Deprecation Notice: Deprecation of the External Asset Platform

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Hello Developer Community,

Today we are sharing an important update about our External Asset Platform- a set of APIs that allows apps to connect external CMDBs and / or external inventory databases into Jira.

Prior to Atlassian’s acquisition of Mindville and its asset management app, Insight, the External Asset Platform was the sole method by which customers could display their assets within Jira. Since then, we have added Assets (previously known as Insight) as a native capability to Jira Service Management, allowing teams to streamline their asset management practices directly within Jira and surface asset data across workflows. PLEASE NOTE: Assets as our native capability is completely separate from the External Assets Platform, and will not be impacted by this change.

As part of our continued focus to improve the native experience of our products, we are deprecating the External Asset Platform. **As of June 30th 2024, the External Assets APIs, platform, and functionality will be shut down. ** We will be announcing a formal End of Life date in early 2024 with a minimum of 6 months notice.

Our goal has always been to provide the best, most integrated, and streamlined service management solutions. We believe that retaining outdated components can sometimes hinder our ability to deliver on this promise. Therefore, the sunsetting of the External Asset Platform is part of our broader strategy to streamline our product offering and improve overall user experience. We are confident that this transition will ultimately bring about a richer and more integrated experience.

For our customers, we recommend exploring Assets for Jira Service Management (available to Premium and Enterprise subscribers). This feature has been designed to comprehensively meet your asset management needs. You’ll be able to track, manage, and update your assets directly within Jira Service Management, and display them across the Atlassian Platform - providing a more integrated and efficient workflow.

For our app developers, we recommend migrating to the Forge platform to integrate with Assets in Jira Service Management. Forge’s powerful features and capabilities provide a strong foundation for building robust and innovative applications, allowing you to provide a seamless, efficient, and productive asset management experience for end users.

We understand that this change might bring about questions and concerns. We’re here to support you - if you have any questions or need assistance in transitioning, please don’t hesitate to reach out or submit your feedback using the following form.

Thank you for your continued partnership with Atlassian.

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This is devastating news for us :frowning: It definitely erodes the trust we have in using the Atlassian platform for our apps.

I guess this was already hinted at when Atlassian tried to rename the External Asset Platform to “Legacy Assets”. At the time, it was communicated to us that there are no plans to deprecate the External Asset Platform. Less than a year later, this is exactly what’s happening now.

It affects three of our most successful apps. Using JSM Assets is not an option, since most of our customers of those apps are not using JSM premium. It’s not a realistic option for us and our customers. Migrating to Forge is also not an option, since all of those apps are Connect apps and it’s not yet possible to migrate our Connect apps to Forge.

All I can ask is to delay the deprecation until we can utilize Forge extension points in our existing Connect apps, so we can replicate the External Asset Platform in our apps - whenever that will be.

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Hi Ben - thanks for your response. The developments in Forge Remote may of interest to you in terms of connecting Forge with existing back-ends.

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As the vendor of another popular asset management app (and a gold partner) that’s impacted by this change, I want to express my deep sense of disappointment with Atlassian.

Is Atlassian giving us the signal that we don’t care about our partners? Should we not be investing resources into this ecosystem?

We’ve long suspected that the “External Assets” platform was on maintenance mode, but getting this deprecation notice out of the blue, without any consultation, feels like a punch in the gut.

The decision also seems to have been taken without considering the significant repercussions it has on customers.

As @BenRomberg pointed out, using JSM assets is not an option since customers don’t want to migrate to JSM premium. And neither is rewriting our app to use Forge.

I would also like to add my +1 to the suggestion of delaying this deprecation until we can use Forge without having to do a full blown migration.

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@frenchie I’m sorry but it doesn’t look like you understand our needs. Until Connect-on-Forge is actually ready to be used for existing production connect apps without the existing blockers, we’re not going to be able to utilize any Forge extension points.

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Hey @frenchie,

I know this comment comes from good intentions, but as a marketplace partner, it’s really disheartening to get these replies from Atlassian.

Not only are you pointing us to an non-production ready EAP of a feature that is still in active development of a platform that is also not deemed production ready for large apps.

You are also assuming as if atlassian gold and platinum partners are not fully aware of the existence of forge.

Again, I know you don’t mean it this way, but this reply is really just a bit condescending, especially in reaction to a partner who is signaling that this change is going to impact their business

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Hi @frenchie,
I’m just going to add my voice to every one else. It’s not towards you - but rather Atlassian as a whole. This action by Atlassian is disappointing and not what I would expect from a “partner” (it goes both ways).

Forge isn’t ready for most partners (it’s got some work) - especially the feature you’re pointing to isn’t production yet.

