Jira to Jira Integration: a Simple Path to Efficiency

This article was written by Teja Bhutada from Exalate.

Efficient tools are the backbone of successful project management workflows. Jira, developed by Atlassian, has gained popularity as a successful project management and issue-tracking platform.

But how do you take your Jira experience to the next level? That’s where Jira to Jira integration comes in.

In this comprehensive blog post, we’ll explore the ins and outs of syncing multiple Jira instances. Let’s explore how this integration can enhance your project management process.

What is Jira to Jira Integration?

Jira to Jira integration refers to the process of connecting multiple Jira instances or projects within the same Jira ecosystem.

This allows for seamless collaboration, data sharing, and issue synchronization between different Jira instances. Companies opt to integrate their Jira instances for many reasons.

Let’s discuss a few of them in the next section.

Why Choose Jira to Jira Integration?

• Improved productivity: Integration automates repetitive tasks, reducing manual effort and freeing up time for more critical work.

• Enhanced collaboration: Teams within organizations and cross-company teams can collaborate and communicate more effectively on common tasks. Such a smooth information flow between teams leads to better decision-making.

• Real-time insights: Integration allows for real-time data sharing, enabling teams to remain up-to-date with the latest information.

• Error reduction: In the absence of an automated way of data exchange, teams resort to manual data entries. This manual way of working is error-prone. Integration minimizes the risk of data discrepancies and costly mistakes.

• Unified workspace: A Jira-to-Jira integration can bring together various Jira instances, creating a unified workspace where teams can access and manage multiple projects from a single dashboard without having to switch between their Jira instances.

  
  

Jira integration tools offer a wide a wide range of use cases that can help organizations streamline their project management processes and improve collaboration across teams and projects.

Common Sync Use Cases For Jira integration with Jira

Here are some common use cases for multiple Jira integration services.

Multi-Project Coordination

Organizations often have multiple teams or departments working on different Jira projects. Integration allows project managers to coordinate and monitor progress across these projects from a centralized dashboard.

Release Management

For software development teams, a JSM Jira integration facilitates smooth release management. Teams can coordinate releases across multiple projects and ensure they meet dependencies and releases happen on schedule.

Cross-team Collaboration

In large organizations, different teams often work on interconnected Jira projects. Jira integration with teams promotes cross-team or cross-company collaboration by allowing all entities to share information, updates, and issues seamlessly.

Issue Tracking and Reporting

Organizations can consolidate issue tracking and reporting across projects, providing a unified view of the status and progress of tasks, bugs, and feature requests.

Quality Assurance

For QA teams, integration allows for effective test management across multiple projects. They can synchronize test cases, test results, and bug reports for better quality control.

Customer Support

Customer support teams can use integration to connect Jira Service Management with development teams using Jira software. This way, teams can ensure they automatically communicate customer support issues to the development team for resolution.\

A Jira to Jira integration is a versatile solution adapting to various use cases, depending on an organization's specific needs.

How to Integrate Jira Issues

The process of integrating multiple Jira instances isn’t easy. So, I have broken down the process into key steps for you:

Define Integration Objectives

Start by defining clear integration objectives.

• What do you want to achieve by syncing Jira issues to another Jira instance (s)?
• Is it to simply automate repetitive tasks or to achieve a complex workflow orchestration?
• Is it to connect your customer support and dev teams for faster issue resolution or to connect your dev and engineering teams to automate the development workflow?

Having a clear objective helps steer your Jira to Jira integration in the right direction.

Map Data and Fields

It’s necessary to map the issues and their fields from one Jira to another meticulously. Leave nothing to chance or assumptions. Chalk down detailed mapping instructions and information flow paths. This can include dependencies, blocking issues, or linked tasks. Proper issue linking ensures that changes in one project impact-related projects accordingly.

In case of differing workflows between the two Jira instances, ensure every workflow status is correctly mapped and covered. Also, ensure that you handle workflow rules and restrictions beforehand.

Set Up Automation Requirements

Leverage automation to manual work. In fact, that is the fundamental reason why you want to integrate your Jira platforms. Define the data exchange triggers you desire. For example, create workflows that trigger actions in a different Jira when certain conditions are met, create Jira issues from incoming Jira tickets, or update a project status when you perform a code commit.

