Title: ServiceNow → JSM integration via Jira Spoke — auth approaches?

[Kent G]

Hi All!

We're integrating ServiceNow with Jira Service Management using the Jira Spoke to create tickets in JSM from ServiceNow, and we're hitting authentication issues that I'm hoping others have solved.

Instance details:

• Jira/JSM Cloud, Premium plan
• Multiple JSM spaces/projects in scope for ticket creation from ServiceNow
• Integration is bi-directional (ServiceNow ↔ JSM)

What we've tried:

1. Atlassian Service Account (API token) — Authenticates fine, but the API call (via ServiceNow Spoke) doesn't return any data. Calls appear to succeed but the payload returns empty, so we can't get ticket creation/updates working reliably this way. We believe this may be due to the fact that Jira global permissions cannot be assigned to Atlassian Service Accounts because using a real user's Jira account works just fine, but is not viable long-term.
2. AD Service Account — This works initially, but the session eventually fails due to a timeout. As far as we can tell, this isn't an AD policy issue (the AD account itself doesn't expire) — it looks like a Jira/Atlassian session-length setting that's killing the connection after a set period, which then requires manual re-authentication to restore the integration.

What we're looking for:

• Has anyone gotten the Jira Spoke working reliably with an Atlassian Service Account, and if so, did you need to configure anything specific (scopes, permissions, API token type) to get data back?
• For those using an AD/service account approach — how are you avoiding or managing the session timeout? Is there a specific Jira setting you adjusted, or are you handling token refresh/re-auth automatically on the ServiceNow side?
• Is anyone using a different auth method entirely (OAuth 2.0 app, Connect/Forge app, middleware layer) to avoid this problem altogether?

Any insight into what's worked (or specifically failed) for your instance would be a huge help. Happy to share more detail on our config if it helps others troubleshoot similar issues.