Connecting to Jira

Concept Information

Jira is a cloud or server-based platform for software issue tracking and project management. Use the Jira data connector to access your company's Jira data.

Before you start

Jira credentials

To connect to Jira, you must gather the following:

Jira username
Jira API token (cloud account), or Jira password (server instance)
the host name of your company's Jira platform

For help gathering the connection prerequisites, contact the Jira administrator in your organization. If your administrator cannot help you, you or your administrator should contact Jira Support.

Obtaining an API Token

To connect to a Jira cloud account, an API token is necessary for account authentication. To generate a token, log in to your Atlassian account, navigate to the API tokens page, and click Create API token. Copy the generated token and enter it in the API Token field in the Data Connection Settings panel.

Jira "Issues" table

The Jira "Issues" table can contain many custom fields created by your organization. For this reason, the Jira API treats the Issues table dynamically, assembling the fields contained in the table each time you connect to the table. If your Jira administrator makes a change to the custom fields in the Issues table, Analytics scripts that assume a specific selection of fields may break.

To resolve this problem, manually perform a Jira import using the Data Access window in Analytics. Copy the ACCESSDATA command from the log and use it to update your script. Update field specifications in the script body to align with changes to the Issues table.

Create a Jira connection

From the Analytics main menu, select Import > Database and application.
From the New Connections tab, in the ACL Connectors section, select Jira.
Tip
You can filter the list of available connectors by entering a search string in the Filter connections box. Connectors are listed alphabetically.
In the Data Connection Settings panel, enter the connection settings and at the bottom of the panel, click Save and Connect.
You can accept the default Connection Name, or enter a new one.

The connection for Jira is saved to the Existing Connections tab. In the future, you can reconnect to Jira from the saved connection.

Once the connection is established, the Data Access window opens to the Staging Area and you can begin importing data. For help importing data from Jira, see Working with the Data Access window.

Connection settings

Basic settings

Setting	Description	Example
Host	The host name of the Jira cloud account, or Jira server instance.	https://your_org.atlassian.net
Instance Type	The type of Jira platform used by your company: cloud-based, or on-premise server	Cloud
User	The user account used to authenticate to Jira.	admin_1@your_org.com
API Token	For a Jira cloud account, the Jira API token for the currently authenticated user
Password	For a Jira server instance, the Jira password used to authenticate the user
Include Custom Fields	In addition to the standard fields in Jira tables, include any custom fields added by your company.	true