Choose the Right Integration Tool

Selecting the right Jira to Jira integration tool is crucial. Fortunately, many third-party integration tools make the process easier. Tools like Exalate support simple to advanced Jira to Jira integration use cases.

Its distributed architecture, advanced security features, and powerful no-code/ low-code modes make it a perfect candidate to connect multiple Jira instances with ease.

The low-code mode, called the Script mode, enables you to implement deep integrations between multiple platforms like Jira, Salesforce, Zendesk, Azure DevOps, ServiceNow, etc.

So, you can orchestrate and automate complex workflows, for instance, between Jira cloud and on-premise platforms or sync advanced roadmaps in Jira.

You can even work with the no-code mode for simple sync automation use cases.

Test and Monitor

When left with a choice to select an integration tool, get a PoC, perform a cost-saving analysis, have a look at your requirements, and thoroughly monitor and test the integrated systems. Identify any issues or bottlenecks by involving the right stakeholders.

Configure the permissions and security settings carefully. Not all users must have access to shared data, so define who can view, edit, or manage issues in each integrated Jira instance.

A Jira Jira integration must continue to meet your objectives as your business evolves.

Let’s discuss how we can implement a Jira-to-Jira integration. We’ll use Exalate to synchronize data between multiple Jira instances.

How to Implement a Jira to Jira Sync in 5 Steps

Exalate for Jira is available for both Jira Cloud and Jira on-premise. We’ll cover the Jira cloud installation process here.

Step 1: Install Exalate on Jira

Log in to your Jira instance.

Visit the Atlassian Marketplace and search for "Exalate Jira Issue Sync & more"

Click the “Try it free” button.

Then click “Add to Jira” > “Start free trial.”

Wait a moment while the app loads.

You'll be redirected back to Jira, where you'll see a pop-up confirming that the app has been added.

Click the "Get Started" button to complete the installation.

Next, repeat this process on your other Jira instance.

Step 2: Connect Your Jira Instances

Once Exalate is installed on both the Jira instances, you need to create a connection between them.

Here's how:

1. On one of your Jira instances, click "Apps" in the top menu, then select “Exalate.”

   
   

2. Click "Connections” in the left-side menu of the Exalate admin console. Click the green "Initiate connection" button.

   
   

3. On the next screen, enter the URL of the other Jira instance.

   
   

4. You will see a screen where you can choose between three configuration modes: Basic, Visual, or Script Mode.

   
   

Continue with the Basic Mode

This mode offers predefined sync rules for basic issue fields like summary, description, comments, attachments, and issue types. You cannot modify these rules, making it suitable for basic sync needs.

Select the project in the next step and click “Next.”

Now, you must confirm if you have admin access to the other Jira instance. Click “Yes, I have admin access” if you have access.

On the destination, Jira instance, select the project again and click “Confirm.” You have successfully established a Basic mode connection.

You can sync your first issue directly by entering the issue key and clicking “Exalate.” You’ll see the status of your sync while it’s being synced to the destination Jira instance.

Continue with the Visual Mode

After selecting Visual mode, enter a name for your local and remote Jira instances.

A connection name is automatically generated, but you can change it if you want to.

Click “Next” when you’re ready.

Note: You need admin access on both Jira instances for Visual Mode.

Confirm the admin access. You’ve successfully created a Visual mode connection.

Click the “Configure Sync” button to configure the connection.

The next screen allows you to control how you integrate your Jira projects. Pick projects for both the Jira instances via a drop-down.

Click the “Filter entities” screen to decide what information must be synced between the systems.

You can choose from a variety of filters. For instance, sync an issue of a specific issue type with a specific level belonging to a particular status. You can also choose to leave it blank if you want to sync all the issues.

Save your changes when you’re done.

On the main “Scope” screen, you can choose the “Sync method”. It lets you control the direction of your sync.

Click “Next” to move to the next step. Here, you’ll find the “Rules” screen.

You’ll find the mappings between issue fields on this screen. You can add, edit, reorder, or delete the mappings the way you want.

You can even add some scripts for advanced use cases by clicking the “Add Script” button. Here are some script rules examples you can use.

Once you’re happy with the mappings, click the “Publish” button to save your changes.

