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How to Save 10+ Hours a Week on Atlassian User Management

28 Apr 2025

As an Atlassian admin, you know the drill. Monday morning rolls around, and your inbox is filled with user management requests:

  • "Can you add these 15 new employees to the right Jira groups?"

  • "We need to remove access for these contractors by EOD."

  • "The finance team needs Confluence access ASAP."

  • "Can you audit who has admin access across all our products?"

Before you know it, your entire day is consumed by repetitive user management tasks instead of the strategic projects you should be focusing on. If this sounds familiar, you're not alone.

The True Cost of Manual User Management

Manual user management isn't just tedious—it's expensive. Let's break it down:

Time Spent on Common Tasks

Task

Manual Time

Frequency

Weekly Hours

Adding new users to appropriate groups

5-10 minutes per user

10-20 users/week

1-3 hours

Removing departed users from groups

3-5 minutes per user

5-10 users/week

0.25-1 hour

Adjusting access levels

5 minutes per change

20-30 changes/week

1.5-2.5 hours

Managing admin access

10 minutes per request

3-5 requests/week

0.5-1 hour

Auditing user access

2-3 hours

Weekly

2-3 hours

Troubleshooting access issues

15-30 minutes per issue

5-10 issues/week

1.25-5 hours

Total: 6.5-15.5 hours per week spent on manual user management tasks!

That's potentially almost two full workdays every week dedicated solely to managing users. And this doesn't account for the mental context-switching cost or the inevitable human errors that require additional time to fix.

The Hidden Costs Beyond Time

The impact goes beyond just hours spent:

  • Delayed productivity for new employees waiting for access

  • Security risks from delayed offboarding of departed employees

  • Compliance issues from inconsistent permission management

  • Strategic initiatives that get pushed aside for administrative work

  • Admin burnout from repetitive, low-value tasks

How Automation Changes the Game

This is where Admin Automation comes in. By implementing automated rules for common user management tasks, Atlassian admins are reclaiming their time and improving security in the process.

Real-World Time Savings

Here's how our customers are using Admin Automation to take back their week:

1. Automated Onboarding

Instead of manually adding users to multiple groups, create a rule that automatically:

  • Monitors for new users added to SCIM-synced groups

  • Adds them to the appropriate default Atlassian product groups

  • Ensures they have access to the right project groups

Time saved: 1-3 hours weekly

2. Secure Offboarding

Rather than hoping you remember to remove access for departing employees:

  • Set up a rule that removes users from product access groups when they're removed from your SCIM-synced groups

  • Create a secondary safety net that suspends any non-company email domains that aren't on your allowlist

  • Automatically remove access from consultants or specific users on the day their contract ends.

Time saved: 1-2 hours weekly + eliminated security risk

3. Just-In-Time Admin Access

Instead of granting permanent admin access or manually changing privileges:

  • Implement temporary admin access that automatically grants org-admin privileges to approved users

  • Schedule automatic removal after a set period or when they're removed from the approval group

Time saved: 1-2 hours weekly + improved security posture

4. Simplified Compliance Reviews

Instead of manually auditing who has what access:

  • Create automation rules that maintain consistent access patterns, making reviews more straightforward

  • Ensure proper group membership is maintained automatically so compliance checks focus on exceptions, not routine maintenance

  • Generate predictable user access states that make detecting anomalies easier during reviews

  • Maintain cleaner audit logs through consistent automated actions rather than ad-hoc manual changes

Time saved: 2-3 hours weekly

Getting Started with Time-Saving Automation

Ready to reclaim your time? Here's how to get started with Admin Automation:

  1. Identify your most time-consuming tasks - Which user management activities eat up most of your week?

  2. Start with one high-impact automation - Begin with the process that will save you the most time

  3. Build on your success - Once you've automated one workflow, expand to others

  4. Measure your results - Track how much time you're saving and what you're able to accomplish with those extra hours

Real Results from Real Customers

Before implementing Admin Automation, I spent at least 12 hours each week on user management tasks. Now it's down to less than 2 hours of oversight, and the automation handles everything else. That's 10 extra hours I can spend on projects that actually move our organization forward.

- Sarah T., Atlassian Admin at a Fortune 500 company

The time savings are great, but the peace of mind is even better. I used to worry about missing offboarding requests and leaving security gaps. Now, I know our automated rules catch everything, even when I'm on vacation.

- Michael K., IT Director


Don't let user management consume your work week. With the right automation strategy, you can save 10+ hours every week while improving security and compliance.

Ready to see how much time you could save? Try Admin Automation today and start reclaiming your calendar for what matters most.

You can also read more about the common use cases that Admin Automation supports in our documentation.