for Jira Server DC is hosted in the same place as your Jira instance.

An independent Refined platform pulling in external data from multiple data sources

• On Refined for Jira Cloud you can select Atlassian content from Jira, Jira Service Desk and Confluence and expose the content on Refined’s interface.

• You can choose to activate only Jira/Jira Service Desk as the source of content to display in Refined. Or you can choose to activate both Jira/JSD and Confluence. Please note, you will need to purchase both Refined for Jira and Refined for Confluence Cloud to display both Jira and Confluence content.

• Once the content sources are activated, you can add in Jira projects and Confluence spaces to your site builder.

• The admin section of Refined Cloud is its own tooling platform.

• Think of Refined as a CMS or website content builder for Atlassian Tools.

Embedded on Atlassian Jira’s customer facing portals and projects

• On Refined for Jira Server DC you can pull and display content from Jira and Jira Service Desk on your Refined customer facing portal/help center. If you’ve connected a Confluence instance, you can display knowledge base articles from as many Confluence spaces as you wish.

• Refined will display knowledge base articles in-frame. Learn how to configure knowledge base settings.

• The admin section of Refined for Jira is within the Jira admin section.

Site Builder on Cloud

• Think of Refined as a CMS or website content builder for Atlassian Tools. The site builder is where the majority of the site configuration is done.

• Use the site builder to organize the site structure and navigation. Once the data sources are activated, you can add Jira, Jira Service Desk portals and Confluence spaces to a site using the plus symbol.

• Rearrange Jira projects, JSD portals and Confluence spaces (if Confluence connected) into pages and/or sites.

• Navigate to sites using the custom URL.

• Navigate to pages from the top navigation menu (as breadcrumb or dropdown menu).

Learn more on the site organization.

Site Builder On-Premise

• Similar to Cloud, Refined can be thought of as a CMS builder for Atlassian tools. Like on Cloud, the site builder is where the majority of the site configuration is done.

• Use the site builder to organize the site structure, navigation and view permissions. Any existing JSD projects will automatically be in the site builder on the Global JSD Site. Jira projects can be added to a site using the plus symbol.

• Rearrange the Jira projects and JSD portals into categories and/or sites.

• Navigate to sites using the top hamburger menu.

• Navigate to categories from the top navigation menu (as breadcrumb or dropdown menu).

Learn more on site organization.

Same navigation as Server, different ‘Page’ terminology

• On Cloud we call the menu items in the top navigation ‘pages’. Jira and JSD projects are organized into Refined ‘pages’. ‘Pages’ are the same thing as ‘categories’ on prem.

• Each Refined ‘page’ that groups content in the top navigation menu has a page home (dashboard).

• On Refined Cloud, you can create ‘pages’ and sub Refined ‘pages’ in the site builder. Both have ‘page homes’ (dashboard/layouts) by default.

• You cannot deactivate the page homes or sub page homes. However you can add custom links to the top navigation menu. This is a good workaround if you want to deactivate the dashboard.

• Use the layout editor ‘modules’ to add further navigation on your page homes including links, Jira content, images and more.

• Cloud doesn’t include the ‘Knowledge Base’ module, but if you have Refined for Confluence connected you can include the KB articles using the Confluence modules.

Same navigation as Cloud, different ‘Category’ terminology'

• On Prem we call the menu items in the top navigation ‘categories’. Jira/JSD projects are organized into Refined ‘categories’. ‘Categories’ are the same thing as ‘pages’ on Cloud.

• Each Refined ‘category’ that groups content in the top navigation has a category home (dashboard).

• On Prem, you can create categories and subcategories in the site builder. Both have dashboards by default.

• You cannot deactivate the category and subcategory dashboards. However you can add custom links to the top navigation menu. This is a good workaround if you want to deactivate the dashboard.

• Use the layout editor ‘modules’ to add further navigation on your page homes including links, Jira content, images and more.

• On-premise includes some additional Jira sourced content modules to Cloud. These are the ‘Popular Service Desks’ module, and ‘Knowledge Base’ module.

Permissions set in Jira. No additional Refined permissions (for now).

• Permissions need to be configured on native Jira (and Confluence if Refined for Confluence included). It’s not yet possible to add additional site or category permissions (but this is on the roadmap).

• However you can add view permissions to content sections in page layouts. This is the same On Premise.

• On Cloud you can direct users to the right site by simply linking them the URL for a site.

Permissions set in Jira, additional permissions can be set in Refined

• Permissions from native Jira and Jira Service Desk will be honored, and additional permissions can be added to sites and categories.

• On Server you can set start sites for users. E.g., ‘employee user group’ can be set to start at the ‘staff support site’ when they login.

• More info on permissions here.

Not compatible with 3rd party apps

Compatible with some 3rd party apps

Custom Cloud URL for each site

• Unlike on native Jira Cloud, on Refined Cloud you can add custom domains to individual sites. Giving you the option of having multiple use cases connected to the one Refined platform.

Same as native Jira

• On Server you can configure custom domains for Refined just as you would when configuring the domain for native Jira.