Ways to Integrate Salesforce and Jira – Market Overview

Salesforce is a cloud-based customer relationship management application. It assists you in managing your customer requirements by providing features such as tracking customer activity, finding potential customers, increasing sales, logging an online case, calls, emails, and a community website for internal and external partners/customers, among others. Salesforce offers a cloud solution system that has improved the efficiency of over  140,000 enterprises which helps, tracks and improves a company’s interactions with current and prospective customers.

Salesforce services includes:

• PaaS (Platform as a Service) – Expenses for configuring, operating, and maintaining software and hardware are reduced.
• SaaS(Software as a Service) – Allows the user to access software from anywhere we have an Internet connection.
• IaaS(Infrastructure as a Service) – Over the internet, offer virtualized computing resources.

Salesforce CRM solutions are divided into categories such as

• Commerce Cloud
• Sales Cloud
• Service Cloud
• Marketing Cloud
• Community Cloud
• App Cloud
• Analytics Cloud
• Manufacturing Cloud
• Vaccine Cloud
• Education Cloud
• Health Cloud

You may use the Salesforce Platform to integrate disparate systems together to create a unified view of your customer, including data from external ERP, Jira, Supply Chain, Oracle, and Microsoft. We’d like to learn how to connect Jira to our Salesforce system here.

Overview of Jira

Jira is a tool from Atlassian Inc., an Australian company. Jira is a cross-platform application that is also multilingual. Agile teams utilise it to plan, track, and release high-quality software. Connecting Jira issues to the rest of your tools can help your team break through barriers and realise their full potential. It comes with scrum and kanban boards pre-installed. Tasks are connected to custom workflows on boards, which are task management centers. Boards provide visibility into the status of each work item and provide transparency across teamwork. Real-time performance reporting and time tracking capabilities.

Make a list of projects for yourself and your team to work on, complete with specifics, deadlines, and reminders. To divide down larger pieces of work, use subtasks. Allow others to keep an eye on the task’s progress and be notified when it’s finished. It overall manages your entire project task be it Bug, User Story, Backlog or any other. It tracks any step of the project lifecycle and it is available online and can be accessed from anywhere with an internet connection. It can be used for new or updated roadmaps to see the larger picture, talk about plans, and discuss goals with stakeholders, all while keeping your team on track with latest updates.

Many additional technologies, such as Subversion, GIT, Mercury, Clearcase,  Salesforce, and others, can be connected or Integrated with Jira.

There are multiple ways Jira can be integrated with Salesforce, we would be learning here some of the most used as well as the core of the architecture behind these integration.

Different connectors in Market

The Big question is why we need Salesforce Jira integration. Salesforce and  Jira are Online Software tools. We can use these tools  separately to increase revenue with the use of Salesforce and track all cases in Jira. Still there are lots of Salesforce Jira connectors available in the market and they are popular. The reason is simple – Manual data entering in Jira defeats the purpose. Mistakes are made, time is squandered, and valuable resources are wasted repeatedly contacting to switch. All this leads to missed forecasts, unhappy customers, and lost revenue. Up-to-date and transparent information about your prospects and clients is critical for customer acquisition and retention. The connection for Salesforce and Jira helps you streamline workflows and close the gap between the products you love to boost productivity and transparency across teams. Improve data accuracy and provide real-time visibility into all of your account interactions and status changes.

Here’s how to remove roadblocks so that teams may work with accurate, up-to-date data. By escalating work to another team with a simple click, you may create Jira issues from Salesforce and vice versa without leaving your preferred platform. Improve client satisfaction Using bidirectional field comment and attachment synchronization, keep your users informed on the progress of their development. To display the latest escalations across systems to improve transparency and ensure your clients are covered. Maintain a single source of truth between Jira and Salesforce, pushing and pulling standard and custom field data to speed up item creation in both systems at the same time and thus reduce manual work. Let us go through some of the popular Salesforce Jira Connector:

Salesforce Jira Integration Using BOOMI

Dell Boomi is a business unit that specializes in cloud-based integration, Master Data Management and API administration. By combining your apps and data, Boomi software can turn complex IT systems from a hindrance to assistance.

