How to Use Jira to Consolidate Issue Data from GitHub Repos

[Syed Majid Hassan -Exalate-]

Jira and GitHub are both great tools for managing software projects, but they offer considerably different feature sets. Though they suit divergent use cases, users of both can benefit from deeper integration between them. For teams wanting to collaborate within an organization or looking to work with external users, getting their software talking can bring huge value to all.

Jira is a project management system commonly used by developers, letting them break work down into sprints, epics, and more. Developers use GitHub for code-sharing and collaboration. While they’re very different, there’s a natural overlap between them, and sharing their data allows teams with distinct needs to work together more effectively.

In this article, you’ll learn about a large open source company we introduced to Exalate. We helped them bring their teams together to share data between them. You’ll also read about the challenges they faced along the way, and how we solved them.

Why should you integrate GitHub and Jira? 

The team had over 50 active GitHub repositories handling projects related to high-security operating system kernels. It was also running a Jira instance with three main trackers. All data was publicly available, and there were many types of users in varied roles.

There were project users and casual contributors who sometimes raised GitHub issues and pull requests, while those directly involved with development contributed to both platforms.

They wanted to improve collaboration between these groups, allowing for tighter data synchronization and making sure issues and related discussions were available everywhere. Our goal was for smoother workflows and to keep the data integrated while still providing access to the public. We also wanted to stop losing track of the many GitHub issues being created.

What challenges do teams face when integrating Jira and GitHub?

The general issues they had with the two platforms were that GitHub is accessible and widely used, but less suited for complex planning and discussion. Jira is more specialized. It allows for more detailed planning, but is not used in the same way as GitHub. In this case, there were effectively two separate communities using the platforms, and the company wanted to ensure their work was complementary.

More specifically, there were several big challenges the company hoped an integration would solve:

• Issues were being raised in GitHub, but developers were keeping all related discussion in Jira. While it was possible to view it, many users only used GitHub and, in practice, would never see that information.
• Jira automation was insufficient for mapping 50 GitHub repos directly to their three Jira trackers. A solution that could handle the various wrinkles of different repos and that allowed a deeper degree of customization was required.
• Some issues were being missed and going stale over time. With so many repos, it was hard to keep track of them all. They needed a system to pull the information into Jira, which core team members were using for planning.

What are the best approaches for integrating Jira Work with GitHub Issues?

The company tried several approaches before finding the right solution. 

Firstly, they looked at what was already available in Jira. It does have some native integration features, but while these are fine for simple integrations, they were looking for something more customizable.

Then they investigated creating their own solution. GitHub and Jira both have APIs that allow you to move data in and out of them, so a hand-coded integration sounded tempting. However, the team realized that it would be too slow and expensive.

After that, they looked at third-party solutions and found us at Exalate. We showed them how Exalate could handle the customizations necessary to handle the varied GitHubs and pull in the data required in the formats necessary. 

What features matter in a Jira GitHub integration tool? 

Data integrity was important. As an open source company, they didn’t need to protect information, as all the code and discussion were public; however, they had to make sure not everyone could change data.

Control over what is shared and how it is mapped was also essential. Exalate allowed them to map fields freely between systems, so fields can be included with the sync or not, as the situation demands.

We also prioritized two-way synchronization, as that meant that synced data could be updated at both ends of the synchronization. That ensured Jira and GitHub had up-to-date information, and users were aware of what other teams were doing.

What was achieved with the right Jira GitHub Issue integration tool?

After looking at their use case and helping them implement it, Exalate allowed their team to manage issues from all 50 GitHub repositories in one place. With it, they could also map issues between platforms on a property-by-property basis. 

The company now has full control over all its GitHub repos and can sync them with its Jira instances efficiently and cost-effectively. The public can take advantage of the wealth of information now available thanks to the integration.

If you’re trying to figure out the best way to integrate Jira with GitHub, book a free call with me to learn more.