Our Jira integration lets you create and link issues of all types right from your Harvestr Discoveries. You can then follow the evolution of these issues and their status in Jira without leaving Harvestr.
Prerequisites
To use our Jira integration, all you need is:
a Jira account with Jira Administrator permissions
a Harvestr Editor account
How to integrate Harvestr into your company's Jira account
1. Connect your Jira account
To connect your Jira account to Harvestr, go to the Jira section of your Harvestr integrations settings. From there, you will be able to enter your Jira Base url which should be something like yourcompany.atlassian.net
2. Login to Jira as administrator
In Jira now, Choose ⚙ > Products. Select Application Links in the left menu. You can find more information on creating Application Links in Jira here.
Select Create link.
Choose the Direct application link.
In the field 'Application URL', enter https://app.harvestr.io and click 'Create new link'.
If you get a warning saying that 'No response was received from the URL you entered...', do not pay attention to it and click on 'Continue'.
3. Fill in the "Link applications" popup form
You must now fill in a few fields to set up the integration:
Application name: "harvestr"
Application type: "Generic Application"
Service provider: "harvestr"
Consumer key: "harvestr"
Shared secret: "harvestr"
Request token url : "https://app.harvestr.io"
Access token url : "https://app.harvestr.io"
Authorize url : "https://app.harvestr.io"
Finally, check the "Create incoming link" box and press 'Continue'.
You will then have to enter three more values:
Consumer key: "harvestr"
Consumer name: "harvestr"
For the Public key, copy and paste it from the Jira section of your Harvestr integrations settings.
You should see the following message in Jira: "Application link 'Harvestr' created successfully".
4. Finalize the connection to Jira
You’re now ready to authorize Harvestr access to Jira. Go back to the Jira integration settings in Harvestr and click "Connect to Jira" at the bottom of the page.
This will pop up a last window where you need to allow Harvestr access to your Jira project.
Once this is done, you will be automatically redirected to your Jira integration settings in Harvestr and you should see the confirmation that "Your Jira account is connected".
How to use the Jira integration in Harvestr
Now that the integration is set up, a Jira section will appear in every Discovery in Harvestr.
You will now be able to :
create and link one or more new Jira issues to a Discovery
link one or more existing Jira issues to a Discovery
1. Create and link one or more new Jira issues to a Discovery
Once you have decided to launch a Discovery to production, you can create issues in Jira that correspond to what needs to be developed.
When you press "Create issue" in a Discovery in Harvestr, it pops up a window where you will be able to enter the attributes of the issue you want to create, namely its:
project
board
sprint
type
status
assignee
summary
description
Pro tip: by clicking "Copy fields from Discovery", you can automatically copy your Discovery's title and description fields and paste them into the issue's Summary and Description fields.
Once the issue is opened, it will be created in Jira with the attributes you have entered and an additional link to the Discovery in Harvestr. This gives your software team access to the valuable content in your Discovery, such as user feedback.
In your Discovery in Harvestr, you will also have the link to the newly created issue, and you can keep track of its status evolution in Jira.
2. Link one or more existing Jira issues to a Discovery
Sometimes, you will also want to link Jira issues that already exist to a Harvestr Discovery.
You can do that by clicking the "Link issue" button in your Discovery. This will open a search bar where you will be able to search a Jira issue by its name or by its key. The search by key only works when you type the entire key in the search bar.
Once you have linked the issue to your Discovery, you will be able to follow its status evolution from Harvestr.
Note: you can link as many issues as possible to a Discovery.
3. Keep track of linked Jira issues
Adding the "Jira issues" field to your Discovery views
The best way to keep track of the status of issues linked to your Discoveries is to add the dedicated Jira issues field in your Discovery table.
You will then see which Discoveries are linked to a Jira issue and the status of these issues right from the Discovery table.
Last, click on the issue tag to open the issue in Jira.
Filtering Discoveries by Jira issues parameters
You will then be able to filter Discoveries in your Discovery views based on parameters of linked Jira issues.
Here are some views that you can build to keep track of issue statuses and update Discovery statuses accordingly :
In Jira view: a view that displays all Discoveries that have at least a linked Jira issue (filter -> Jira: Is not empty)
In Jira Shipped view: a view that displays all Discoveries with the shipped status in Jira (filter -> State name contains: your shipped status in Jira). From this view, you can bulk select all Discoveries and update their status to shipped in Harvestr.
Sync Discovery statuses with Jira issue statuses (available from the Elite plan)
From the Jira integration settings in Harvestr, you can set up automation rules to automatically update the status of a Discovery based on the status of linked Jira issues.
To set up an automation, go to the bottom of your Jira integration settings, in the Discoveries automations settings section.
Click Add automation and start configuring it.
Set up the trigger
Linked issues:
Any linked issue: the state of the Discovery will be updated when the state of at least one linked Jira issue is updated
All of linked issues: the state of the Discovery will be updated when the states of all linked Jira issues are updated
Status:
Status name: the automation will be triggered based on the name of the linked Jira issue state
Status category: the automation will be triggered based on the category of the linked Jira issue state (To do, In progress, or Done)
Set up the action
When the trigger conditions are met, you can choose the new state to assign to the linked Discovery.
Click Save, and your automation will be active.
Disconnect and reconnect the Jira integration
Here's when you should disconnect and reconnect the Jira integration:
Jira issues information (status, etc.) are not updated correctly in Harvestr anymore
you can't find your Jira projects when trying to link or create an issue from Harvestr
Follow these steps:
In the Jira integration settings within Harvestr, click on Disconnect Jira integration.
Re-enter your Jira base URL in the designated field.
Copy the public key displayed below.
In Jira, go to ⚙ > Products > Application Links and edit the Harvestr application.
In the Incoming Authentication tab, enter "harvestr" for both the Consumer Key and Consumer Name, and paste the previously copied public key. Then click Save.
In the Jira settings within Harvestr, click the blue Connect to Jira button, and you're all set.
If you have requests or ideas about how we could improve our Jira integration to better suit your workflow, send us a message!