Their main advantages are as follows:

• Integrations of data, applications, and B2B
• Point-and-click tools that are simple to use
• Integrations between cloud and on-premises are simple.
• Automatic real-time update
• Connectors that have been already developed in a library
• Event tracking and activity monitoring

We would be looking now how we can use BOOMI to integrate Jira into Salesforce. The Jira REST connector can be used to move information to and from the Jira application, as well as to integrate any on-premise apps or legacy systems. The Jira connector interacts with the Jira application in real time and browses the interfaces. The service gets a response/request setup via an HTTP/HTTPS connection used to integrate with Jira. To make the implementation easier, the technical elements of this connection, such as error handling, request headers and HTTPS connection are masked.

Set up two components to establish a connector to interact with Jira REST:- Jira REST connection and Jira REST operation.

This method generates reusable components that include connection and operation settings.

• Jira REST connection: It includes Name, URL, Username and Password
• Jira REST operation: It includes Name, Object, Error messages, data definition and Action

Your technical team can set up the connector within a process after building the connection and operation. Boomi Integration may map to and from virtually any system utilising the connector we can transfer data from or to the Jira application when you properly define the Jira connector inside a process. We can use this same process to connect our Jira to our Salesforce application.

ServiceRocket Connector for Salesforce and Jira(Cloud)

ServiceRocket develops and supports a variety of plugins and connectors for our software partners’ products, which are utilized by tens of thousands of businesses worldwide. ServiceRocket works with the fast-growing software industry to bridge the gap between production and consumption. The consumption gap is defined as everything required taking exceptional software and maximizing its value within an organization. It’s the distinction between excellent software and a full solution. ServiceRocket bridges the consumption gap by forming tight relationships with fast-growing software firms, becoming product experts, and then providing the highest-quality support, training, and installation services on a worldwide scale.

Jira is often used by our development and product management teams. In Salesforce, your support and sales teams come to a close. They all deal with product challenges and, in order to be effective, require a holistic understanding of what’s going on. For an integrated experience from either interface, the connector connects and synchronizes Salesforce objects and Jira issues.

Feature of ServiceRocket Jira Salesforce connector:

• Connect multiple Salesforce instances to Jira
• Assign each connection to a different Jira
• Select the Salesforce objects and fields that are accessible in Jira
• From within Jira Cloud, look for Salesforce items.
• From a Jira problem, create a Salesforce Object.
• Connect Salesforce objects to Jira issues, and push and pull data into and out of Salesforce.
• View a summary of comments from linked Salesforce Cases.
• From within Salesforce, clone a Salesforce Case into a Jira Automatically or manually synchronize the contents of both systems.
• Available for 30 days free trial

Peeklogic Jira Salesforce Connector

Peeklogic Jira Connector plugin was created with the goal of assisting our customers in increasing cost effectiveness and productivity. Our Jira Salesforce Connector means that Sales and Development teams, who previously worked in distinct environments, can communicate seamlessly. Jira is used by your Support, Development, and Product teams. Salesforce is where your salespeople reside. The greater the communication between the teams, the higher the level of service your consumer receives.

Salesforce Jira Connector ties Atlassian Jira Service and Salesforce together, allowing your sales team to engage with your service team straight through Salesforce.

Features of Peeklogic Jira Salesforce Connector:

• Connect several Salesforce instances with Jira
• From Salesforce, look for Jira Issues and link them to Salesforce records.
• Connect Salesforce and Jira on a map. Objects, fields, and projects are all examples of this. Flexible Salesforce integration for Jira.
• From Salesforce, create/update Jira issues.
• Include a comment and an attachment to Jira problem from Salesforce
• Integrate Jira with Salesforce in an automated manner.
• Connect any Jira issue to any Salesforce object. Flexible configuration
• Easy to install. In 7 minutes it is ready for the user

Unito Integrate Jira to Salesforce

Unito is a no-code integration service that allows you to link your apps and automate your processes quickly. Deep, bidirectional flows that cover the majority of use cases, sync fields, and update in real-time are available. Cut through the distractions and ensure that your workers receive the information they need, when and wherever they need it, so they can concentrate on the task at hand. Establish deep connections between Jira and any other tools like Salesforce you use with Unito’s two-way Jira integration. Unito’s bi-directional flows go beyond conventional one-way automation, ensuring that all information is updated in real time across all systems.

