Atlassian Jira
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NOTE: Jira Epic/Parent Link Changes
Last Updated:
Atlassian is making a change to Jira Cloud that will impact some Planview Hub and Tasktop Sync customer integrations. These changes will require all customers with Jira Cloud integrations to upgrade their instance of Planview Hub or Tasktop Sync.
Learn more here.
Overview
Jira is by far the most popular Agile tool in the software delivery toolchain today. It plays a central role in planning and tracking work, primarily for engineers, but often for other teams as well. Integrating Jira with other application development and delivery tools keeps teams and tools in sync automatically, so you can focus on the real value-adding work of developing new features, resolving defects, closing tech debt, and reducing risk.
Key Features and Benefits
Integrating Jira with other tools ensures engineers can spend their time on doing the work that creates value for the business, instead of the busy work required to keep tools and colleagues in sync.
A good integration means:
- You don’t need to enter the same information in multiple tools! Any update you make in Jira automatically flows to the right place in other tools and vice versa
- You don’t need to log in to multiple tools to do your work. All the information you need is right there in Jira, including all the fields, descriptions, attachments, and comments changed in other tools
- You don’t need to communicate about an issue in chats, emails or status meetings! All communication can take place and be seen within Jira comments, even when colleagues enter their replies in other tools
Integration can also tie together multiple Jira instances, even if they are at different version levels, and have them working as one. The same is true for coordinating work between on-prem instances and on-demand instances running in parallel and supporting migration between the two.
Common Integration Patterns
- Aligning Developers across Agile Planning Tools
- Associating Planning Items to Implementation Artifacts
- Escalating Help Desk Problems to Developers
- Sharing Customer Feature Requests with Product
- Reporting Known Defects to the Help Desk
- Aligning Testing Teams across Testing Tools
- Populating Requirements into PLM Tools
Demo Videos
Supported Extensions
Atlassian offers a wide variety of applications and plug-ins that are supported by the Atlassian Jira connector.
Jira Core
Jira Core is the default application of the Jira platform, and will always be present in a Jira instance. It includes Jira core functionality, such as users, business projects, and workflows, and its main work item types are tasks and sub-tasks.
Jira Software
Jira Software includes users, software projects, and workflows, and its main work item types are tasks, sub-tasks, stories, bugs, and epics.
Jira Service Management
Jira Service Management (formerly Jira Service Desk) includes users, service projects, and its main work item types are change, access, purchase, IT help, fault, new feature, improvement, incident, problem, and service request.
Service Desk Type Mappings
The Service Desk Type Mappings field enables you to create a Service request for artifacts synchronized into a Service project by specifying the Jira and Service Management artifact type pairs for each project.
When specifying artifact type pairs, please use the following format:
- Project A: Artifact Type in Service Management = Artifact Type in Jira, Artifact Type in Service Management = Artifact Type in Jira; Project B: Artifact Type in Service Management = Artifact Type in Jira
Example:
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Project A: Get IT help = Service Request, Report a system problem = Incident; Project B: Upgrade or change a managed system = Change, Report a system problem = Incident
Good to Know:
- If the following characters are included in the project or artifact type names (: ; , =), they must be escaped with a preceding backslash (\).
- If an invalid value is provided (e.g., misspelled projects, missing projects or artifact type names), a detailed error message will appear and the debug output will diagnose the error.
- If a project name is incorrect, it can still be mapped. However, as it is possible to create two Service Management types with the same name and different case, the type name must match the case or Hub will be unable to map it.
- If you create a Service request type with extra spaces before and after the name, an error will appear and will need to be diagnosed by the error message and debug output.
Please see details below regarding Jira Service Management limitations.
Jira Data Center
Please see configuration details below if using Jira Data Center.
Zephyr Squad Plugin
Planview Hub provides support for the Zephyr Squad plug-in.
See additional details here.
Jira Agile Plugin
Jira Agile is one of the most common plugins in the marketplace and has become an out-of-the-box piece of Jira Software installation since the 6.3.1 version. This means that if you are on a version later than 6.3.1, you likely did not even have to install the Agile plug-in, as it was automatically installed along with Jira Software. This plugin enables features for easy day to day work management with scrum/agile/Kanban processes. The plugin also creates various custom fields.
Some of the following Jira Agile fields are created by the plugin:
- Jira Agile Sprint Field
- Note: This field is read-only in Planview Hub versions 18.3 and earlier / Tasktop Sync versions 4.15 and earlier. You can learn more in the FAQ below.
- Epic Status
- Epic Name
- Epic Link
Jira nFeed Plugin
The Jira connector supports nfeed fields. Note that nFeed user fields are read-only.
Dynamic Forms for Jira
Planview Hub supports synchronizing dynamic custom fields via the Dynamic Forms for Jira Plug-in.
