Demo Den Ep. 9: Build and Ship Better and Faster Using Slack + Jira (1/13/20)

[Lewis Haidt]

A new decade is here and that means a new Demo Den! Join us on January 13, 2020 for Demo Den Ep. 9: Build and Ship Better and Faster Using Slack + Jira. Are you aware of the new features in the Slack/Jira integration?

First, download the Slack for Jira integration. 

Discover how to build and ship better and faster using the Slack Jira integration. Trevor Thompson, Product Manager, Product Integrations, demos how to work smarter and optimize your Slack and Jira integration. Trevor shows us new configuration options for subscribing to new notification types in slack, as well as a new link preview feature that's just rolled out in the Jira for Slack integration.

From 1 pm - 3 pm PT (8 am - 10 am Aus), Trevor will join us live to answer your questions.

• What features would you like to see next?
• What do you like the most about the Slack/Jira integration?

Feel free to leave them now about all things Slack/Jira integration. Trevor will continue to answer questions through the week of January 13th, so don't hold back!

[Kat Warner]

I'll be here to find out more. Hopefully, before mid-January I will figure out why my team is unable to see the option to create Jira tickets from Slack. :)

[Trevor Thompson]

Hey @Kat Warner  ! Did you figure out what the issue was? Let me know how I can help :) You should be able to create issues using `/jira create` in Slack, or by selecting the "..." on any message in Slack and creating the message action "Create issue from.."

[Kat Warner]

I found out that the Atlassian Slack integration is focused on pulling information from Jira to Slack and I need a third party app to be able to create Jira tickets.

[Trevor Thompson]

@Kat Warner is that for Jira Server? If so, Jira Server indeed does not have support for creating issues from Slack, so a marketplace app would be recommended to be able to do that.

[alex]

Hey @Kat Warner , There's a product called halp that might be useful, and the Jira app from nextup. I'll also schlep my own product and suggest you give Obie.ai a glance and feel free to book a demo to see all the magic Obie can do. Tell them Alex from the Atlassian Community sent you :)

Obie does work with Jira, Jira Service Desk, and Confluence server editions. I'm not 100% sure about halp or nextup.

[Nick Cron]

Thanks @alex for the recommendation!  Happy to help you out if we can @Kat Warner.

Feel free to check out our reviews in the Atlassian Marketplace or this case study with Cloudera.  

 BTW - I hear Obie.ai is pretty nice as well. 

[Ronald]

Em, is this just for cloud.. ? 

[Trevor Thompson]

Hey @Ronald , 

The content of the video about is Cloud only, but I'm happy to answer any questions about Server Slack apps as well.

[Trevor Thompson]

Hey everyone!

Thanks for joining - let's get things kicked-off! Send me your spiciest questions 😅 I live in Texas, after all.. I should be able to handle them 🥵

The spicier they get the more likely I am to spill the beans about what we're working on next 😏

Trevor

[alex]

What are you announcing at Summit for Jira/JSD? :D

[Trevor Thompson]

Well I can't give that much away 🤐 😁

[alex]

I had to try :D

[Schuyler Jager]

The Jira integration feels way behind from the latest features that Slack offers. The best workflow to consider is the scenario where a team member posts a bug or task in a channel, which I ultimately end up copy/pasting right into Jira verbatim. You should consider more exciting/tighter integrations like:

• The ability to add a designated reaction to a message to automatically create issues in Jira with the message contents and attachments
  • You could set authorized users to be able to add the reaction, and designated reactions to create the tasks by particular projects
  • In addition, once the issue is tracked in Jira, you should be able to start a thread on the message and have those thread comments automatically be added to issues in Jira
• The ability to set custom field values directly from Slack when creating new issues
• The ability to flag tasks directly from Slack when creating new issues
• The ability to assign people directly from Slack

[Trevor Thompson]

Hi @Schuyler Jager , thanks for the feedback! A few of those things are solvable today with our Cloud integration, so first I'll ask - are you on Server or Cloud?

Trevor

[Schuyler Jager]

Cloud!

[Trevor Thompson]

The ability to add a designated reaction to a message to automatically create issues in Jira with the message contents and attachments

Yeah, love this idea. Something we could look at when it comes to setting up custom workflows, but we haven't spent too much time going down this path yet. 

In addition, once the issue is tracked in Jira, you should be able to start a thread on the message and have those thread comments automatically be added to issues in Jira

We're currently building a JSD + Slack app and are planning to do comment syncing via the thread. If successful it's something we'd definitely consider porting over to the Jira Cloud for Slack app!

