Does anyone use the Smartsheet connector for Jira?

[Lydia M]

I've recently started using the Smartsheet connector for Jira and writing a use case. Has anyone else used this? I'd be interested in hearing information and experience if anyone has anything to share.

[Tina Kosur · Accepted solution]

I have 2 years of deep experience using the SS+JIRA connector for project plans for large software implementations. Like many folks on this post, I too have developed all of my knowledge via trial and error (and massive amounts of data loss).  I second everything that's been said above and note that there is no improvement to virtually anything written in this post in the last couple years.

SS's customer support and willingness to improve or evolve this connector is non-existent. 

With that said, I have much to share and will be doing that over time post by post regarding the connector and things to know.  Today is June 13th 2023 and SmartSheet's documented response to me states their stance continues to be that they will not consider any of the following requests for their SmartSheet + JIRA Connector roadmap:

1. Add the ability to change owners or provide editor or evenview access to workflow connectors (this is highly problematic, particularly when unexpected absences occur and your security policy does not allow creation of shared/corp admin accounts.
2. Add an indicator in the SmartSheet user interface that identifies columns that are mapped between JIRA & SmartSheet (including direction of data flow)
3. Any sort of "Restore" capability, ability to revert back to a previous version, etc.
4. Improve JIRA connector trouble shooting capabilities and features, examples:
   1. provide a field mapping snapshot that can be easily shared with others rather than having to scroll and screenshot
   2. provide the ability to download what JIRA updates will be pushed prior to re-setting or saving a workflow (for example, I have a bi-directional sheet connector with all fields mapped one-way from JIRA to SS, I would not expect any updates to push to JIRA, but the workflow save screen shows hundreds of JIRA updates will be made)
   3. provide the ability to share or easily attach workflow run errors and details in support tickets
5. Troubleshoot and stop the API from pushing changes from SmartSheet to JIRA's ranking data element which affects scrum features in JIRA

[Lydia M]

HI Tina,

Thanks for posting! It's interesting to hear your insights a couple of years later. I attended a Smartsheet webinar a few weeks ago about the connector and it was not very informative. Afterwards, I began to get calls and emails from our Smartsheet reps to book time to talk to me about the connector, which we no longer use as it was so problematic and unreliable. I think the people at Smartsheet would be interested in some of the feedback here - or then again, maybe they wouldn't care. ;) 

[Tina Kosur]

Hi Lydia, nice to "meet" you.  I've submitted all of the bullets in my post to them as requests for enhancements or improvements over the last year+. All of my requests plus additional requests not related to the connector have all been rejected by the SmartSheet representatives I work with. Sadly.

[Richard Wernick]

Thank You, Tina;

Today is Feb 28th, 2024, and even though your comments are almost a year old, nothing has been done to rectify the problems with the Jira connector.

I found trying to recover from a Sync Error by resetting the link will force Smartsheets to overwrite the Jira ticket at a time, which is unacceptable. Since there is no revert to an older version, the data is essentially gone. 

Their tech support enters cricket mode when asked to rectify or troubleshoot this problem. There should never, and I mean never, be the case that Smartsheets writes out to the Jira ticket unless updates are made in a Smartsheets cell, meant to be written out to Jira. 

Resyncining an error or JQL queries should never overwrite a ticket, which it does. I have noticed this happening even when bi-directional is turned off and the data flow is set to incoming data only. You get no warning until the ticket owner is notified something has changed. 

I have three years of experience on the Jira connector, and nothing has been done to rectify any of these issues.

Tina commented, "SS's customer support and willingness to improve or evolve this connector is non-existent." That right there explains there is an issue that they are unable to resolve. 