/Daniel

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Dear Atlassian Developer Community,

Thank you for the update regarding the deprecation of the External Asset Platform. We have some concerns we’d like to address:

  1. Communication: It appears that this change hasn’t been adequately communicated to vendors, and the timing is really challenging.
  2. Clarity: The suggested transition to Forge is unclear, especially regarding whether it’s possible to replicate the full functionality of the current External Asset Platform by using Forge.
  3. Ambiguity in Transition Support: Atlassian’s suggested link appears to explain how to import 3rd party assets to Atlassian’s platform, which is not useful at all for app vendors. What we need is a clear guideline explaining technical steps to use Forge to replicate existing External Asset Platform functionality.
  4. Postponement: Given these concerns, we kindly request a postponement of the deprecation until a reasonable deadline and a clear transition path, along with guidance on replicating functionality using Forge, are established.

Thank you for your understanding and collaboration.

Best regards,
Onder Ozcan
from Appfire
Assets and Inventory Plugin for Jira Team

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Thank you all for sharing your feedback and concerns regarding this announcement. We understand that the absence of a clear migration path can be frustrating and disruptive. We would like to assure you that your concerns have not fallen on deaf ears and, given this feedback, we are exploring avenues to guide a more seamless transition. Please bear with us as we discuss internally and we will be in touch with next steps soon.

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Hello everyone,

Thank you again for your feedback. After further discussion internally we acknowledge that a transition to Forge may not yet be a suitable alternative for all app developers. With this in mind, we are making some modifications to this deprecation:

  1. We aim to make JWT auth available for the above JSM Assets REST APIs early next year to allow them to be used by existing Connect apps.
  2. We will continue to maintain the External Assets Platform until 6 months after launching JWT support for the JSM Assets REST API.
  3. We will formally re-announce an End of Life date for the External Assets Platform when JWT support is launched. At this stage we anticipate this to be towards the end of 2024.

We acknowledge that the the JSM Assets APIs are substantially different to the External Assets Platform, and may require you to reconsider the design or use-cases served by your apps. Whilst JWT authentication is to be added, the APIs are available already, and we would encourage you to evaluate them to understand the impact on your apps.

For those partners ready to build a Forge app for JSM Assets, we have written a guide that will hopefully make the process of building a Forge app using the Imports API easier, this also includes best practices to create long running tasks on Forge https://developer.atlassian.com/platform/forge/assets-import-app/

We further recognise that JSM Assets is exclusively accessible to Premium and Enterprise customers. That said, given its status as our native Asset Management feature, we are convinced that JSM Assets provides an enhanced experience for customers requiring asset management solutions. Concentrating our efforts on these native capabilities enables us to maintain our commitment to this area and continuously improve our current offerings.

We appreciate your partnership and contribution to the Atlassian ecosystem. If you’d like to discuss further, please feel free to set up a time via my office hours booking page or via email (dlinneweber@atlassian.com).

Many thanks,
Doro Linneweber | Product Manager, Jira Service Management

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Not sure if anyone here will use the JSM Assets API, but as long as the deprecation period is extended, it will be useful for our migration.

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Hi Doro,

thanks for the detailed explanation! :slight_smile: We are coming from a bit of a different direction, as we are using the JSM APIs to create requests (using these APIs https://developer.atlassian.com/cloud/jira/service-desk/rest/intro/#jira-cloud-platform-apis). Unfortunately, we currently cannot do this where Assets fields are involved, because the API to query for Assets in the JSM context are also not available via Connect, this one in particular:
/rest/servicedesk/cmdb/1/customer/portal/<portalId>/request/<requestTypeId>/field/<assetFieldId>/autocomplete

We’d be very interested in having this also available, as our customers start to use Assets more and more and we get questions very regularly about this - happy to book a meeting in case you’d like to learn more!

Thanks!
Tobi

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Hi.

Does Atlassian have a migration path for moving data from the Assets Platform to Assets? For example, moving over items from Assets Platform that are linked to tickets.

Is there going to be any deprecation of the Connect Framework for building apps?

Thanks

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Hi @chrisscaglione there is no seamless migration path for the data unfortunately, but if this is an option for you, we would encourage you to explore the guide we have created for writing JSM Assets import apps via Forge which should speed up the time to redevelop the app significantly.
As for your second question, the deprecation of the External Assets Platform is independent from Connect Framework as a whole.

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Hi @tobias.viehweger thank you for the context. I have passed this on to the teams and they are evaluating feasibility. I will be in touch should they have any questions to better understand the scope.

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Hi @DorotheaLinneweber. Thanks for the info!

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Dear Doro,

Thank you for your recent update and for supporting Connect apps with JWT authorization. We appreciate the new timeline for the transition.

However, we need a clear replacement for the External Asset Platform. The JSM Assets API does not work for us as app vendors. It’s important for us to have a good alternative that fits our needs.

Otherwise, it will be a huge inhibitor for marketplace vendors to provide assets and inventory functionality to Atlassian users who do not prefer built-in Asset solutions for one reason or the other.

Looking forward to your guidance.

Best,
Onder Ozcan
Appfire Team

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This is what I want to know. We have a LOT of data tied to “External Assets Object” type fields. We use the field to link support tickets to accounts in our CRM system. I’ve built a system to synchronize our assets into the JSM Assets platform, but Atlassian provided no guidance on how to actually migrate/copy data from the External Assets fields.

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