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Using the Zendesk Support for Jira integration

Yuri Mylis
  • Edited
Zendesk Product Manager

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The Jira integration encourages collaboration between product teams and the support team. For example, after a customer reports a bug in a ticket, the agent can file a bug in Jira directly from your Zendesk. After fixing the bug, a developer can add a comment to the ticket directly from Jira.

For information on configuring the Zendesk Support for Jira integration, see Setting up Zendesk Support for Jira integration.

This article covers the following topics:

Related articles:

Using the integration in Zendesk Support

As an agent, you can create a new Jira issue from a ticket, or link to an existing Jira issue from a ticket. You can then use the link to track the progress made by the product team on addressing the issue. For example, within Zendesk Support you can view details about a bug you filed in Jira to see if the engineering team fixed it.

A single Jira issue can be linked to up to 200 Zendesk Support tickets.

Topics covered in this section:

You can also automatically notify an agent or a customer when somebody changes the status of an issue in Jira. See Updating a ticket when the status of a Jira issue changes.

Creating a Jira issue from a ticket

You can create a Jira issue from a ticket in Support, for example, when the ticket is a feature request or a bug report from a customer.

To create a Jira issue from a ticket

  1. In Zendesk Support, go to the ticket you want to use as a basis for a new Jira issue.
  2. Click Create Issue in the Jira app next to the ticket.

    Note: If the Jira app is not displayed on the right side of the agent interface, click Apps.

  3. Click the Project drop-down options to display available Jira projects. If you start typing the name of the Jira project for the issue, the list of suggested projects is filtered to match.

  4. Enter the details about the issue.

    • If you’ve selected the option to transfer information from your ticket, this information is already entered.

    • You can click Copy fields from this ticket (see below) to populate the fields, then select the Always copy checkbox to make this the default behavior.

      Note that Copy fields from this ticket only copies the subject and most recent comment. It does not copy any additional custom fields.

    • If the assignee or reporter you're looking for doesn't appear in the suggested user list, enter the exact Jira username.

    The default fields are displayed in the image below. Administrators can add additional fields this form. For information, see Adding fields to the Jira app in Zendesk Support.

  5. (Optional) Click Add reporter as a watcher to include the reporter as a watcher to the newly-created issue. See Commenting and comment sharing for more information.
  6. Click Create issue.

A new issue is created in Jira and the ticket is linked to it. In Zendesk Support, the Jira app in the sidebar displays the Jira issue name, summary, and description.

For more information, see Customizing the summary and details views.

Creating a link to an existing Jira issue from a ticket

If you know that an issue is tracked in Jira and you receive a support request that's related to it, you can link the ticket to the issue. You can also link the same ticket to other issues in Jira.

You can keep track of the number of tickets linked to Jira issues, and use that metadata to prioritize your work. See Jira: Linked tickets reporting for more information.

To link to an existing Jira issue

  1. In Zendesk, go to the ticket you'd like to link to a Jira issue.
  2. Click Link Issue in the Jira panel.

    Note: If the Jira app is not displayed on the right side of the agent interface, click Apps.

  3. Enter your issue key (XXX-000) or paste a link to the issue.

    If you do not know your issue key, you can search Jira issues.

  4. Click Link issue.

The ticket is linked to the existing issue in Jira. In Zendesk Support, the Jira app in the sidebar displays the Jira issue name, summary, description, and comments.

Tracking a Jira issue from a ticket

The Jira app in the sidebar displays a summary of any issue linked to the ticket, as well as any comments associated with it:

Click the Show More Details (eye) icon next to the issue name to view more details about the issue:

The details view opens in a new window:

You can customize the information displayed in both the summary and details views. See Customizing the summary and details views below.

If you're a Jira user too, you can open the issue in Jira by clicking the issue name in the summary view. A new browser tab opens and displays the issue.

Customizing the summary and details views

You can customize the information that's displayed in both the summary and details views. For details about the views, see Tracking a Jira issue from a ticket above.