[Tina Kosur]

@Richard Wernick, amen to everything you just said! Funny you should comment now, I am currently on day 6 of a complete SS + JIRA connector outage.  Root cause, we had to change our integration owner email. After we updated the owner in SS Workflow Settings and then updated the App Links in JIRA (done collaboratively with a SS representative), our webhooks started completely failing. All connectors are down. We are not able to reset them, we are not able to migrate the workflows to the new owner, and we were completely blocked from even manually re-creating new workflows against the same JIRA projects.  Once we cleared up that issue and were finally able to start manually creating new workflows against those same JIRA projects....we circle back to my very first request to SmartSheet that they refuse to put on their roadmap....the simple ability to print or export the connectors specs!  Their support person laughed at me and said "you just need to download the wex files and you can re-create using that". I pulled it up live on my screen and asked him to show me how he thinks that's possible when the wex files only show you the UID for the SmartSheet column name (which SS does NOT display) and also shows only the UID for any JIRA custom fields included in the connector.  He agreed it wasn't possible.

Back when I asked them for the ability to print or export the connectors specs OR give us more admin capabilities at the connector level, this issue I'm experiencing now is exactly what I predicted would happen.

[Mike Hayes]

@Lydia M - "tried this--didn't work, tried that--didn't work" is exactly how it goes! I've used it extensively. Here are some tips n' tricks...

1. You cannot update Assignee via Smartsheet unless the user has their account settings configured appropriately.

2. "Save as new" is your friend. Every so often, save a copy of your sheet since it's easy to overwrite data when troubleshooting your connector.

3. End date cannot (mostly) be synched. If your Smartsheet plan has dependencies enabled, you can only sync End date (or whatever your plan's end date is) from Jira -> Smartsheet.

4. If you close a ticket in Jira, and your connector filter rules say "don't synch items that are closed," then it won't update Smartsheet with the correct Jira status.

5. Smartsheet does not understand Jira hierarchy beyond Epic. So, if you have a Jira hierarchy defined as Initiative -> Epic -> Standard Issue -> Sub-task, then Smartsheet won't know how to cleanly handle the Initiatives (there's a trick, but it's not pretty).

6. If you specify a Smartsheet hierarchy other than Epic -> Standard issue -> Sub-task AND you want to be able to create new issues from Smartsheet, then the PRIMARY Smartsheet column MUST be Key (Jira key/issue ID).

7. Smartsheet connector does not support two-way synch of cascading select lists.

8. You need to make sure the fields you want to connect are visible on the Create and Edit Jira screens.

9. Although it's allowed, I would absolutely not connect two sheets to the same project/set of issues. You'll get each one constantly updating with the other and it will make you crazy.

10. Name your Smartsheet columns with something that indicates if it's synched so users know. For example, instead of "Summary" name it "Summary ->" for fields that update from Jira to Smartsheet, and name it "Summary <-" for fields that update from Smartsheet to Jira, and name it "Summary <->" for fields that update in both directions.

[Neeraj]

Now here is a guy who really knows this inside out :-)

Hi Mike. Nice to see you here. Small world :-)

[Daniel Sontag]

Thank you very much for providing this! It's already been added to my notes as we begin the Smartsheet/Jira connector journey : ) 

In item five, you mentioned a "trick" to getting Initiatives (custom hierarchy) in Jira working with the Connector; can you share more information? I'd love to get this working as well. 

[Neeraj]

The Jira connector does work, but can be a pain to use, as you can see from other people's comments here too.

I also don't remember seeing any enhancements or roadmaps for the Connector itself, so not sure how committed Smartsheet is on this tool. 

If you are not tied to Smartsheet, explore the Google Sheets <> Jira integration too.

[Lydia M]

I can imagine that Google probably has a better integration tool, but I find Smartsheet WAY easier to use for building a project plan than Google docs. Thanks for the suggestion thought!

[Mike Hayes]

@Lydia M - Definitely listen to @Neeraj he taught me everything I know :) 

(Hey @Neeraj, how you doin'?)

[Neeraj]

Lol.. Hi Mike. You are being modest. All I did was introduce it to you, and away you ran with it. 

BTW.. we learnt some hard lessons... you CANNOT assign or make somebody else the owner of a Connector workflow, and they have to be recreated from scratch. Was not fun doing those :-( 

[Mangesh Waikar]

does anyone know how to link comments in a jira ticket to a smartsheet?

