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.
This article covers the following topics:
- Using the integration in Zendesk Support
- Using the integration in Jira
- Commenting and comment sharing
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
- In Zendesk Support, go to the ticket you want to use as a basis for a new Jira issue.
- 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.
- 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.
- Enter the details about the issue.
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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.
- Select the reporter for the issue. By default, the reporter is set to the last reporter that was selected when an issue was created in this browser. 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 to this form. For information, see Adding fields to the Jira app in Zendesk Support.
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- (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.
- 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
- In Zendesk, go to the ticket you'd like to link to a Jira issue.
The ticket must be an existing ticket. If you are creating a new ticket, you'll need to save it first.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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:
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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
- Click the Admin icon in the upper-right side of the Jira app next to the
ticket.
- Select the information you want to display in the summary and details views.
You can add pre-existing or custom Jira fields to these views. See Jira custom field type compatibility for a list of custom Jira fields that are compatible with the Jira app.
- 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_escalated tag is added by default to the ticket, and an identical jira_escalated 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
- Add a tag with a jira_ prefix in the Tags field in the ticket's left
sidebar:
- Update the ticket by clicking Submit.
The new label appears in the Details section of the issue in Jira when the issue is accessed through a browser. The label shows as being added by the Jira user who opened the issue in the browser.
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
- 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.
- 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
- Navigate to the issue in Jira. In the sidebar under Zendesk Support, the number
of linked tickets is displayed.
- Double-click on Linked Tickets to open the linked tickets page.
- If more than one ticket is linked to the issue, click the accordion to expand the
ticket details.
- 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:
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Adding a comment to linked Zendesk Support tickets from a Jira issue
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Notifying Jira issue watchers when there are new comments on linked Zendesk tickets
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Adding the reporter as a watcher when creating a new Jira issue
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Adding the current agent as a watcher when linking Jira issues
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Displaying when the most recent comment was added to either account
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
- Click the Notify button in the Jira app next to the ticket.
- Enter the comment you want to add to the issue in Jira.
- To save typing, you can transfer the last comment made on the ticket by clicking Copy the last comment.
- Any attachments in ticket comments are shown under Attachments. Click on the attachment to add it to the note.
- Click Notify issues. The note is added to the Activity section in the Jira issue.
- 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
- Navigate to the Jira issue, and in the Activity drop-down list,
select Zendesk Support.
- In the Ticket drop-down list, select the Support ticket.
- Enter your comment. Select the Make public reply checkbox to make a public comment.
- Click Add comment.
To add a comment to all linked tickets in the Activity section
- Navigate to the linked issue in Jira, and in the Activity drop-down list, select Zendesk Support.
- Enter your comment, select the Add for all tickets checkbox, and click Save.
To add a comment to all linked tickets in the sidebar
- In the sidebar under Zendesk Support, double-click on Linked Tickets. The linked ticket page opens.
- Click Add comments to linked tickets, which opens a page.
- Enter your comment and click Send.
To make all comments private
- In the Jira top nav bar, select More >Apps > Manage your apps.
- Click the Zendesk Support for Jira accordion, then click Configure.
- In the Settings > Other options section, select the Disable all public comments to Zendesk checkbox.
- Click Save.
Notifying Jira issue watchers when there are new comments on linked Zendesk tickets
Users watching a Jira issue with linked Zendesk tickets can receive a notification email from Jira when public comments are added to linked tickets.
To enable comment notifications
- In the Jira top navigation bar, select More > Apps > Manage your apps.
- Click the Zendesk Support for Jira accordion, then click Configure.
- In the Settings > Other options section, select the Send email notification to issue watchers when comments are added to linked tickets checkbox.
- 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:
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The story has been updated (such as the description)
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The status changes (assigned, closed)
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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
- In the Jira top nav bar, select More > Apps > Manage your apps.
- Click the Zendesk Support for Jira accordion, then click Configure.
- In the Settings > Zendesk Support ticket fields section, select the Last Commented checkbox
- Click Save.
140 comments
Yaniv Dayan
"Adding a comment to linked Zendesk Support tickets from a Jira issue" - Seems like it is not possible to add a comment from Jira if the ticket is closed (a Ticket becomes closed after 28 days of Solved).
