
Let's be real: your company’s knowledge is all over the place. It's in Google Docs, deep in forgotten Slack channels, and scattered across thousands of old support tickets. Trying to find a straight answer can feel like a full-blown investigation, wasting time and leading to the same questions being asked over and over.
Atlassian’s new answer to this mess is Rovo, an AI platform that aims to pull all that scattered information together and make it useful. The key to this whole operation is its connectors, the digital pipes that feed information from all your different apps into Rovo’s brain.
This guide is a no-fluff look at Rovo Connector Management. We'll walk through what it is, how it works, and some of the real-world bumps in the road you might encounter. We’ll also look at a simpler way to get all your knowledge in one place without needing a huge IT project to do it.
What is Atlassian Rovo?
Rovo is Atlassian's new AI-powered sidekick, designed to help teams find information, understand it, and get things done faster. The whole thing is built on what Atlassian calls the "Teamwork Graph," which is a fancy way of saying it maps out who is working on what across your company.
In plain English, Rovo is meant to do three main things:
-
Search: It gives you one search bar to look for information across all the tools you've hooked up.
-
Chat: It has a conversational AI you can ask questions to, and it'll pull answers from your company's documents and data.
-
Agents: It comes with AI assistants that can help with routine tasks, like summarizing support tickets or drafting meeting notes.
But here’s the thing: every search, every answer, and every task Rovo performs is only as good as the data it can access. And that brings us to the Rovo connectors. They’re the foundation for everything.
The fundamentals of Rovo Connector Management
Rovo Connector Management is just the official term for setting up, managing, and keeping an eye on the integrations that pull data from other apps into Rovo. Think of them as the bridges that let Rovo read the information stored in tools like Google Drive, Slack, and Zendesk. Without them, Rovo is an empty box.
The two types of connectors in Rovo
According to Atlassian's own documentation, Rovo has two kinds of connectors, and it’s pretty important to know the difference between them.
-
Admin-managed connectors: These are the big ones. An organization admin has to set them up, and they give Rovo permission to access and index content from an entire app (while still respecting who has permission to see what). This is how you build that central knowledge base for Rovo to learn from.
-
Smart Link connectors: These are much lighter. Any user can use them just by pasting a link from another app into a Confluence page or Jira ticket. They're handy for pulling up a specific document in a search result, but they don't add that information to the main knowledge base that powers Rovo's chat and AI agents for everyone else.
The Rovo connector setup process
Setting up those main, admin-managed connectors isn't a DIY job. It has to be done by an organization admin, which usually means you'll need to get in line and file a ticket with your IT department.
The process involves an admin activating Rovo, making sure they have all the right permissions, and then going through the settings to add and authorize each app, one by one. It’s also worth knowing that for most apps, you can only connect one workspace. For example, you can connect your main company Google Drive, but you can't add a separate one for just the marketing team.
What can you connect with Rovo?
An AI knowledge tool is only as useful as the information it can access. Rovo’s value really depends on the number and quality of its integrations. If your most critical info lives in an app that Rovo can't talk to, you're going to have a major blind spot.
Atlassian’s support guides show a decent list of built-in connectors for some of the big SaaS tools.
-
Knowledge & Documents: Confluence Data Center, Google Drive, SharePoint, Notion, Box, and Dropbox.
-
Help desks: Zendesk and ServiceNow.
-
Collaboration: Slack and Microsoft Teams.
-
Project management: Asana, Monday, and Airtable.
There’s also a "Custom website" connector for indexing public websites or internal pages. It’s a solid start, but it immediately raises a question: what do you do when a tool your team actually depends on isn't on this list?
Challenges and limitations of Rovo Connector Management
While Atlassian paints a great picture of Rovo, the reality of its connector-based system comes with some practical headaches that can really slow things down.
Complicated and admin-dependent setup
The biggest hurdle is that the whole system relies on a central admin to set up and manage every single connection. If your support team wants to connect your help center, or the marketing team wants to add a new project management tool, they can't just do it. They have to file a ticket and wait.
This creates a bottleneck that feels pretty outdated. Most teams today are used to picking up and configuring their own tools on the fly. An admin-only system feels slow and rigid, and it stops teams from quickly adding new knowledge sources as they pop up.
A fixed menu of integrations
The "one connector per app" model doesn't leave much room for flexibility. What happens if your sales team uses a CRM that isn't on Atlassian's approved list? Or if your engineers use a custom-built wiki for all their documentation? With Rovo, you're pretty much out of luck.
This inevitably creates gaps in your knowledge base. If the AI can't see information from all your important systems, its answers will be incomplete and its suggestions will be half-baked. The platform becomes a lot less useful when it only has part of the story. Truly unifying your knowledge means connecting all of it, not just the easy parts.
Lack of transparency and control
This was an interesting find. While researching for this article, we noticed that key pages on Atlassian’s own website, including the official pages for Rovo's pricing and connector management, were broken and showing "404 Page Not Found" errors.
