Jira Service Desk requests into Jira Software

[Meytal BM]

Hi,

Most of the technical team work in Jira Software whether Kanban/Scrum. We want the Requests and Incidents to come in from Jira Service Desk as it is more customer friendly.

Question is, what is the best way/practice to connect the two, so that the person working in Jira Software can complete the Jira SD request?

Has anyone else tried doing this?

Thanks

[Dirk Ronsmans · Accepted solution]

Hi @Meytal BM ,

Well you have a couple of ways you can approach this.

1. If you have software developers working as support agents then I'd just add them to the JSM projects and give them a proper license. It will then just become part of their job to also work on incidents/requests
2. If these developers just need to chime in on issues (comments/attachments) then you can just grant them permissions without a license and they will become a collaborator. They will not be able to assign tickets, transition them or see any features of JSM but they will be able to be @mentioned and comment on issues/create a linked issue

For me often the 2nd method is the most user friendly (if your roles are split between a support team and a development team). When something is required from a developer you can mention them, they can chime in and if needed a bug/defect/story/... can be linked to the incident/request in the proper project.

Then the developer can work on those within their own methodology and when completed the incident/request can also be closed.

So linked issues is my preference but it depends on how your teams work to be honest.

[Will Le]

You can also do the following: 

• Create an automation rule from JSM to auto-create and link a Jira Software item so the team can just work from the software board. Create rules to then update the requestor from software which can also include resolving and closing incidents / request based on a "done" state from software 
• Grant your software users a JSM license and then modify the issue register or kanban board to allow JSM tickets to also be included. By doing this your Jira software users can manage both backlog items and tickets from JSM within the one project which may make it more user friendly for your technical teams

[Dirk Ronsmans]

Also true, automation can help you in creating the linked issue :) (if you can define a business rule)

I usually tend to avoid granting the licenses as they are pretty expensive compared to a JSW license but like you said, depend on the use case!

[Meytal BM]

@Dirk Ronsmans thanks for the appoaches. I am trying to refrain from purchasing additional licenses, as the developers are doing both project development and adhoc ongoing items, therefore giving licenses to a large amount of developers is not the direction. I would need these developers to also update back the SD, transition it to Done eventually... So i guess these two options are great, but would require additional 1xx licenses.

@Will Le Yes, i thought about these two options as well, but wasnt sure how to do these.

In regards to the first option, the automation is done by the system, so i guess we dont need any specific user permission, right? But what happens when the Jira Software item that we duplicated is moved in the workflow? Do I need a specific user permission to update the JSM ticket?
Can u send me more detailed step-by-step how to do the first option?

Much appreciated both!

[Dirk Ronsmans]

Well @Meytal BM with my 2nd option they dont require a license for JSM but because of that they are limited in what they can do (manually).

You could look in to using the automation rules tho. When they transition their software issue to Done you could have an automation rule also move the incident to Completed.

Automation normally runs under a specific internal usre "Automation for Jira" so that helps in limiting your licenses too.

For automation rules you can take a look at the playground for inspiration

https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/automation-template-library#/

[Meytal BM]

@Dirk Ronsmans Let's say i go about doing this:

When an issue is created in SD, I use Automation to create a Software issue with the same content and Link the issues together.

1. Do I need the same exact workflow statuses between these two SD & Software projects? Or can i do a condition if "In Progress" in Software then update "Work in Progress" in SD?

2. For updating status/comments from Software to SD project, I will need to use the Linked issue as my condition, correct? If that is the case, doesn't that bound me to use Linked Issues only for these cases? Is there any other reference I can use?

Thanks

[Dirk Ronsmans]

Hey @Meytal BM ,

1. No you don't, they can have very different workflows. You just need to define the rule that when status = x then set status to y in the other issue

2. Well you can make the rule more complex. The link type can be one of them and also add in an IF clause to only add the comment when you want to. Could depend on the issue you are updating or the one you are triggering from.

So it won't limit you but you have to create a nice business rule to make sure it runs only when you want to.

[Meytal BM]

@Dirk Ronsmans  thanks a lot. I am going to have to test this all out and let you know how it went. Will do in the next few weeks.