Advanced settings

Setting	Description	Example
Limit Key Size	The maximum length of a primary key column. Setting the size to 0 will make the key length revert to the original length. This property makes the connector override the reported length of all the primary key columns.	255
Map to Long Varchar	Controls whether or not a column is returned as SQL_LONGVARCHAR. Use this setting to map any column larger than the specified size so they are reported as SQL_LONGVARCHAR instead of SQL_VARCHAR.	-1
Map to WVarchar	Controls whether or not string types map to SQL_WVARCHAR instead of SQL_VARCHAR. It is set by default. String columns must be mapped to SQL_WVARCHAR to accommodate various international character sets, so MapToWVarchar is set to true by default. You may set it to false to use SQL_VARCHAR instead.	true
Pseudo Columns	Indicates whether or not to include pseudo columns as columns to the table. This setting is particularly helpful in Entity Framework, which does not allow you to set a value for a pseudo column unless it is a table column. The value of this connection setting is of the format "Table1=Column1, Table1=Column2, Table2=Column3". You can use the "*" character to include all tables and all columns.	MyTable=*
SSL Server Certificate	The certificate to be accepted from the server when connecting using TLS/SSL. You can specify any of the following: full PEM certificate path to a local file containing the certificate the public key the MD5 Thumbprint (hex values can also be either space or colon separated) the SHA1 Thumbprint (hex values can also be either space or colon separated) If using a TLS/SSL connection, this property can be used to specify the TLS/SSL certificate to be accepted from the server. Any other certificate that is not trusted by the machine will be rejected.	C:\cert.cer
Convert Datetime to GMT	Converts datetime fields to GMT time zone during import. If false, the datetime value is converted to the operating system time zone of the machine running Analytics.	true
Proxy Authentication Scheme	The authentication type to use to authenticate to the ProxyServer proxy. This value specifies the authentication type to use to authenticate to the HTTP proxy specified by ProxyServer and ProxyPort. Note The connector will use the system proxy settings by default, without further configuration needed; if you want to connect to another proxy, you will need to set ProxyAutoDetect to false, in addition to ProxyServer and ProxyPort. To authenticate, set ProxyAuthScheme and set ProxyUser and ProxyPassword, if needed. The authentication type can be one of the following: BASIC The driver performs HTTP BASIC authentication DIGEST The driver performs HTTP DIGEST authentication. NEGOTIATE The driver retrieves an NTLM or Kerberos token based on the applicable protocol for authentication PROPRIETARY The driver does not generate an NTLM or Kerberos token. You must supply this token in the Authorization header of the HTTP request	BASIC
Proxy Auto Detect	Indicates whether to use the system proxy settings or not. Set ProxyAutoDetect to FALSE to use custom proxy settings. This takes precedence over other proxy settings.	true
Proxy User	A user name to be used to authenticate to the ProxyServer proxy. The ProxyUser and ProxyPassword options are used to connect and authenticate against the HTTP proxy specified in ProxyServer. You can select one of the available authentication types in ProxyAuthScheme. If you are using HTTP authentication, set this to the username of a user recognized by the HTTP proxy. If you are using Windows or Kerberos authentication, set this property to a username in one of the following formats: user@domain domain\user	john_doe@example.com
Proxy Password	A password to be used to authenticate to the ProxyServer proxy. This property is used to authenticate to an HTTP proxy server that supports NTLM (Windows), Kerberos, or HTTP authentication. To specify the HTTP proxy, you can set ProxyServer and ProxyPort. To specify the authentication type, set ProxyAuthScheme. If you are using HTTP authentication, additionally set ProxyUser and ProxyPassword to HTTP proxy. If you are using NTLM authentication, set ProxyUser and ProxyPassword to your Windows password. You may also need these to complete Kerberos authentication.
Proxy Server	The hostname or IP address of a proxy to route HTTP traffic through. The hostname or IP address of a proxy to route HTTP traffic through. The driver can use the HTTP, Windows (NTLM), or Kerberos authentication types to authenticate to an HTTP proxy. By default, the driver uses the system proxy. If you need to use another proxy, set ProxyAutoDetect to false.	206.174.193.115
Proxy Port	The TCP port the ProxyServer proxy is running on.	80
Proxy SSL Type	The SSL type to use when connecting to the ProxyServer proxy: AUTO If the URL is an HTTPS URL, the connector will use the TUNNEL option. If the URL is an HTTP URL, the connector will use the NEVER option (default) ALWAYS the connection is always SSL enabled NEVER the connection is not SSL enabled TUNNEL the connection is through a tunneling proxy: The proxy server opens a connection to the remote host and traffic flows back and forth through the proxy	AUTO

Data connector updates

When you upgrade Analytics, the Robots Agent, or AX Server, you should test any of your scripts that import data using one of the Analytics data connectors (ACCESSDATA command).

The possibility exists that changes made by third-party data sources or ODBC driver vendors required updates to one or more of the data connectors. Scripted data connections may need to be updated in order to continue working correctly.

Re-run the import The easiest way to update a connection is to manually perform an import using the Data Access window in the upgraded version of Analytics. Copy the ACCESSDATA command from the log and use it to update your script.
Note
Before connecting to a data source and re-running the import, clear the connector cache to flush the existing set of table names.
In the Existing Connections tab in the Data Access window, beside the connector name, select > Clear cache.
Update field specifications You may also need to update field specifications in the script body to align with table schema changes in the data source or ODBC driver. Possible changes include field names, field data types, and field and record lengths.
Check the results of any filtering You should also check the results of any filtering that you apply as part of the data import. Confirm that the import filtering is including and excluding records correctly.

Jira data connector changes

Specific changes made to the Jira data connector are listed below.

Analytics version	Jira table	Fields added	Fields removed
14.2	Attachments	AuthorAccountId	AuthorKey ContentEncoded FilePath Name
	Boards		FilterId (Existing scripted Jira imports that reference this field continue to work, but the field no longer exists.)
	Comments	AuthorAccountId UpdateAuthorAccountId	AuthorKey AuthorName UpdateAuthorKey UpdateAuthorName
	IssueChangeLogs	AuthorAccountId AuthorDisplayName	AuthorKey
	Projects	LeadAccountId	LeadKey LeadName Recent
	SecurityLevels	SecuritySchemeId	Link
	Users	AccountId	Key Name IncludeInactive
	Watchers	AccountId	Key Name
	Worklogs	AuthorAccountId UpdateAuthorAccountId	AuthorName UpdateAuthorName