Any way to bypass it or force Jira to create a Follow-Up ticket?
0
Wilfred Kaw
Hello @Yaniv,
I'm afraid there's no current workaround within the integration to achieve this. Please keep an eye out on JIRA articles and ensure to follow our announcements page as there may be improvements in the near future.
1
Yaniv Dayan
Thanks @..., we are now trying to workaround it by settings ticket's status On Hold instead of Solved until the Jira ticket is closed.
0
Jo Filbin
Our tech team use Jira, but not Zendesk. Our Customer Service team use Zendesk, but not Jira. We installed the Jira app on Zendesk in the hope it would provide an efficient interface between the two. Unfortunately it has not, and here is the reason why - there is no efficient way of the two teams communicating to eachother in a dialogue.
Here is an illustrative example - the CS team raise a ticket for a technical glitch. They create a Jira issue via the Jira app. Great. Should the tech team need to know more, they post on the Jira issue. This comes up on the "eye" screen on Zendesk. Great. But then how does the CS team respond? At present they respond via an internal note, which does not appear on the "eye" screen, as the next comment in a logical flow.
Where can my team see the flow of the conversation, if a few emails back and forth between Tech and CS are required to diagnose and fix the issue? Nowhere.
There is also no single place where a comprehensive "chat" can be referred back to in future, if we ever need to refer back to the ticket. The functionality doesn't really make sense. In order to re-read through an issue, or even brief oneself as it is being resolved in real time, one must read one comment on the eye screen, then dig around for the internal comment response, then switch back to the eye screen, then go away and dig around for another internal comment..... It's hugely inefficient.
What is also very disappointing is that we have to pay for the privilege by way of an additional seat, just for the Jira integration. We are a startup and can't afford to be wasting money, especially for something that doesn't work optimally.
Please can you make the eye screen commentable for the Zendesk user. This would enable us to see in one place what the conversation flow is, between the Jira and Zendesk users
0
David Gillespie
Hi @...,
Have you tried using the Add a comment to linked Zendesk Support tickets from a Jira issue feature?
This allows your Tech team (in JIRA) to add an internal comment or public reply to one or many of the linked Zendesk tickets. Any comments or replies to the Zendesk ticket will show up in the Zendesk Support section in the JIRA activity list.
If you're looking to have dialogue between the two teams I'd recommend this feature, it should fulfil your use case.
Thanks,
David
0
Marc Dufour
We have this implemented but when we create a new Jira entry it creates it into the Backlog instead of the Board. Is it possible to configure it to do this?
0
Cheeny Aban
Hi Marc,
Can you tell us more information about how you go implement the integration? Thanks!
0
Maggie Mucha
I'd like to be able to sync the Issue Type from Jira to Zendesk so we can accurately report on our backlog and the nature of the tickets that have been escalated from Jira. Would this be possible at any point?
1
Yaniv Dayan
Hi,
We can link a ZD ticket to Jira from the ZD side, but from the opposite way - creating a new issue on Jira, how can we link a ZD ticket to this issue, from the Jira side?
Is there any API that allows that?
0
David Gillespie
@... & @...,
This isn't possible through the current integration but you could potentially create a custom app that did this.
There's an API available that can create, list and delete links. See this developer documentation for more details.
Thanks,
David
0
Craig Chiofalo
@... is there an option to make a post back to ZD from JIRA when an @mention occurs in a JIRA ticket? Would like to be able to use an @mention as a trigger for a ZD ticket status change. Thanks.
1
Ronja Sindek
Hi, we use the Integration since 2 months. Actually it works well, but we miss one synchronization: If the status of the Zendesk ticket changes, the Jira issue gets no notification. Is there something wrong in our implementation or is this normal?
0
David Gillespie
Hi @...,
This depends on what's been configured in your installation. What have you set up? Have you turned on field sync or another feature?
Thanks,
David
0
Lolu
Hi @.... I am trying to send an internal comment to Zendesk from JIRA when an issue is CREATED from Zendesk. And also when an issue has been linked to a Zendesk ticket (eg, "JIRA DW-234 has just been created/linked to this ticket"). Your article only talks about transitions within JIRA, not when an issue is created. I tried using similar steps but no internal notes are being sent to Zendesk
0
David Gillespie
Hi @...,
You could trigger a workflow to add a comment/internal note on both sides of the integration when the "jira_escalated" tag is applied to the ticket & issue. Would this fulfil the requirement?
