We are 10 months away from server end of support on Feb 15, 2024. During this period, we want to support customers and Marketplace Partners in aligning your future roadmap and cloud migration plans.
For Marketplace Partners who are attending Team ‘23 that is happening in Las Vegas onsite, this is a great opportunity to spend time speaking with Atlassian customers and address some of their top-of-mind questions. We’ve put together this guide to help you make the best of those valuable interactions.
If you are a Marketplace Partner who is not attending Team ‘23, this will also be a valuable guide to assess your customers’ plans, inform your roadmap and guide you on how to address common customers’ questions.
1. Questions you can ask your customers
Below is a guide with suggested conversations we think Marketplace Partners can discuss with customers that will drive clarity around customers’ plans after Server end of support. The prompts are intended to drive understanding of your customers’ journey in migrating to cloud, and how Marketplace Partners are meeting customers’ expectations.
To align your future roadmap with your customers’ plans
Ask: Do you have any plans to migrate to DC or Cloud after Server end of life? If so, which?
Tip: Learn from your customers what their plans are after Server EOL to inform your future Marketplace investments in Data Center (DC) and Cloud.
Details: Follow up to understand why current customers are choosing one platform over another to understand how to balance your investments in each platform.
Ask: (If customer is on DC) Do you foresee Data Center being your long term plan or is it an intermediary stage before moving to cloud long term?
Tip: If you choose to build in DC, keep in mind that some customers may not see DC as their end solution and may be migrating to Data Center as an interim step in their longer term cloud migration journey. Balance your investments so that they are well proportioned to your customer’s short-term and long-term plans.
To support customers who are migrating
Ask: How far along are you in the cloud migration journey, and have you begun your app assessments?
Tip: Find out from your customers where they are in their journey. If they have started their app assessments and are evaluating apps to migrate, how are you supporting your customers in their evaluation? Ask questions to understand if you are meeting your customers’ trust expectations.
Details: Some customers may have higher expectations for reliability, data security and data privacy. Talk to customers to gauge if these are consistent requests and consider if it may be worthwhile to participate in one of Atlassian’s security programs to alleviate your customers’ concerns. The Cloud Fortified program is an option for Marketplace Partners to signal you’ve made additional investments in security, reliability and support for your cloud apps.
Ask: Does the cloud app meet your feature needs?
Tip: Customers may vary in terms of how they use your app and which features they find valuable. Speak with customers to understand how your app’s features are being used to inform your roadmap. If you have any API dependencies, share it with Atlassian to influence our roadmap through our Developer and Marketplace support desk.
We recommend that you prepare an up to date feature parity documentation so that you can be better equipped to answer customers’ questions about their feature requests, and get feedback on it.
Details: You can reference this page for steps on how to share your migration documentation.
Ask: How can I support you in your migration to cloud?
Tip: When your customer faces issues in migrating your app successfully, they will need Marketplace Partner’s assistance in navigating the issue. Make sure there is a clear and established path for customers to seek your help and support in migrating your app.
Details: We understand it is sometimes difficult for Marketplace Partners with a large customer base to respond to a large volume of customer requests. Consider setting systems in place to support your customers effectively through a service desk, email, or building scaled approaches like a FAQ platform with clear and discoverable documentation to address questions at scale. The more comprehensive your documentation, the easier it will be for customers to self-serve without requiring dedicated support.
Ask: What other challenges do you face in migrating apps to cloud?
Tip: We expect customers to be interested to talk to Marketplace Partners about migration specific issues they are facing. We suggest that you review known customers who are in the process of migrating and be ready to address issues that have been identified at Team ’23. If a customer has reached out to you prior to Team ’23, be ready to address their outstanding questions.
Keep in mind that customers could also face challenges such as cloud app pricing, specific regulations such as GDPR, and Enterprise needs like transparency in data management.
2. Prepare for these customer questions
We anticipate that customers will also use Team as an opportunity to speak with Marketplace Partners about your app offerings, trust posture, pricing and data management policies. Here is a series of questions we suggest Marketplace Partners prepare for before Team ‘23. We have provided some tips for how we think Marketplace Partners can address some of these questions, such as making sure the Privacy and Security tab is updated to communicate how customers’ data will be stored.
Be ready to address common questions about server apps
Question: Will I still be able to renew my server app now, before Feb 15, 2024?
Answer: Customers should be able to renew their server apps, pro-rated to an end date of Feb 15, 2024 PT to match server product(s) end of support date. Maintenance for server apps and version updates will also not extend beyond this date.
Question: Is there any way your server app can still be made available for purchase or support after Feb 15, 2024?