Give sales people and engineers the ability to collaborate without having to leave their preferred tool. Anyone can check both tools for development updates, escalated tickets  and offers. Unito connects your Jira projects with your other tools and keeps everything in sync. New issues and key information flow seamlessly back and forth between Jira and the rest of your stack.

Feature of Unito Jira Salesforce Integration:

• Create and edit Jira tickets directly from Salesforce
• View a list of comments from Salesforce Cases that are connected.
• Automate transfer of Data from or to Jira from Salesforce
• Establishing relationship between object and Jira issue/ticket.
• Available for 15 days free trial

Exalate Salesforce Jira Integration Solution

Exalate comes with basic synchronization scenarios pre-installed. However, you can experiment with the flexibility of your sync as if it were a custom integration. It is designed and based on a distributed architecture. A system administrator will have complete control over how external systems interact with their surroundings. Also, maintain control over what information is shared and how it is shared. You’ll be able to make changes to the app’s setup without disrupting synchronization with your partners.

Its transactional synchronisation engine is sophisticated and dependable. Which organises all of the modifications that need to be made into a queue. And it splits it down into atomic steps that can be tried again if something goes wrong. Errors and failures are inevitable when merging multiple systems. Reliability is essential for ensuring that any changes made on one side of the connection are reflected on the other at all times. Even when a system is upgraded to a new version and/or a firewall is changed, this happens.

Feature of Exalate Salesforce Jira Integration solution:

• Without needing to tell or consult the other side in advance, a distributed architecture can govern what information is communicated to the other side and how incoming information is processed.
• Allows data transfer with the least amount of configuration and tweaking
• Includes security features such as encrypted file transfer, role-based access controls, and secure protocols such as HTTPS, among others.
• When a problem or feature request is identified, Jira automatically creates an issue.
• This product is available for Demo and Trail

Manual Integration Using APIs

Jira has two solutions to manage a project deliverable cycle.

• Jira Server
• Jira Cloud

Based on the tool you are using there are many ways to integrate Salesforce with Jira. The most prominent way is using app exchange products and there are many that are also certified by atlassian which means it almost supports all available features in its tool to integrate with Salesforce . Tools like:

• ZAgile
• Service Rocket
• Sinergify
• Go2Group
• Workato

Although each service provides its own set of documentation about how to integrate Jira with Salesforce, we highly suggest you have a look at your requirements in order to map them to the correct tool which suits your needs.

We are here to talk about a little crude integration of Salesforce with Jira that is not of plug and play nature but provides the maximum flexibility in terms of matching your requirements. It does though would need some technical knowledge to pull through but it is highly dependable and can be tailored to suit your future requirements as well and you won’t have to wait for the release cycle of a tool in order for your most craved feature to be made available and make your life easy. This way of implementation can be customized from the word go to fit your expectations and without further adieu we say the approach we will be using utilizes the REST web service API integration.

There are multiple levels to the implementation. Let us define the agenda of the approach and then we will explore each one of them to a successful implementation.

• Let’s Start with the Use Cases which are many but for the scope of this document we will be limiting them to the most prominently used ones
  • Creations of Jira Issues from within Salesforce
    • No Need to Switch application
    • Improves productivity
  • Development Escalation workflows creation and Management
  • Track Status of User Stories in a Sprint from within Salesforce
  • Migrating archived data from Jira to Salesforce for History Tracking
• Jira Salesforce Integration Using REST API
  • Remote Site Setting Setup in Salesforce
  • Creation of a Connect application in Salesforce
  • Creation of Web Service Class to Call Jira API
  • Map Jira API to Salesforce Fields
  • Creation of a Custom profile to Manage all Jira Specific Transaction
  • Identify events which can Invoke the Integration from within Salesforce

Remote Site Setting Setup for Jira URL in Salesforce

Remote Site Setting is a way to whitelist specific URL i.e it informs the Salesforce platform about the trustworthiness of the URL being added and any security restrictions already in place should not block communication going out or coming w.r.t to this URL by Salesforce’s end.