That’s all you need for the Visual mode! Issues will sync automatically according to the conditions you have set.

Continue with the Advanced Script Mode

This mode provides maximum customization with a Groovy scripting engine. It allows for precise control over data exchange.

To continue using this mode, enter the connection details as you did in the Visual mode.

Then, select the project.

After this, Exalate generates an invitation code. Copy the code and keep it somewhere safe.

On the other Jira instance, click the “Accept invitation” button and paste the code you’ve just copied.

Select the project in this Jira instance.

And voila! You’ve successfully connected the two Jira instances using the Script mode.

After this, you can configure the sync according to your requirements. We’ll cover that in the next step.

Step 3: Configure Your Connection

Exalate generates some default connection settings for you. You can change them anytime you want.

You can use the “Rules” and “Triggers” tabs to configure your connection. We’ll cover the “Rules” tab in this section and the “Triggers” in the next.

The “Rules” tab is divided into two sections: the “Incoming sync” and the “Outgoing sync”.

The “Outgoing sync” decides what information must leave the source Jira instance. The “Incoming sync” decides how to interpret the information coming from the destination Jira instance.

If you look closely at the sync rules, the outgoing sync saves all the information it needs to send in a replica. A replica acts like a placeholder that carries information securely to the destination.

The incoming sync extracts information from the replica and applies it to the local Jira issue in any way that makes sense.

You can change these sync rules by:

• adding new lines of code for sending additional data
• deleting (or commenting) lines for data you don’t wish to send
• or editing them to decide what should be sent

“Publish” the changes to save them.

Step 4: Set Up Automated Synchronization Triggers

Triggers determine synchronization conditions. Issues are synced once the trigger conditions are met.

To create a trigger, navigate to the "Triggers" tab and click “+ Create trigger.”

The “Add trigger” screen allows you to create triggers using JQL (Jira Query Language).

Activate the trigger,, and you’ll see it on the previous screen.

Step 5: Synchronize Issues

Now, it’s time to synchronize your issues. You don’t really need to do anything extra apart from the steps we discussed above. Issues will be synced automatically based on the “Rules” and “Triggers” you’ve set.

Exalate periodically checks for new issues that match the specified criteria and synchronizes them between platforms. If you don't see immediate synchronization, review your rules to ensure they match the desired items and fields accurately.

We’ve seen how easy it is to set up a Jira Jira integration using an advanced tool like Exalate. Let’s explore a few interesting use cases we helped our customers implement.

Advanced Jira to Jira Integration Use Cases With Exalate

With Exalate’s Script mode, you can sync a variety of issues and sprint fields between Jira instances.

We have discussed a few scenarios demonstrating this versatility below.

• Sync third-party plugin fields like Insight, Tempo worklogs, etc.
• Use ScriptRunner to automatically Exalate subtasks when a parent is Exalate.
• Sync user mentions in comments between Jira cloud and Jira on-premise
• Sync epics between two Jira instances

There are a lot of possibilities with Exalate. You can always discuss your integration use case with us.

Challenges and Considerations of Syncing Multiple Jira Instances

While Jira service desk Jira integration can offer various benefits, you need to be aware of its potential challenges.

• Complexity: Managing multiple Jira instances can be complex, requiring careful planning and preparation for continual improvement.
• Data security: Proper permissions and security measures are critical to protect sensitive data traveling through the Jira integration API.
• Training: Team members need training to use the Jira integration plugin or application and to navigate the integrated Jira environment effectively.
• Maintenance: Regular monitoring and maintenance are essential to ensure that your Jira to Jira Integration functions smoothly, even with evolving requirements.

Conclusion

Implementing Jira to Jira integration via Exalate is a game-changer for organizations seeking a seamless and efficient project management experience. Exalate simplifies the process, allowing teams to effortlessly synchronize Jira issues within the same Jira environment or across different instances.

With Exalate, you can easily implement any complex use cases, such as multi-project coordination, dependency tracking, release management, and cross-team collaboration. Its flexibility and adaptability make it a go-to solution for enhancing project management processes.

Do you have similar Jira to Jira integration use cases in mind? Try Exalate for Jira sync or simply book a free session with an integration engineer and discuss their details with an expert.