- Dynamic Forms fields Select, Cascading Select, Radio Buttons, and Checkbox fields are writable.
- Please see details below regarding cascading select fields.
- Bundled fields are read-only.
Jira Crowd
Atlassian Crowd enabled SSO is supported in the Hub versions listed above. When setting up the Crowd server in the customer environment, the instructions outlined in this guide must be followed.
The Hub user created through Crowd should have the same Jira permissions as recommended for the regular Hub user.
Users should review the Atlassian SSO troubleshooting guide to troubleshoot any network issues relating to SSO. If the Hub user is unable to authenticate, the first step should be to try to log in via the Jira UI. If the user is unable to authenticate through the UI, it implies that there are issues with the way Crowd SSO is set up in the customer environment.
Please check the standard authentication section for connection details.
iRise Plug-in for Jira
The iRise Plug-in for Jira allows you to render up-to-date iRise screen thumbnails directly on the corresponding artifact in Jira cloud. To use the plug-in with your Jira-iRise integration, follow the instructions below:
- Install the iRise Plug-in for Jira to your Jira cloud instance.
- Create a string field in your Hub model called 'iRise Prototype.'
- On the iRise side, map that model field to the 'Chapter Simulation URL' location field.
- On the Jira side, create a custom string field called 'iRisePrototypeURL,' and map it to the 'iRise Prototype' model field in Hub.
- On the Field Flow screen for your iRise-Jira integration, update the field update frequency on the Jira side to 'always update.'
- Run your integration.
- On the Jira artifact, copy the link from the 'iRisePrototypeURL' field and paste it into the iRise plug-in field. Then click 'Attach screen.'
- You will see the screen thumbnail for the iRise artifact rendered directly within Jira.
Jira Project Specific Select Field Plug-in
Planview Hub: 21.1.0 and later
Planview Hub supports synchronizing the following custom fields via the Project Specific Select Field Plug-in: Single, Multi, and Simple.
Requirements Management for Jira Plug-in (R4J)
Requirements Management for Jira: 4.3.3 and later
Planview Hub supports synchronizing the relationship fields Child Requirements and Parent Requirements for the R4J plug-in.
Hub also supports R4J Folders as container type artifacts.
Note: This artifact and any related fields will only be visible if the R4J plug-in has been enabled on the server and for the projects in the collection.
- A regular Jira issue in R4J can have multiple parent folders (if the parent folders are not in the same project), but a folder can only have one other folder as its parent.
- The 'Parent Folder' field exists as a container link field on folder type artifacts, and a 'Parent Folders' field has been added as a multi-container link field on regular Jira artifacts.
Note: The supported relationship fields do not support change detection, therefore, a full scan is required to pick up changes for these fields.
See Functional Limitations table below for limitations regarding this plug-in.
Jira Tempo Plug-in
Planview Hub: 21.1.0 and later
Tasktop Sync: 4.25 and later
Jira Tempo: 8.13-15.2.1
Planview Hub supports synchronizing the Team and Account fields for the Jira Tempo plug-in.
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For a team to appear as an option for the Team field for a project, the Hub user must be added to each team as a member or as part of a group, and the project must be linked to it.
- For the Account field, the account must be linked with the project.
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For Hub to write to a Tempo field, the field must be added to the Jira edit screens for each project and type used in integrations.
The Tempo Cloud API Token field allows you to retrieve the actual Jira author on worklogs when retrieving worklogs created with the Tempo plugin on Jira Cloud.
Note: If the provided Tempo token is not valid, an error will be thrown when retrieving Tempo worklogs. If no Tempo token is provided, worklogs will be retrieved without using the Tempo API and any Tempo created worklogs will have 'Tempo Timesheets' set as the author.
To create a Tempo API token for your user, open the Jira Tempo App and navigate to Tempo > Settings. Then, scroll down to Data Access and select API integration.
Note: The only access required for the token is View Worklogs access.
Advanced Roadmaps for Jira Data Center Plug-in (on-prem)
Planview Hub: 21.4 and later
Tasktop Sync: 4.28 and later
Planview Hub supports the Team and Parent Link fields for the Advanced Roadmaps (formerly Jira Portfolio) plug-in.
Note: The Hub user created through Advanced Roadmaps must be granted Advanced Roadmaps shared team management permissions. To list non-shared projects/teams, you must also have Advanced Roadmaps user permissions.
Label Manager for Jira Plug-in
Planview Hub: 22.2 and later
Tasktop Sync: 4.30 and later
Planview Hub supports synchronizing the Label Manager fields for the Label Manager for Jira plug-in.
Note: Hub does not support label colors or the “Label Manager Progress” custom field type.