To customize the summary and details views

  1. Click the Admin icon in the upper-right side of the Jira app next to the ticket.

  2. Select the information you want to display in the summary and details views.

  3. Click Close to save your choices.

Adding a label to a Jira issue from a ticket

When creating or linking to a Jira issue from a ticket, a jira_escalate tag is added by default to the ticket and an identical jira_escalate label is added to the issue in Jira. You can add more labels to a linked issue in Jira at any time. Any ticket tag with a jira_ prefix is added as a matching label to any Jira issue linked to the ticket.

If the escalating agent has a custom agent role in the Enterprise plan, the role must allow the agent to edit tags. See Creating custom roles and assigning agents.

To add a label to a Jira issue

  1. Add a tag with a jira_ prefix in the Tags field in the ticket's left sidebar:

  2. Update the ticket by clicking Submit.

The new label appears in the Details section of the issue in Jira:

Unlinking a Jira issue from a ticket

  • Click the Unlink (x) icon in the Jira app next to the ticket.

Searching Jira issues

When linking a ticket to a Jira issue, you can search for Jira issues by keyword, or using the Jira Query Language (JQL). Starting your search with the project name in capital letters will limit the results to that project.

To search Jira issues by keyword

  1. In the Link Issue search field, enter your search terms . You can limit results to a specific project by starting the search with the project name in capital letters, or you can use JQL.

  2. As you're typing, ticket suggestions are made. You can select a suggested ticket, or continue typing to narrow down the results.

Using the integration in Jira

As a Jira user, you can view details about tickets linked to your issues, and add comments to linked tickets. You can also automatically notify an agent or a customer when you change the status of an issue in Jira. See Updating a ticket when the status of a Jira issue changes.

This section describes how to view the details of a linked Support ticket in your Jira issue. For information on adding comments to linked tickets, see Commenting and comment sharing below.

To view the details of a linked Zendesk Support ticket

  1. Navigate to the issue in Jira. In the sidebar under Zendesk Support, the number of linked tickets is displayed.

  2. Double-click on Linked Tickets to open the linked tickets page.
  3. If more than one ticket is linked to the issue, click the accordion to expand the ticket details.

  4. To view the ticket in Support, click the linked ticket heading.

Commenting and comment sharing

When you link Zendesk Support tickets and Jira issues, you can also share some commenting functionality between the two platforms.

While the commenting functionality doesn't fully integrate the commenting systems in Zendesk Support and Jira, it does allow you to perform the following tasks, which are described in this section:

However, you cannot perform some expected comment-related tasks, such as:

  • Automatically notify Zendesk collaborators when there are new comments on linked Jira issue, unless they are also watching the Jira issue.
  • Mark a comment as having been read by another user.

Adding a comment to a Jira issue from a ticket

If a Support ticket is linked to a Jira issue, you can add comments to the Jira issue from the ticket. This is useful for providing additional information from customers to the product team.

Both public and private comments added to a Support ticket are shared with any connected Jira issues.

To add a comment to a Jira issue

  1. Click the Notify button in the Jira app next to the ticket.
  2. Enter the comment you want to add to the issue in Jira.

  3. To save typing, you can transfer the last comment made on the ticket by clicking Copy the last comment.
  4. Any attachments in ticket comments are shown under Attachments. Click on the attachment to add it to the note.
  5. Click Notify issues. The note is added to the Activity section in the Jira issue.
  6. In the Show drop-down list, select Comments to view the comment.

 

Adding a comment to linked Zendesk Support tickets from a Jira issue

You can notify a Zendesk agent or a customer when you add a comment to the linked Jira issue.

When you add a comment to a Jira issue, it adds that comment to the linked Support ticket. When the comment is added to the Zendesk ticket, an email containing your comment is sent to the agent and any other agent who is copied on the Support ticket. If the comment is public, an email is also sent to the customer who submitted the ticket and any other end user who is copied on the ticket. Be mindful that a customer will read your message when you add a public comment. If in doubt, leave the comment private.

You can comment on a single linked ticket, or all linked tickets if you have multiple tickets linked to an issue. Commenting on all linked tickets can be performed in the sidebar or the Activity section of a Jira issue.

To add a comment to a linked ticket

  1. Navigate to the Jira issue, and in the Activity drop-down list, select Zendesk Support.

  2. In the Ticket drop-down list, select the Support ticket.

  3. Enter your comment . Select the Make public reply checkbox to make a public comment.
  4. Click Add comment.

     

To add a comment to all linked tickets in the Activity section

  1. Navigate to the linked issue in Jira, and in the Activity drop-down list, select Zendesk Support.
  2. Enter your comment, select the Add for all tickets checkbox, and click Save.