Additional Information - i have a jira connector established between SS & Jira where information flows bi-directionally. While setting up the connector, i was able to map all the fields except for the comments posted within the jira ticket. Any idea how this can be done?

Example - as per the below screenshot "test comment 1" and "test comment 2" should get updated in smartsheet automatically

[Eric Raymond]

We opted not to get the Smartsheet connector (largely due to cost) and also because we have Workato, an awesome integration application that we use across the company for all sorts of integration. We're working right now to integrate Jira and Smartsheet using Workato so it's still in the early stages but so far it seems like it will work pretty well for us.

[Ryan Tokash]

We use Boomi as our integration platform and that works really well. However, Jira & Smartsheet's API leave a lot to be desired (IMO). So the Connector handles our Use Case really well. However, the Connector does have several limitations; Like one sheet can only connect to 1 project. So if you have multiple Jira Projects to connect to, you'll need separate sheets with their own connection logic. This works well for us so that it forces our Professional Services team to ensure they are adding work to the Right sheet so the proper Dev team gets the work, Rather than everything going into a "Catch All" and asking Dev Operations to sort it all out. 

[Neeraj]

Ryan - You actually CAN connect multiple Projects to a single sheet. We have used it this way successfully for a while now.

[Lydia M]

I have found that while you can have a Smartsheet that connects to multiple Jira projects, you can only create one workflow/connector per Smartsheet.

For example, in my Smartsheet, I have Development issues syncing to DEV Jira project, AUDIO issues syncing to that Jira project, and QUALITY issues syncing to the QA Jira project. But I can only have one connector for that sheet. 

[Ryan Tokash]

Yes, We use it a lot. It can be a little clunky, but it does work. Are there specific questions regarding the connector?

[Ryan Tokash]

We use it so that our Professional Services team can Add a Row of something that our Development team needs to do so it creates an issue for the Dev team to work and as they update their Progress, Status and estimated Delivery dates flow to Smartsheets to keep PS Updated so they can inform clients.

[Kerri Shirey]

Hi Ryan,

I do have a specific question regarding the connector.  In a case where an issue is carried over to multiple sprints, I've found that the connector will only pull the latest sprint over on the Issue.  So if Issue A was not completed on Sprint 1 or Sprint 2, but was completed on Sprint 3, Issue A in the Smartsheet is only associated with Sprint 3.  

As a workaround, I'm recommending our team stops carrying issues to multiple sprints.  Jira addresses this by advising users clone a story if no work was completed and they want to add it to the next sprint, or split it if some work was completed.  

The problem comes in when a story is cloned.  Orig story moves to the backlog and clone story moves to the next sprint.  Orig story is not ever going to be worked on and we really don't want it in the backlog, we just want it reflected as Not Completed at the end of that Sprint.  Any recommendations?

[Coby Fuller]

I have used the smartsheet connector to create reports for teammates to track progress on their requests that do not have access to Jira.

Scenario: 

We receive requests from other divisions, but these teammates do not have access to Jira to track progress of these requests. I've created filters that provides the information that they (requester) are interested in, pull that filter into a smartsheet using the connector, and then save these reports in a sharable location. When the end user opens the smartsheet, the filter is triggered, giving them up to date information each time they open one of the reports. This keeps us from using up Jira seats for users who would only need read access, but still allows us to share important information with them regarding their requests.

[Lydia M]

Hi Coby,

Thank you so much for sharing! I hadn't thought about this application of the connector yet. I was mainly focused on updating Jira issues from a Smartsheet project plan, but creating reports from Jira would be useful and plan to add this to my use case! :)

[martha.schulzinger]

Watching this one for sure. Lydia would you mind sharing the link of the specific app you're using? I'd like to learn more about it. Thank you!

[Lydia M]

Hi Martha, 

We primarily use Smartsheet for project plans at my company, so at some point someone got this connector that Smartsheet offers.

It's been pretty good so far, but it has taken a bit to get it to work consistently. My use case is full of "tried this--didn't work, tried that--didn't work" lol!