Answer: Server apps will no longer be approved on Atlassian Marketplace apps after Feb 15, 2024. While companies are always free to offer their own IP and software directly to customers, it will be an independent offering that is not associated with Atlassian Marketplace.
Support for server app is expected to continue until Feb 15, 2024 PT.
Question: Can I continue using the server app after Feb 15, 2024?
Answer: If customers choose not to uninstall server apps across their Data Center or server instances, they may contact their Marketplace Partners directly.
Note: certain methods of contacting the Marketplace Partner through the Atlassian Marketplace may be unavailable.
Help customers plan for their migrations
Question: With Server EOL approaching, do you plan to build your app in Cloud or DC, and when will that become available?
Tip: Customers need to evaluate which apps to include in their cloud migration journey. Sharing your plans for your apps after Server End of Support in Feb 2024 will help customers evaluate whether to include your app in the app assessment phase, or to start looking for alternative apps.
Question: How do I know if you plan to build in DC or Cloud?
Tip: Share with customers ways alternatives ways they can use to stay informed of your plans to build in DC or Cloud, other than checking Marketplace listings. Make sure your roadmap is up-to-date and discoverable online so customers can follow your releases and plans.
Question: Will your app support data residency now or in the future? When will that be?
Tip: Data residency is on the 2023 roadmap for Marketplace apps built in Connect, and will be available later in Forge.
Question: Do you have any plans to build in Forge?
Tip: Some customers may prefer Forge because it is hosted in the Atlassian cloud. If you are not currently building in Forge, clarify with your customers their reasons for preferring Forge and address their preferences.
While Forge is one way that apps can minimize handling of sensitive customer data and reduce the effort required to build secure apps, we know that Marketplace Partners building on Connect have other means of achieving the same through their own security and trust programs.
Question: Why can’t we license your app at a lower tier than our base product?
Tip: This is unfortunately a limitation of the current Atlassian billing system, where the base product and app licenses are coupled and must be on the same tier.
Atlassian is exploring making this improvement in the future.
Question: The cloud version of your app is more expensive, would you provide any discounts?
Tip: Customers moving from server to cloud often experience “sticker shock” because cloud is a subscription based pricing model, unlike the maintenance fee model on server.
You can consider options such as loyalty discounts for DC and Server migrating customers that provide 20% off in their first year as long as they apply before June 2023. A second option is for Marketplace Partners to opt it to dual licensing where your migrating customers can have their DC or Server apps extended at no extra cost for up to one year.
Lastly, Marketplace Partners also have the option of providing a promotion with custom promo codes.
Question: Why are your cloud apps more expensive than the DC and Server version?
Tip: Share with customers that Atlassian and Marketplace Partners are responsible for the costs of hosting, supporting the infrastructure and maintaining reliability, and security of cloud apps. Unlike DC or Server instances that are hosted by customers, Atlassian and Marketplace Partners will bear ongoing costs of operating the app in cloud as we scale. Therefore, cloud apps are on a subscription based model to reflect these costs that have shifted.
If there are other features or functionalities in your Cloud app, do share with your customers how they also contribute to this price delta.
Communicate your app’s trust posture
Question: How will my data will be used and stored?
Tip: Share with your customer your privacy and security practices, including policies, documentation or standard agreements you may have. Communicate how you plan to use the data they share, what data is collected, and how they can deleter user data upon request.
We also recommend that you update the Privacy & Security tab before it is rolled out to customers during Team ’23.
See this page for more on our recommended data privacy guidelines
Question: How will my sensitive data be handled? Will you have access to them as a Marketplace Partner?
Tip: Conversations about data protection are easier if your app does not store any data outside of Atlassian products or services, but we recognize that is not always possible when apps need to use external storage to perform functions customers want. In these instances, be ready to outline any protection mechanisms you have in place to protect customer’s data. Share how your application is designed to store sensitive information like personally identifiable data, financial data, source code and more; as well as the controls in place.
Be ready to share any audits and security controls that will ensure the policies are implemented and operating effectively. Look through this resource to determine what have you implemented that you can share with your customers.
Question: What happens if my sensitive data is leaked? How will you remediate the situation?
Tip: We recommend Marketplace Partners to prepare a security incident management guideline that cover the steps you will take in the event of an incident. Share your SLAs to communicate and investigate a security incident, and what customer data is used and stored in the app.
Question: Can you help me with migrating your app more easily?
Tip: Share if you have plans to, or have built, an automated migration pathway through Jira Cloud Migration Assistance (JCMA) and Confluence Cloud Migration Assistance (CCMA)
If you have not yet registered for Team ’23 that is happening April 18-20, 2023 , visit our page here and register today.