To add a comment to all linked tickets in the sidebar

  1. In the sidebar under Zendesk Support, double-click on Linked Tickets. The linked ticket page opens.
  2. Click Add comments to linked tickets, which opens a page.
  3. Enter your comment and click Send.

To make all comments private

  1. In the Jira top nav bar, select More > Apps > Manage your apps
  2. Click the Zendesk Support for Jira accordion, then click Configure.
  3. In the Settings > Other options section, select the Disable all public comments to Zendesk checkbox.
  4. Click Save.

Notifying Jira issue watchers when there are new comments on linked Zendesk tickets

Jira users who are watching a Jira issue linked to a Zendesk ticket, will receive a notification email from Jira for any comments added to the linked ticket(s).

To enable comment notifications

  1. In the Jira top nav bar, select More > Apps > Manage your Apps.
  2. Click the Zendesk Support for Jira accordion, then click Configure.
  3. In the Settings > Other options section, select the Send email notification to Jira issue watchers on new linked Zendesk Support ticket comments checkbox.
  4. Click Save.

Adding the reporter as a watcher when creating a new Jira issue

When creating a new Jira issue from a Support ticket, or when linking a ticket to an existing issue, you can add the reporter as a watcher to the newly-created issue.

Jira also allows you to watch an issue. When you watch an issue, you receive email notifications when certain updates are made. Depending on how your issue notifications are configured, you may receive an email when:

  • The story has been updated (such as the description)

  • The status changes (assigned, closed)

  • A comment is submitted

To add a reporter as a watcher

  • When creating a Jira issue from a Zendesk Support ticket, select the Add reporter as a watcher checkbox.

Adding the current agent as a watcher when linking Jira issues

When linking an existing issue to a ticket in Support, the current user is added as a watcher to that issue in Jira. Note that for this to be successful, the Jira user profile must contain the Zendesk agent's email or full name.

Displaying when the most recent comment was added

In the Zendesk Support panel in Jira, you can display how much time has elapsed since the last comment was added to the ticket in Zendesk.

To enable the last comment added display

  1. In the Jira top nav bar, select More > Apps > Manage Apps.
  2. Click the Zendesk Support for Jira accordion, then click Configure.
  3. In the Settings > Zendesk Support ticket fields section, select the Last Commented checkbox
  4. Click Save.
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371 Comments

  • Leonid

    @Yuri,

    we actually need exactly opposite than you described in your last note.

     

    0
  • Yuri Mylis
    Zendesk Product Manager

    @Leonid, 

    Thanks for clarifying and for posting on the product feedback forum.

    0
  • Joshua DeClercq

    Is it possible to have more control over access to Zendesk content from the JIRA side? We use JIRA Server, and it's a little concerning that the Zendesk comments tab seems to be 100% visible and interactive for all users who can access the JIRA ticket. Even private comments on Zendesk can be read by a user in a restricted JIRA project role.

    I had hoped this might work similar to developer add-ons, where there's a "View Developer Tools" permission in JIRA that restricts who can see those tabs. In this case, it'd be nice to have at least a "view private comments" permission that could be mapped to a specific user group or project role in JIRA.

    We have customers who can access our JIRA server, limited to a special project role. It'd be good to know we won't have to worry about them seeing conversations we don't want them to, if a Zendesk-linked JIRA ticket is shared with them for some reason.

    0
  • paulangod

    www.integratecloud.com is the best and has the most comprehensive integration. Support is excellent as well, they make sure that everything works as you requested. Thanks Chirag and Srinivas!

    2
  • Diego Soffia

    Hi!

    Is it possibile to link a Jira issue with API?

    I would use API or webhooks (to or from JIRA) to create/update the link to an existing Jira issue.

    There are docs about the API of  the JIRA Integration and where can I found it?

    0
  • Yuri Mylis
    Zendesk Product Manager

    @Joshua, we operate under the assumption that JIRA users and Zendesk Support users belong to the same organization and can share information. This means that we don't have mechanisms to restrict access to ticket comments from JIRA. Sorry if that doesn't align well to your setup.

