The field syncing feature enables near real time syncing of data between Zendesk Support and Jira. This will improves information sharing between the two systems, for better collaboration between Support and Engineering teams. This is done by creating mapping between Jira Issue fields and Support Ticket fields.
This article contains the following topics:
Related articles:
Requirements and limitations
- Supported versions are: Jira Cloud and Jira Server 7.0 and newer.
- Once data is synced, it cannot be removed easily. However, you can disable field syncing all together, which disables all field links.
- Direction of sync can be set on a per-field basis, but only one mapping per field is allowed.
- Bidirectional syncing of the same field is not supported.
- Field mapping screen displays custom field types from all Jira projects in a single list.
- All mapped fields for a particular issue or ticket get updated via a single API call, so if one field mapping was misconfigured, the update of all fields will fail.
Field type syncing compatibility
There are some restrictions on which field types are compatible for syncing. A Zendesk decimal field, with a numeric display, cannot sync with a Jira multi-line text field, for example.
The tables below list field mapping compatibility.
| Field title/type | Display type | Compatible Jira issue field type(s) |
|---|---|---|
| Priority (default) | Drop-down | Text field (read-only)
Select list Text field (single line) Text field (multi-line) |
| Type (default) | Drop-down | Text field (read-only)
Select list Text field (single line) Text field (multi-line) |
| Date (custom) | Date | Date picker
Due date |
| Decimal (custom) | Number | Number field |
| Numeric (custom) | Number | Number field |
| Drop-down list (custom) | Drop-down | Text field (read-only)
Select list Text field (single line) Text field (multi-line) |
| Text (custom) | Single line text | Description
Environment Text field (read-only)Select list Summary Text field (single line) Text field (multi-line) |
| Multi-line text (custom) | Multi-line text | Text field (multi-line) |
| Field title/type | Display type | Compatible Zendesk ticket field type(s) |
|---|---|---|
| Description (default) | Multi-line text | Multi-line text |
| Due date (default) | Date | Date |
| Environment (default) | Multi-line text | Multi-line text |
| Fix versions (default) | Fix versions | Text
Multi-line text |
| Priority (default) | Priority | Text
Multi-line text Drop-down list |
| Sprint (default) | Sprint | Text
Multi-line text |
| Status (default) | Status | Text
Multi-line text Drop-down list |
| Summary (default) | Single line text | Text
Multi-line text |
| Date (custom) | Date | Text
Multi-line text Date |
| Number (custom) | Number | Numeric
Decimal |
| Read-only text field (custom) | Read-only text field | Text
Multi-line text |
| Select (custom) | Drop-down | Text
Multi-line text Drop-down Type Priority |
| Text field (custom) | Single line text | Text
Multi-line text |
| Text area (custom) | Multi-line text | Multi-line text |
Setting up field syncing
Field syncing is set up using a simple mapping interface.
Zendesk Support and Jira have different field types, which adds complexity to the syncing process and requires the user to follow certain rules when creating field mapping, to ensure syncing will work as expected.
Both System (default) and Custom fields are supported; however, only a subset of all available field types are supported. Additionally, there are limitations as to which Jira field type can be synced to a Zendesk Support field type and vice-versa. For instance, a text field cannot be synced to a datetime field. To prevent misconfiguration, the user interface hides field types that are not supported, and greys out invalid mapping options.
Because data synced fields cannot be unsynced, we recommend that you test your field syncing in a test environment or sandbox. If necessary, you can disable the field syncing feature by removing all field mappings. This will stop syncing of subsequent data changes.
To configure and to enable field syncing
- Log in to your Jira account with Admin privileges.
- Click the Settings cog, then select Add-ons > Manage add-ons > Zendesk Support for Jira > Configure > Field Mapping.
- Use the drop-down menus to select the Jira issue ticket field and Zendesk Support ticket fields you want to map.
- Click Add. The synced fields are added to the Field Mapping list.
- Repeat for additional mapped fields.
- When finished mapping fields, click Save and Sync.
Many-to-one syncing
You can, conceivably, sync a field from a single Jira issue to multiple Zendesk Support tickets, or a field from a single Support ticket to multiple Jira issues. In this case, the syncing only occurs in one direction, from the single issue or ticket to the multiple ones.
However, syncing a field from multiple linked tickets to a Jira issue field, or from multiple Jira issues to a field on a ticket, is not supported. Configuring field sync in such a way will cause it to stop syncing for this particular ticket or issue. When wanting to link multiple tickets to a Jira issue and use sync we recommend using problem/incident concept described in Working with problem and incident tickets.
The Jira issue key is a special case. If multiple issues are linked to the same ticket, all their keys will appear on the ticket.
Syncing closed tickets
Unlike Jira, Zendesk does not allow closed tickets to be updated. This means that when attempting to sync Jira issues to Zendesk tickets, it may fail if the ticket is already closed. You will be able to see this error on the Zendesk Support for Jira add-on Error Report screen.
Errors
Since syncing is something that happens behind the scenes, errors are displayed on a dedicated screen. The error report screen allows the user to identify and resolve invalid field mappings as well as other configuration issues.
16 Comments
Hello Yuri,
Update:
This issue has been fixed!! Thank you very much!!
---------------------------------I am a beautiful line-----------------------------
This works! But I found a problem that is the Status field in JIRA does not map the exact value to Zendesk. For example: JIRA Status is Open, then the "JIRA Status" field in Zendesk shows "To Do".
Do you have any idea how to fix this issue?