It’s a straightforward process mentioned below stepwise

• For Lightning Experience View
  • Log in to Salesforce.com
  • Go to Setup > Search for “Security” in Quick Find Box > Click on Remote Site Settings.
  • Add a new remote site.
  • Enter the name of the remote site.
  • Enter Jira URL available with you in Remote Site URL, e.g., http://availablejiraurl.com
  • Click Save
• For Classic View
  • Log in to Salesforce.com
  • Click on Setup > Administer > Security Controls > Remote Site Settings.
  • Add a new remote site.
  • Enter the name of the remote site.
  • Enter Jira URL available with you in Remote Site URL, e.g., http://availablejiraurl.com
  • Click Save

Create A Salesforce Object say JiraIssues which acts as the data input for creation of issues in Jira. The Idea is to Map the Salesforce Field with Fields in Jira to Ensure the data from Salesforce Correctly Saved as a Jira Issue e.g:

Creation of Objects and Fields is a time taking Process hence if you need to know how to do it, please refer to these links.

https://trailhead.Salesforce.com/en/content/learn/modules/create-a-custom-object-quick-look/create-a-custom-object

https://trailhead.Salesforce.com/content/learn/projects/build-an-app-to-track-your-trailblazer-journey/create-trailblazer-journey-custom-fields

Once the Object and Fields are in place the only thing left to create is a Trigger and web service Apex class that can be called upon creation of a record in JiraIssues Object we created in an earlier step.

The webservice class once created can be used to create Jira issues from within the Salesforce environment. In similar fashion additional functionalities like update, deletion of Jira tickets can be incorporated in the integration using different methods. The important point to note is that not all users should be allowed to make changes to the Jira tickets as this would help to avoid any issues faced during troubleshooting and easier to trace what led to the changes and which user had initiated the transaction on the Salesforce side.

To implement this a seperate profile should be created as a Jira USer profile which would have the relevant access needed to initiate, execute the integration on Salesforce end. This can be done as below

• Login to Salesforce.com.
• Go to Setup > Administration Setup > Manage Users > Profiles > New Profile.
• Choose the “Existing Profile” to be: Custom: Sales Profile and clone it .
• Fill in “Profile Name” with: Jira User.
• Click Save

Choosing Best Connector for Your Company

It is difficult to choose the best Salesforce Jira connector in the market since all connectors provide a wide range of features in their application but we have to choose one which you would be using to connect our Salesforce Orgs to Jira.

Peeklogic Connector for Salesforce and Jira is currently the best connector in the market. What makes it the best connector is the features and flexibility it provides in their application.

More on why Peeklogic Jira connector is recommended:

• It only takes 7 minutes to connect Salesforce and Jira! This proved the simplicity of the connector, while other connectors take comparatively more complex customizations, Peeklogic does it so easily.
• To improve your Project Management experience, effortlessly associate JIRA issues with Salesforce Standard or Custom objects – All the custom objects of any type are valid which makes it robust.
• With a 60-day trial period, $20 per user each month, and no minimum order or annual commitments, it makes it pocket-friendly too.Currently, this trial duration and price combination offer is unbeatable.
• Automation is quite viable and you can do all the basic setup and make it productive for you within trial duration itself. You can automate the transfer of data from Jira to Salesforce. Display Jira issues, attachments, and comments that are linked.
• Two way Salesforce Jira Integration to Create or Update Jira Issue, search for Jira Issues from Salesforce and link Jira issues to Salesforce records and many more productive features comes with it.
• Rated 5 star in App Exchange.

Link to App exchange:

https://appexchange.salesforce.com/appxListingDetail?listingId=a0N3A00000FMdJ7UAL

Link to Official website:

https://www.peeklogic.com/our-products/salesforce-jira-connector/