Jira Connectors - has anyone successfully built a bi-directional Jira connector with Smartsheet?

Dawn_ATX

I am trying to improve communications among several departments and trying to figure out the best way to do this. I've created the connector but am struggling as on the Jira side, there's no consistency for fields that are used, etc. If a ticket gets created (like for a new feature request) in Smartsheet that gets sent to Jira, I can get this to work just fine. The issue is when someone moves the ticket from Jira into its own project, the ticket becomes "lost." Is there a fix for this? Can anyone assist? Thank you!

Julio S.

Hi @Dawn_ATX ,

If my understanding is correct, you are trying to create a bi-directional workflow with the Jira connector but you can't manage to send info back from Jira into Smartsheet. If this is correct, it would be a bit challenging to advise without seeing the actual Workflow but there are some key factors from the relevant Help Center article that may be related to what you are experiencing:

• "Certain fields from Jira will appear with only a unidirectional mapping option (Issue Key, Jira Link, Issue Link, Created Date, etc.). These fields are read-only from Jira and cannot be written to from Smartsheet."
• "Fields must be on the Create Issue screen in the Jira application to appear as options in the workflow wizard"
• If you have configured a "Jira Filter" it's possible that this is preventing the specific items to appear in the connected sheet

If this information can't be of help or I have misinterpreted you, please provide some captures of the Workflow that you are trying to build with some clarifications about what "when someone moves the ticket from Jira into its own project" entails within the context of your work. E.g assigning a work item to a certain resource in Jira won't synchronize with the connected sheet and will make the task disappear from the sheet.

Please make sure to hide any sensitive information from your captures when sharing them.

Cheers!

Julio

Dawn_ATX

Hi Julio - Thanks for your reply! The problem I'm trying to solve is I've successfully built the connector from Jira to Smartsheet and the fields that I need are bi-directional, the problem becomes when a ticket is created and then populated in Jira, when someone goes to move it to a specific project board within Jira, the ticket then disappears from the Smartsheet sheet and when updates happen in Jira, we can no longer track those and see what is happening. Folks will then have to log in to Jira, search for the ticket and find out the status that way. Is there a way I can build some sort of automated workflow for this? I need some training on that but essentially the problem I'm trying to solve for is for our engagement team to be able to do everything and see everything within Smartsheet without having to leave Smartsheet. :)

Julio S.

Hi @Dawn_ATX,

I've been trying to reproduce what you report but I've been unsuccessful. When searching on the specific run logs, have you noticed any particular error? Alternatively, you may also review the sheet Activity Log to try and find how those fields seem to disappear from the sheet. I'd like to note however that this looks like a strange behaviour given that the connector should never delete existing information from your sheet even if this gets out of sync, this is explained in more detail in "Data is not removed from a sheet after filter updates" here.

If none of these suggestions seem to offer any clue or channel to investigate why those fields may go out of sync and disappear from the sheet, and sharing your Workflow configuration and captures of both the relevant sheet and Jira project does not look appropriate here, you may want to open a ticket with our Support team via this form or accessing the Customer Support Portal to investigate this in more depth. When doing so, please make sure to offer as much information as possible to help reproduce your configuration, to that end, it would be of great help if you could share some captures of the Workflow configuration and an example of an affected task in both Smartsheet and Jira.

Cheers!

Julio

Dawn_ATX

Hi Julio - I'll try to send some screenshots next week. Ultimately, it's when a ticket is created in Smartsheet then gets created in Jira. It sort of goes to like a main "holding area" and that piece populates on the Smartsheet sheet. However, if that same ticket then gets assigned to another "board" or "project" within Jira, it disappears from the sheet, almost like because it moved from the "holding area," the sheet now doesn't recognize it as a ticket.

Zeb Loewenstein

@Julio S. I'm having a similar issue, and may be able to shed light on what is going on.

When a Jira ticket is created from Smartsheet, "Project Key" is a required field in order for the ticket to be created in Jira. If the Jira project is then later reassigned, the Project Key technically changes to a different value and is one of the listed projects in my JQL filter.

The problem I believe is that Project Key is unidirectional from Smartsheet to Jira.

Is there any workaround for this, so that it could be switched to bidirectional? I don't know if Project Key is represented by a discrete field which can be made visible from within Jira.

Dawn_ATX

@Zeb Loewenstein Thanks Zeb!

Zeb Loewenstein

For the group - my error is self inflicted. I forgot to include one of the Jira projects in my connector. Rebuilding the connector fixed the issue.

Best,

Zeb