Thanks,
Jennifer.
Hi Yuri,
This is a pretty great integration. I'm using it and liking it.
I have found two or three fields that would be super helpful to sync:
- Zendesk Ticket ID
- JIRA Fix Version
- JIRA Sprint
Would it be possible to add these as options on the field mappings?
Hi Yuri,
I agree with Joel, if this integration can link:
JIRA Fix version
JIRA Affects version
JIRA resolution
That would be great!! However, from what I can see, I cannot map these fields...
Thanks,
Jennifer.
Hi Jennifer,
We've added support for the Status field, so hopefully it will do what you need.
As for the other fields, I want to point out, that if all you wanted is to see this fields in Zendesk, you could expose them via our panel app. https://cl.ly/3w1n0A0r1L1C
It will fetch the data dynamically from JIRA without syncing it to Zendesk.
Syncing is useful if you actually need to store the data in the other system, for reporting purposes for instance.
Hi Yuri,
My purpose for syncing the Fix Version or Sprint is to query tickets in Zendesk that are scheduled for release in specific versions.
@Joel we are using it for the same purposes. For linking to an existing problem it's great, but creating a new issue based on a ZD ticket still requires my team to load the ticket again in Jira afterward to put on the finishing touches.
@Joel, thanks for explaining. It makes sense. I'll be looking to add these two fields in the near future.
@Marcel, which fields are you manually adding to the JIRA issue? Did you know you can define which fields appear on the issue creation form in Zendesk?
Hello Yurl,
Could you also add the JIRA IssueKey to the list of System fields? Similar to the above, we need to be able to report from the Zendesk side which customers have reported which issues.
To be specific, I have a custom field in Zendesk called JiraID, and I would like to automatically sync the issue key to that field, so I can use Insights/GoodData to pull out which issues a particular user/organization/set of organizations have reported.
Also, I can report on the growth of reports of that issue over time. (Yes, I know that I can now do that in JIRA using the Zendesk Ticket Count Field, but I can't segment it by region, for example)
John
Hi Yuri,
I understand you added the possibility to link Jira Status to ZD not the other way around?
Would it be possible to link ZD status to Jira? It's not listed in the system fields: https://cl.ly/1f2e092b0Y1Z
Madis
@Madis, thank you for the feedback. We will look into adding this field shortly.
I'd also second John Collman's feedback. We need a way to report on the issues in Zendesk.
Right now there's no good way to report on the tickets(and their properties) tied to a particular issue. Even if we could map the JIRA issue key to a Zendesk field, it might cause problems for tickets with multiple issues linked to them.
The problems I can see the today if we could sync the issuekey are:
1) Overwriting the issuekey field in zendesk with the key of the most recently synced issue
OR
2) Appending it in the field, but that will present issues as it will be a unique value to GoodData, which would fragment the results.
Perhaps the best solution would be to add the JIRA linked ticket data as an object in GoodData itself? Other Zendesk apps, like the Time Tracking App do this, and I think this would be a great feature to the JIRA integration.
Thanks!
@ Dan Ross
You bring up a good point "about linking to multiple JIRA issues and the values getting overwritten- Our business process is such that we should only ever have one JIRA linked per ticket, but I could definitely see that being a problem for other workflows.
It depends how the "JiraID" custom field metadata is stored - most of the field attributes on a ticket are stored as a tag, so it MIGHT be possible to have multple JIRAIDs saved on a single Zendesk ticket.
@Yuri Mylis
Thanks for touching base. Yep, I believe I know you can add new fields which appear, but ones i'm requiring aren't available, even after enabling them in the zendesk plugin settings (Sprint and Fix version actually), I'm still not seeing them in the create ticket popup. Might have to do some more digging on the jira side.
We would also really love to be able to sync the JIRA issue key to a custom ticket field in Zendesk that we're already using to track, search, and report in Zendesk so that we don't have to paste it into two places in our tickets.
Hi @Yuri,
I totally agree with others. JIRA Issue Key is a very useful data for my organization. Checking each ticket's app panel is not a easy thing to do, because there are more than 100 tickets... It would be so much easier for my organization, if data is stored in Zendesk, all we need to do is create a view.
Again, I think mapping the following fields would be very helpful for us:
- Affects Version (label type field, system field)
-Fix Version (label type field, system field)
-Resolution (single selection list, system field)
-Issue Key (System field)
The reason I need these data is that Affects version, Fix Version and resolution can tell us what versions/products will be affected and fixed. Resolution provide us a general fix solution. We can know whether this issue will be fixed or not, or maybe this issue is a duplicate of another issue. Issue Key can tell me what JIRA issue is linked with this ticket. Issue Type can tell me what kind of issue is it.
These data are very important information that everybody cares, I understand that we can check the app panel to get the data. However, it takes a lot of times to go through all the tickets... My organization currently have 140+ tickets. Managers and agents may want to know the info of linked JIRA anytime, but it is not possible for them to go through every ticket and click app panel...
I would really appreciate it if you can enable field mapping of these fields...
Thanks,
Jennifer.
Hi everyone, quick update and some good news. Based on customer requests, today we've added support for 3 additional fields: JIRA Fix Version/s, JIRA Sprint and Zendesk Status.
This means these fields can now be synced using the integration.
We've also started work on the JIRA Issue Key field, so hopefully you won't have to wait much longer.
Thanks for providing feedback!
I'm also closing this page for comments to make updates more centralized. Please post comments on https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/203660206
Article is closed for comments.