     

    @Diego, we currently don't expose public APIs for the JIRA integrartion, but this is something we're considering doing down the line.

     

     

     

    0
  • Ashish Sharma

    Apologies as I didn't read through 4 pages worth of comments to see if this has already been asked. 

    When updating a JIRA ticket via Zendesk, there is the "Copy the Last Comment" function. Is there any way to have this function implemented so transferring the last comment from JIRA to Zendesk is also simplified?

    1
  • Catharine Coleman

    I need to be able to create a ticket view and report that shows either:

    - the jira number associated with the ticket

    or

    - some type of flag or field that indicates that there is a jira associated with a case

    How can i do this?

     

     

    2
  • Wolfgang Montag
    • Edited

    Hi,

    I would like to have a custom field in Jira, where the assignee in Zendesk is shown, so our developers know who in our support they need to talk to, since the v3 only show the "Zendesk for Jira" reporter, if the user has not got an own jira acc.

    There is a post on page 1 in the comment section, where an employee said, that this was planned like it was in legacy (post was from 2015)

    0
  • Matt Hoffman
    Zendesk team member

    @Wolfgang - you can expose the Zendesk Ticket Assignee by going to Manage Add-ons > Zendesk Support for JIRA > Configure, and checking Assignee.

    This will show it here:

    You'll see I have also chosen to expose Group, Priority, and Status. Hopefully this gives you a suitable method for your developers to know who to talk to in Support. Let us know if you have any questions!

    0
  • Matt Hoffman
    Zendesk team member

    @Catharine At this time, the best option is to make a view that shows tickets with the tag jira_escalated. This tag is automatically applied to Zendesk tickets at the time that a JIRA issue is created or linked. If you have any trouble with this or any other questions just drop us a line at support@zendesk.com.

    0
  • Wolfgang Montag

    thx @ 

    Is there also a way to use a custom (or maybe even the comment) field in Jira to creat an internal comment in zendesk?

    I have generated a post function with issue specific placeholers .. or is there another way?

    0
  • Bowie Bartels

    When I click "create" without filling out a project, we do not see an error. How can we show an error to user that clicked create without filling in a project where to create the ticket?

    0
  • Yuri Mylis
    Zendesk Product Manager

    @B Bartels

     

    Thanks for reporting this. It's a bug. I'll raise a ticket on your behalf.

    0
  • Samuel Cho

    @Wolfgang Montag I have created a ticket for you at your email address. Please make sure it doesn't hit your spam folder. 

    0
  • Greg Johnson

    This really is fabulous - it makes it super easy for our engineers to be able to push information up and down to Zendesk.  A couple of small tweaks would really make this hum:

    1.  Permit attachments to be sent to Jira at any point, not just at issue creation/linking.

    2.  Permit attachments to be sent from Jira back to Zendesk.

    Is it possible for the community to get involved in improving the code for this plugin?

    Some better documentation on the user permissions in this article would also be great - that part is a little confusing.

    1
  • Stewart Fulton

    We are being forced to move to use this plugin now that the previous plugin is being deprecated. We have trialled it previously and the biggest shortfall of this version is having to manually 'Notify' Jira of Zendesk comments.

    This adds a layer of administrative overhead that we *really* cannot afford.

    Is there a way to have the comments in both Jira and Zendesk automatically get added to the other using this plugin?

    Thank you

    1
  • OpsHub Dev Team

    Hi Everyone, 

    We support a rich integration solution between Zendesk & Jira. Some of the complex features we currently have:

    • Zendesk ticket id into custom field of Jira
    • Filter support tickets in Zendesk as problem/bugs to Jira 
    • No limitations for history sync including comments/conversations
    • You can also synchronize Zendesk tickets to appropriate Jira issue type based on Zendesk assignee group/user

    For any specific feature walkthrough you can also request a custom demo http://www.opshub.com/demo-request

    Thanks,

    OpsHub

    0
  • Jennifer Haight

    Any chance you guys are working on a way to report on the data we have through this integration?

    We continue to run into instances where we need to report on which JIRA issues are reported by the most users (ie have the most Zendesk tickets linked to them) and to know which have been reported lately (ie have a Zendesk ticket linked to it recently).

