Atlassian is complementing its widely-used issue tracking platform with a help desk tool that aims to “improve operational efficiency, reduce overall time to resolution and increase customer satisfaction.”

The newly launched JIRA Service Desk builds on the workflow and tracking capabilities available in JIRA to provide an array of fine-grained management functions, most notably the ability to configure service level agreement parameters by issue type and severity level. Other features include a self-service knowledge base and customizable team queues that can be used streamline the prioritization of tickets and requests.

Service Desk offers a “lean and clean” UI that makes it easier for users to file requests and address problems. The interface can also be used to produce reports using Altassian’s homegrown JIRA Query Language, or JQL.

“Customer demand for a specific service desk solution built on JIRA has been strong and growing, and we’re excited to introduce a new experience for both agents and end-users,” said Bryan Rollins, the head of Atlassian’s JIRA group. “The service desk software category has historically been defined by software users don’t like. That ends today with the introduction of JIRA Service Desk. ”

The launch of JIRA Service Desk comes on the heels of a major rebranding initiative that introduced renamed versions of Atlassian’s Agile development, sharing and SharePoint integration solutions. A few weeks prior, the company updated its Confluence team collaboration software with a relevance algorithm for filtering information and a new add-on that lets users integrate third cloud storage services into their environment.

Telerik is taking a similar approach to enterprise collaboration. The company recently enhanced its Icenium service to support Microsoft Visual Studio, a popular development platform among .NET professionals.