This lack of public info makes it really hard for teams to properly evaluate the tool, understand its full feature set, or figure out costs without having to schedule a call with a sales rep. That creates a lot of uncertainty, especially for a new product. Before you commit to a platform that's supposed to be the brain of your company, you need to know exactly what you’re signing up for.
eesel AI: A simpler, more powerful alternative for knowledge integration
A modern AI platform shouldn't make you wait for an admin or restrict you to a short list of tools. It should be flexible, easy enough for anyone to use, and able to connect to your knowledge no matter where it is. That's exactly why we built eesel AI.
eesel AI is designed to solve the same problem as Rovo, unifying scattered knowledge, but we do it in a way that gives control back to the teams who actually need the answers.
Go live in minutes, not months
We built eesel AI to be incredibly easy to set up yourself. You can sign up, connect your help desk, and start training your AI in a few minutes, all without talking to a salesperson or waiting for IT. Our one-click integrations for platforms like Zendesk, Freshdesk, and Intercom fit right into the tools you already use. There's no complicated setup or need to change how you work.
Unify all your knowledge, instantly
eesel AI isn't limited to a fixed list of connectors. It can securely and automatically learn from your team's past support tickets picking up on your brand voice, tone, and common answers from day one. It also connects to all the places your team keeps documentation, like Confluence, Notion, Google Docs, and even PDFs. This gives your AI the full picture it needs to provide fast, accurate, and helpful answers.
Test with confidence and roll out gradually
One of the scariest parts of using a new AI tool is trusting it to do the right thing. That's why eesel AI comes with a powerful simulation mode. Before the AI ever talks to a real customer, you can test it on thousands of your past tickets in a safe environment. You can see exactly how it would have replied, get solid forecasts on resolution rates, and calculate your potential return on investment. This risk-free approach lets you tweak your setup, figure out which tickets are best for automation, and roll out new features as you get more comfortable.
Rovo pricing: What we know (and what we don't)
As of late 2024, Atlassian doesn't have a public pricing page for Rovo. The official link is still broken, which tells you a bit about their approach.
Pricing is probably decided on a case-by-case basis and requires a chat with their enterprise sales team. This makes it impossible for teams to figure out if the tool is even in their budget without getting on the phone. This lack of transparency can make planning difficult and suggests the product is still in its early days, likely aimed at very large companies.
In contrast, platforms like eesel AI have clear, transparent pricing plans right on the website. You can see exactly what you get, and you can even start with a monthly plan that you can cancel anytime. No secrets, no mandatory sales calls.
Is Rovo Connector Management the right approach for your team?
Atlassian Rovo has an ambitious vision for unifying knowledge, and it might be tempting for teams already using a lot of Atlassian products. However, its dependence on a rigid, admin-controlled Rovo Connector Management system creates delays and limits you to a pre-approved list of apps.
For teams that need to move quickly and connect all their different tools, a more flexible, self-serve platform is a much better fit.
An AI knowledge platform should empower your team, not create more bureaucracy. With the ability to connect to any source, simulate performance before you go live, and get you up and running in minutes, eesel AI puts the power of AI right where it belongs: in your hands. It’s about getting results today, not after a long and complicated implementation project.
Ready to bring your team's knowledge together without the complexity? Start your free eesel AI trial today.
Frequently asked questions
Rovo Connector Management refers to the process of setting up, overseeing, and maintaining the integrations that feed data from various applications into Atlassian's Rovo AI platform. These connectors are crucial as they form the foundation for Rovo's ability to search, chat, and power AI agents across your company's dispersed knowledge. Without them, Rovo cannot access or utilize your organizational data.
Rovo has two types: admin-managed and Smart Link connectors. Admin-managed connectors are set up by an organization administrator to index content from an entire application, building a central knowledge base for Rovo's AI features. Smart Link connectors are lighter, used by individual users to link specific documents within Confluence or Jira, but they don't contribute to Rovo's main knowledge base.
Setting up admin-managed connectors through Rovo Connector Management requires an organization admin. The process typically involves activating Rovo, verifying permissions, and then individually authorizing each app connection. This often means teams need to file an IT ticket and wait for central administration to implement the integration.
Yes, Rovo Connector Management operates with a fixed menu of integrations, meaning if a critical tool your team uses isn't on Atlassian's approved list, you cannot connect it. This limitation can create significant gaps in your AI's knowledge base, as it won't have access to information from all important systems. Furthermore, for most apps, only one workspace can be connected.
Smaller teams often encounter a bottleneck with Rovo Connector Management because individual teams cannot independently add new knowledge sources. Every new connection requires an admin to set it up, leading to delays and reducing the agility teams usually expect for configuring their own tools. This reliance on central IT can hinder quick adoption and expansion of Rovo's capabilities.
As of late 2024, Atlassian has not made a public pricing page available for Rovo or its Connector Management features, with official links often showing "404 Page Not Found" errors. This means teams cannot easily evaluate costs without engaging with Atlassian's enterprise sales team. This lack of transparency makes it difficult for organizations to budget and plan effectively for Rovo's implementation.