See Functional Limitations table below for limitations regarding this plug-in.
For more information, refer to Jira documentation here.
Xray Test Management for Jira Plug-in
Planview Hub provides support for the Xray Test Management for Jira plug-in.
See additional details here.
Jira Plug-ins (other)
Fields created by other plug-ins may be exposed in Hub as read-only fields. These are typically fields that are added to the normal Jira artifact UI by the plug-in (i.e., a field that is displayed within the typical Jira defect UI). Fields created by unsupported plug-ins that are included in totally new UI sections in Jira, on the other hand, will likely not be exposed in Hub.
Connector Setup Details
This section describes the basic steps needed to prepare your Atlassian Jira instance for use with supported Planview products. Note that additional fields for synchronization or configuration of queries may be required depending on the requirements of your integration.
Minimal User Permissions & Hub User
We recommend that you create a new user within your external tool, to be used only for your Hub integration. This is the user information you will enter when setting up your repository connection within Planview Hub. By creating a new user, you will ensure that the correct permissions are granted, and allow for traceability of the modifications that are made by the synchronization.
In general, your Hub user account should have sufficient permissions to create, read, and update artifacts in your repository. However, depending on the use case, your user may need different permissions. For example, if you are only interested in flowing data out of your repository, your user may not need to have full CRUD access, as the 'create' and 'update' permissions may not be needed.
Your user should have a secure password or token. Please be aware that Hub will not allow you to save a repository connection utilizing a weak password/token, such as 'tasktop.'
See instructions on how to create a new Hub user in Atlassian Jira.
List of minimal user permissions:
Note: The minimal user must be a member of the group and have the following permissions at the project level.
|
jira-user |
---|---|
Project Permissions |
Browse Project |
Issue Permissions |
Create issues |
Voters & Watchers Permission |
|
Comments Permissions |
Add Comments |
Attachment Permissions |
Create Attachments |
Time Tracking Permissions |
Edit Own Worklogs Work On Issues |
Components Permissions | Administer projects or Administer Jira |
Versions Permissions | Administer projects or Administer Jira |
Global Permissions |
(if using Jira Cloud or Zephyr Cloud after 3/31/19) |
Note: We recommend setting the Hub user in Jira's language to English to prevent errors upon synchronization.
Please see additional details below on the following:
Connecting to the Jira Repository
Learn more about how to set up your repository in Planview Hub here.
Standard Authentication
Required Fields:
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Location/Connection URL
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Example Format: https://jiraserver.com:8080
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Username
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Password
Optional Fields:
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Zephyr Access Key (see details here)
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Zephyr Shared Secret (see details here)
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Xray Cloud Client ID (see details here)
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Xray Cloud Client Secret (see details here)
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Xray Cloud Location: This field is for Xray test management artifacts.
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Note: The Xray Cloud Location should only contain the base URL. The default value for this field is https://xray.cloud.getxray.app
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Tempo Cloud API Token (see details above)
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Service Desk Type Mappings (see details above)
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Attachment URL: This field is used to fetch attachments from an alternate URL.
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Note: The Attachment URL should only contain the base URL.
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Throttling Settings: This field indicates the number of API calls that can be made per minute. See details here.
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Note: This field should only be set under the guidance of customer care as the ideal value is highly dependent on each customer's unique environment.
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Connection Security: If checked, insecure connections to this repository will be allowed. See details here.
Note: Atlassian will be deprecating basic authentication with passwords and cookie-based authentication for Jira Cloud by December 1, 2018. Users must configure a Hub repository authentication method other than Standard Authentication, such as Email Address and API Token Authentication (Jira Cloud only) by that time for Jira Cloud instances. See Atlassian notice here.
Standard Authentication (Via AWS Secrets Manager)
This authentication method connects to AWS Secrets Manager to retrieve the username and password and then authenticates with the Jira repository via Standard Authentication.
Note: This authentication method is only available to Jira Data Center instances as Jira Cloud does not support standard authentication.
Prerequisites:
- IAM Role Permissions: The machine hosting the application must have IAM Role permissions to access the necessary AWS Secrets Manager secret.
- KMS: Customer managed keys created in AWS Key Management Service (KMS), used for encrypting secrets, should be created in the same AWS account and region of the secret.
Required Fields:
- Location/Connection URL
- Example Format: https://server.atlassian.net
- AWS Secret ARN
- The Amazon Resource Name (ARN) is automatically generated in AWS when a new secret is created.
- The ARN can be copied from the AWS Secrets Manager Secret details page in the AWS console.
- Note: The Secret ARN will also support cross-account cases where the Secret is stored on a different account. In this scenario, the Policy configuration to access external AWS account Secret must be done and tested.
- The username and password must be created in that secret with keys “username” and “password” respectively.
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