0
Permanently deleted user
Hi @..., seems like this could fulfil the requirement except I can't find how to set a trigger to post internal notes. Couldn't find it in the options given. How may I achieve this?
0
David Gillespie
Hi @...,
Thanks for pointing this out, I'm looking into how the internal note can be added.
With regards to the purpose of the internal note, what were you aiming to use this for? Is there another way that we can achieve this?
0
Permanently deleted user
@... I'll generally want to trigger internal notes to notify agents of certain events immediately. Such as if they place a ticket on hold without specifying certain custom ticket fields, I'll want to action to be reversed and an internal note added telling them which fields are missing.
Also, whenever a JIRA ticket is created, linked, or unlinked, I want an internal note documenting which JIRA tickets have been added/removed.
0
Casey
Hi Zendesk - Do agents require a separate Jira account as well to create Jira issues/tickets from the Zendesk app/integration? We are using this for bug reporting, but also want some of our contracted vendor agents to be able to do it as well (they do not have access to our internal Jira). Thanks!
1
Bruno Cabral
Hi Zendesk team!
We have a different scenario and we are evaluating if it is possible to configure/customize the add-on to suit our use case.
Our technical support team uses Jira and we want to integrate Zendesk (end customer support) to it. Traditionally, all the escalation and issue tracking was done manually via Jira Portal for Jira Service Management.
The problem is: these requests are structured as request-types in Jira, under the issue-type 'technical support'. And for different request-types there are different fields that are shown conditionally to a zendesk agent when opening a request on the portal.
We want to use the 'create a request' via Jira add-on, with the issue type 'technical support' and selecting the appropriate request-type and showing the conditional fields to that request type. In a similar fashion that a zendesk form would work. Is this configuration possible in any way?
1
Theresia Londong
HI @... , do you have the answer to this problem already? I have a similar issue here but one of our ex-agents is able to push tickets from Zendesk to Jira without holding a Jira account, so we know it is possible, but we don't know how exactly.
0
Brenda Cardinez
Hi Casey,
Support Agents do not need a Jira license or access once the integration is completed. Jira issues will automatically be converted into tickets and this needs to be managed within Zendesk Support only. Hope this helps! Thanks!
0
Theresia Londong
Hi @..., I have an issue here where I can not escalate a ticket to JIRA, every time I click the 'create issue' button, it renders a blank window, but I can link a ticket to an existing JIRA ticket. Do you know what might cause this issue? And no, I do not have a separate JIRA account assigned to me. Thanks
0
Sean Bourke
Hi @...,
I've created a support ticket on your behalf which we can use to investigate this further. You should receive an email shortly after the ticket has been created.
0
Theresia Londong
Hi @... looking forward to your response guys. Many thanks
0
Martin Sachs
Hi Team,
For years, I have had multiple Zendesk tickets tied to 1 Jira and have had the field sync work (I know it doesn't work for 1 ZD and many Jira)
This past week, I am seeing data not sync. I'm still trying to pin down a pattern but figured I'd post here and see if there have been changes to this functionality.
0
Sean Bourke
Hi @...,
As this behaviour isn't expected, we've opened a support ticket on your behalf to investigate this issue.
0
Shayne Traqueña
Hi Martin,
Thank you for reporting the issue with us! We will assist you on the ticket you created.
Best regards,
Shayne Traqueña | Customer Advocacy Specialist
0
André
Possible to remove this sentence from the ticket in jira - once created automatically from Zendesk? It's not a part of the macro we use to fill out the ticket. Where is it set? On the jira side?
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1
Sean Bourke
Hi André,
Thanks for your feedback. This comment is automatically added to tickets created from Zendesk, as the Zendesk Support tab will often have additional context provided from the Zendesk ticket.
While the Zendesk integration does not support this being turned off today, I've recorded your feedback. In the interim, it may be possible to use a combination of Jira's automations and smart values to remove this value from the description on ticket creation.
1