    It's frustrating to have my team spend energy linking tickets via the integration only to have them spend more energy anecdotally reporting which issues our users are encountering.

    0
  • Matt Hoffman
    Zendesk team member

    @Jennifer - we're glad you asked! We recently released this feature, Linked Ticket Reporting. It will allow you to report on which JIRA issues have the most Zendesk tickets linked, as well as the Ticket IDs (if you need that much detail). Take a look and let us know if you run into any trouble setting it up - support@zendesk.com.

    0
  • Dan Ross
    Community Moderator

    How recently was the limit for linked issues upped to 200? This is great news!

    0
  • Yuri Mylis
    Zendesk Product Manager

     

    We've increased the linked tickets limit from 100->200 on 29/03/2017

    We've also ship a few other improvements recently:

    • Field Syncing feature went out of beta into into general availability.
    • 100 comments per ticket limitation was removed.
    • 1000 JIRA users per JIRA project limitation was removed.
    • Zendesk attachments are now visible in the Zendesk tab in JIRA.
    • Handling of Zendesk subdomain change.
    • Correct handling of unlink events.
    • Hiding empty Zendesk fields in JIRA.
    • Added support for "security level" field. 
    • Added support of custom version picker field.

     

    0
  • Jason Schleifer

    Hi!  Really excited about this addon, and jazzed it's working well!

    One thing I'd really love to be able to do is remove any "human error" when linking a ticket from zendesk to jira.

    The "copy fields from ticket" button is great - but it seems to only copy the summary and description.

    I would love to also be able to copy the task type and any components necessary, which will greatly reduce the chance that someone might place things in the wrong category for engineering.

    Is there a way to do that?  I tried creating matching custom fields on the ticket, but they didn't seem to take effect.  It could be that I just wasn't creating them correctly.. but do you know if it's even possible?

     

    thanks,

    Jason

    0
  • Andrew Feller

    Are there any thoughts about enhancing the Zendesk JIRA integration to conditionally auto-create JIRA issues when Zendesk tickets are created?

    With the technical business unit wanting to only use JIRA, it's been painful getting non-technical business units to correctly create JIRA issues as it's explicit and unclear how JIRA projects map to different teams or what issue type to create.  Often times, new tickets will sit in Zendesk with non-technical users frustrated because of the different systems.  I know we could tell people to not archive Zendesk emails, however people want a single system to work in, so need something to help with that.

    1
  • Yuri Mylis
    Zendesk Product Manager

    @Jason we've recently released a feature to sync custom field between the two system. Try and see if it meets your requirements. 

     

    @Andrew at the moment there are no plans to support auto-creation of JIRA issues via the integration. I would consider this outside the scope of what the integration was design to do and doubt we will ever do this.

    With that said, I'm planning on building an option to customize the integration by means of public APIs. The idea is that similar requirements could be met that way. This of course would require coding to customize the core bahvior of the integration.

    0
  • Frankie Truong

     

    Is there a way to edit the fields that are on the "Create a new JIRA issue" section?

    0
  • Yuri Mylis
    Zendesk Product Manager

    @ Frankie, the way to customize the fields on that form is to set them as "required" in JIRA.

    0
  • Andrew Feller

    @yuri

    How do you envision the JIRA integration handling Zendesk-JIRA installations where the business users don't have JIRA accounts?

    Even though the integration might have access to an administrator-level account, I presume the integration requires JIRA users matching Zendesk users, which will eat a license per user.

    0
  • Yuri Mylis
    Zendesk Product Manager

    @Andrew, there is no expectation for Zendesk users to have JIRA accounts. On the contrary, the integration enables information sharing between the two systems via a single integration account (one on each side).

    There is also not need to do any user mapping. I suggest referring to this article to read more about how users are set up and used.

    0
  • Matt DiProspero

    We have many of the same needs that others have mentioned (bi-directional sync of custom fields, passing attachments between JIRA and ZD, populating JIRA issue number in custom ZD field, etc.) and IntegrateCloud was able to handle it all. We have a lot of scenarios to account for and they’ve been very accommodating and patient with us as we defined and refined our process. Definitely a wise investment.

    0

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