The ability to set custom field values directly from Slack when creating new issues, The ability to flag tasks directly from Slack when creating new issues

Sure, both totally make sense, we're looking at adding those soon. Can I ask what usually sparks you to create jira issues from Slack? Do you do it for all issues you create in Jira? 

The ability to assign people directly from Slack

That's currently possible from the "..." menu that's posted on notifications and link previews. I suspect you're looking to be able to do that from create screen though, where we don't have that. Is that true?

[Schuyler Jager]

Can I ask what usually sparks you to create jira issues from Slack? Do you do it for all issues you create in Jira? 

Happy to explain. The tool that our company universally uses is Slack, so that means that bug reports and other issues/assignments get sent to us in messages like this:

Note how there's a screenshot with it too.

It would be awesome to add a reaction or even just tag @JIRA Audit to pick up the message, where I can then set extra fields and the title for the bug (sometimes our team members don't describe things very well). Then the contents of the message can go in as a description or other comment on the Jira task, and the screenshot (like you see here) can be added as an attachment for the bug as well.

Some issues are discovered and created directly by our own team, at which point we don't bother communicating this through Slack. For coworkers outside of our team, we funnel them through Slack since the barrier to use it is very low.

If you didn't notice, there's a checkmark on that task. That's because my developer finished it without going through Jira at all, so they put a checkmark reaction directly on the message. Imagine how cool it would be if transitioning the task to "Done" would automatically add this kind of checkmark to the original slack message!

That's currently possible from the "..." menu that's posted on notifications and link previews. I suspect you're looking to be able to do that from create screen though, where we don't have that. Is that true?

Cool to know! But you are correct, I'm looking for these abilities on top of the other new ideas I've proposed above. If you're looking to make reactions trigger the create screen like you might be suggesting, then I suppose that's where I would say it would be useful, yes.

[Trevor Thompson]

Thanks for the explanation! The ability to create issues from Images in Slack and copy them over to the created ticket is absolutely on our radar. I really appreciate you taking the time to explain that workflow! 

These improvements for creating issues isn't on our immediate radar (think, next couple of months) - but we've received lots of love (and criticism of limitations!) on creating Jira issues on slack, so I suspect we will start tackling those shortly after. 

Thanks again!

[Alvaro Munoz]

Hello, Thanks for the update. 

These are the 2 features I am currently missing: 

a) When creating an issue from Slack, it only allows you to input Summary and Description. It would be nice if you could add other fields from JIRA to that view (probably through the /jira manage screen) 

b) Personal notifications: It would be good to be able to set up notifications for your own issues: changes on your assigned issues, your watched issues, notifications when someone assignes to you...

[Trevor Thompson]

a) When creating an issue from Slack, it only allows you to input Summary and Description. It would be nice if you could add other fields from JIRA to that view (probably through the /jira manage screen) 

I agree! We've thought about making it so that it shows the same fields that your "Create Screen" shows. Do you think that would work for you, or would you want separate configuration of fields specifically for slack?

b) Personal notifications: It would be good to be able to set up notifications for your own issues: changes on your assigned issues, your watched issues, notifications when someone assignes to you...

Stay tuned... :) 

[Paul Benati]

@Trevor Thompson - Is it possible to create a Slack channel directly from a Jira Service Desk (or Software) issue?  Specifically, I want to create a new channel when a JSD issue's custom field, Severity, is set to Sev1 or Sev2.  From that point forward, I'd like comments to be bi-directional.  I see that in this YouTube video, How to Get he Most Out of Using Atlassian and Slack Together, this was possible, but it doesn't seem to be in place any more.  Am I missing something?  Thanks.

[Trevor Thompson]

Hi @Paul Benati , 

As far as dedicated channel functionality goes, this was originally a feature for our Jira Ops pilot (as part of the Jira Cloud for Slack app). Since we moved on from Jira Ops, we've yet to add that to the core part of the Jira cloud for Slack app, however it is on our radar as something we'd like to build. I recommend following along on the ticket here 
https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/API-65

Also would love to chat more about your use case, please shoot me an email at trevor.thompson@atlassian.com so we can set up some time.

Thanks!
Trevor

[Deleted user]

@Trevor Thompson Any updates on creating issues in Jira from Slack from the threads above (listed portions of the thread below)?

a) When creating an issue from Slack, it only allows you to input Summary and Description. It would be nice if you could add other fields from JIRA to that view (probably through the /jira manage screen) 

I agree! We've thought about making it so that it shows the same fields that your "Create Screen" shows. Do you think that would work for you, or would you want separate configuration of fields specifically for slack?

OR

Thanks for the explanation! The ability to create issues from Images in Slack and copy them over to the created ticket is absolutely on our radar. I really appreciate you taking the time to explain that workflow!