JIRA integration

Hi Jamie Your questions: Is the integration capability 2-way? i.e. creating issues in Jira to then sync back to Workfront is as feature-rich as creating issues in Workfront and then syncing them back to Jira Can hours logged in Jira sync back to Workfront time sheets? Issues created in Jira are not synced back to Workfront. :( Since all of the backlog is created by our product managers in Jira, we won't be using the integration until this feature is available. We could have our PO(s) create the items in Workfront but then we would have to provide planner access. I'm told that the two way synchronization is on the roadmap but the timing has not been established. Hours logged in Jira DO sync back to the item in Workfront. It also populates the owner's time sheet if they have a planner or worker account. Unfortunately, if the person logging the time does not have a worker or planner license they don't have a time sheet. But, the hours are still logged against the project. To log hours click on the clock icon in Jira. This will open a model window to select hours and minutes. David Allingham Project Manager Reed Tech®, a LexisNexis® Company dallingham@reedtech.com

Hi Jamie, David. Thank you for bringing this up! I'm Hayk, the product manager over Workfront's native integrations. I'm very interested in learning more about enabling the 2-way sync between Workfront and Jira, i.e. adding the functionality to automatically create new tasks/issues in Workfront based on Jira tickets. I'd really appreciate if you could have a short call with me to provide your feedback about the first version of the Jira add-on as well as help me to shape the next one. "https://calendly.com/haykfalakyan/workfront-jira-integration">This link shows my availability for April and will allow you to directly book a 30-minute call, if you're interested. Hayk Falakyan Workfront

One of the questions we have regarding the integration revolves around projects and I haven't seen it addressed in any of the documentation and hoping someone could help. Do you open independent projects in both applications for a project and then create issues/tasks in the WF project to be synced to the Jira project? I'm unfamiliar with how Jira organizes tasks and issues because I have not seen a demo of Jira aside from what was shown in the webinar a couple of weeks ago. We are trying to explain the benefits for the integration between the applications to our digital team, but I'm flying blind in terms of how Jira functions. Wendy White AmeriCredit Financial Services, Inc. dba GM Financial

Wendy, actually no, the integration can create new tickets in any Jira project, based on tasks/issues in any Workfront project. What trigger the new tickets creation in Jira are the new assignments in Workfront. You can setup the integration in a way that as soon as a new task in Workfront is assigned to, let's say, the Jira Devs team, a new ticket will be created in Jira's Marketing Requests project, and naturally you get to select any team/user/role in Workfront and any target project in Jira. The tasks or issues in Workfront that you assign to the Jira Devs team can be in any project as well. So the main trigger is who is assigned to the task in Workfront, not where the task is. There is no need of a project to project mapping. Hayk Falakyan Workfront

Hopefully I'm not threadjacking here, but I have a related question: We're looking at the Jira integration and it's a bit confusing and documentation on behavior isn't clear to us. If we have multiple projects that a user is assigned to in Workfront, and matching multiple projects in Jira, can Workfront and Jira still keep it straight and how does it make the link between the projects in both systems? So far it seems like the link is user-based, in which case we could only have a single project per user on each side (WF and Jira). Kevin Quosig

@Kevin Quosig , I think this is a good question for this thread. The Workfront for Jira app does have that limitation: one team/user in Workfront to one Jira project. Once you add a user, you cannot add that user again (see screenshot). This was one of the main reasons why we ended up investing in Fusion - complex routing rules, true two-way sync, Jira can send issues over to Workfront (not just the other way around). Greg Troester CHG Healthcare

Greg, I was rather hoping I was just being a n00b on this; hard to believe the Jira "integration" is so simplistic. :-( Fusion is not in the budget; at least for now (we haven't even deployed yet, still implementing). Thank you for confirming though, much appreciated! Kevin Quosig

Sure thing - I had to install the app in a Jira instance and start playing with it before I really understood it. Fusion is pricy, for sure. As a workaround, you could create Workfront teams for each Jira project that you want to route to. The app appears to really be pointed at sending work to Jira to have it be worked on, not the other way around. So if that's your use case (maybe a few development teams get involved in projects and only need to receive work requests) you could use the Workfront for Jira app as a minimum viable solution that might help you build the business case for buying the expanded functionality. This approach would also work if you're trying to set up a request queue that pushes work to Jira - again, with the limitation that the Jira team is basically receiving requests and performing work. Greg Troester CHG Healthcare