New Features, Big Wins, Barcelona, and What’s Next!

It’s been a busy six months for our apps, and we’ve got some exciting updates to share! From major milestones to new tools and features, there’s plenty to celebrate. We’re also thrilled to announce that we’ve officially become Atlassian Silver Partners—and we’re already setting our sights on Gold!

Here’s a quick update on what’s new in our world:

The Journey to Easy Calendar for Jira

We’ve been hard at work on Easy Calendar for Jira, which started as a simple idea two years ago during the Codegeist Hackathon: How can we sync any Jira issue to any calendar as easily as possible? Our answer? iCal issue subscriptions—a powerful solution that works with almost any calendar!

Since then, we’ve invested over 1,000 hours into adding new features and refining the app based on your feedback. Easy Calendar offers personalised subscriptions and organisation-wide calendar sharing. And the best part? Despite all the added functionality, it’s still incredibly easy to set up and manage. (Read on to find out what's next!)

How do you plan to use Easy Calendar for Jira?

One of our customers, Julian, shared a particularly creative use case with us. He’s the Jira Admin for a 200-user instance, and his organization recently added a sales team to a project, using Jira to track customer meetings. With Easy Calendar, each sales rep gets a personalized calendar subscription that syncs meeting issues assigned to them from Jira to their regular calendar—helping them avoid scheduling conflicts and plan their time more effectively.

Personally, I use Easy Calendar to sync planned epics and support tickets into my calendar for better visibility. It’s been a game-changer for me, and I’d love to hear how you’re using it too!

Example use cases for Easy Calendar for Jira - Sync user-tailored issue subscriptions to any calendar

Meetical: Now in German and with Confidential Meetings! 🇩🇪

Exciting news for Meetical Meetings for Confluence! We’ve expanded the app to support multiple languages, starting with German. We’ve focused on the end-user meeting macros for now, but we’re planning to add more languages soon—let us know which language you’d like to see next.

In addition, we’ve rolled out Confidential Meetings, allowing you to restrict meeting page access to participants only. This feature is ideal for sensitive discussions like 1-on-1 meetings. When combined with our auto-create feature, you can ensure that only authorized participants can view meeting details—a real game-changer for companies with strict security protocols.

We’ve also introduced the option to track recurring meetings on a single page. Now, for those quick, regular meetings, you can keep all occurrences on one page, reducing clutter and making it easier to track progress over time.

Meeting Overview Macro in German

New Browser Extensions: Safari, Edge, and More!

We’re excited to announce that we’re launching versions of our browser extension for Safari and Edge very soon! If you’re eager to test them out, reach out to us. We’ve already relaunched our Firefox version, and our legendary Chrome Extension for Confluence keeps getting better, with support for both confidential meetings and single-page tracking.

Update: New Safari Extension for Confluence is now live.

The new Safari Extension for Confluence

Outlook Add-in Updates

Our Confluence Outlook Add-in now supports restricted page access and single-page meeting tracking as well. Check out the full blog post for all the details, and make sure to give it a try!

What’s Next?

We’ve got some incredible new features on the horizon! Here’s a sneak peek:

  • For Meetical Meetings, we’re working on a way to automatically carry over open discussion points from previous meetings, so nothing slips through the cracks.
  • You’ll soon be able to link existing Confluence pages to calendar events, making it easier to manage complex projects across multiple meeting series.
  • Inspired by Julian’s use case, we put shared calendar subscriptions for Easy Calendar on our roadmap. This features will maki it simpler to share user-tailored calendar subscriptions across teams and stakeholders.

Stay tuned—these features are set to roll out in Q3/Q4 of 2024!

Meet Us in Barcelona at Team ‘24!

We’re excited to announce that the TEAM24 conference is back in Barcelona this year! We’ll be there and would love to catch up with you. If you’re attending, let me know on LinkedIn!

Atlassian Early Access: Live Edit Pages

Here’s a game-changer: Live Edit Pages for Confluence! This new feature lets you edit Confluence pages in real time, without the need for an edit/publish workflow. Plus, you can use all your favorite macros while editing. Try it out and share your feedback with the Atlassian community!

#Random Thoughts

Before we wrap up, here are a few things on my mind:

  • Music: If you’re into electronic music, check out Fred again… He’s an artist that somehow slipped under my radar during the pandemic, but his DJ sets are incredible!
  • Ukraine: A special shoutout to our Senior Engineer, Alexey Borschenko, who’s still working from Kyiv. It’s a reminder of the importance of supporting Ukraine in their fight against the Putin regime. If you can, consider hiring more talent from Ukraine—it’s one small way to help during these difficult times.
  • Sports: I’ve been getting into Wing Foiling lately, and I highly recommend it if you love water sports. If you’re ever in Lake Garda, let’s catch some waves together!
  • AI: Have you tried Perplexity.ai? It’s a fantastic new AI tool that combines the best of Google and ChatGPT for research and exploration. Definitely worth checking out! Here is an example ;)

That’s all for today! Thanks for sticking with me through this update, and I can’t wait to hear your thoughts. If you’re coming to Barcelona or just want to chat, feel free to reach out!

Stay Meetical,

‍Lukas

‍