Announcing Mindville Insight is now part of Jira Service Management!

[Charlotte Nicolaou]

@Effie Bagourdi [Nimaworks] and @Dirk Ronsmans 

It's now available and working well!

[Dirk Ronsmans]

@Charlotte Nicolaou lovely! (I think you mean the placeholders right? :))

I don't immediately see it on my instance yet (or I'm not awake enough yet).

Will this be like on premise where it is a different type of field that you can mention what field it needs to be depended on or will this be a property on the regular custom Insight Object/s field type?

[Charlotte Nicolaou]

@Dirk Ronsmans 

It's different to how it works on-prem. There's no Insight Referenced Object field. 
Instead, you have the option of 'filter issue scope' in the configuration settings of a regular Insight Object field. 

I believe it can do most of the things the Referenced Object field can do but you have to write it out in IQL rather than using configuration fields to specify, for example, reference direction or reference type. 

Also not as many placeholders are available on Cloud. I believe it's the following but I would double check the documentation which should be available soon. 

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[Dirk Ronsmans]

Allright @Charlotte Nicolaou , thanks for the explanation! 

Looking forward to the documentation to dive a little deeper. I think my main use case would always be

2 Insight object fields where the 2nd one is filtered based on the first one.

To be honest I don't yet see how that will work with an IQL but that's most likely just me :) Or maybe I just misunderstood how the placeholders would be implemented.

[Charlotte Nicolaou]

@Dirk Ronsmans 

So I should have said IQL and placeholders. To filter one custom field on the value of the other you'd use a placeholder to reference the above custom field. 

Like in the final example of this blog: https://www.rightstar.com/atlassian-jira-community/using-insight-as-an-object-oriented-database-part-3/

[Dirk Ronsmans]

Oh great! That would then not have an issue with the limited amount of fields available I guess.

Thanks again :) I'll play a bit with it.

[Martyn Bell]

Hi gang, me again.

Ive been tracking this thread since my last comment and am seeing some really cool stuff.

Ive still yet to make the leap over yet as i need to make some changes within my own intergrations with jira api.

Just one question and i hope someone can answer me.

If i add the custom field within a jira service desk ticket. Can this now be searched for using the global search?

For example, im using insight to track assets, and the service desk to raise and close tickets for these assets.

If i was to search for the asset in thr global search would it return all the tickets containing this new asset in the custom field?

Also another one, is the linked tickets bit in the insight side now available?

So i can click on an asset in insight and see all realated tickets?

Many thanks

Martyn

[Alex van Vucht (GLiNTECH)]

If i add the custom field within a jira service desk ticket. Can this now be searched for using the global search?

Yes! EG:

Insight field 1:

1. Name: Service Object
2. Schema: Services
3. Scope IQL: objectType = Service
4. Custom field ID: 10378

Insight field 2:

1. Name: Product Object
2. Schema: Assets
3. Scope IQL: objectType IN objectTypeAndChildren("Product")
4. Issue Scope IQL: Service IN (${customfield_10378${0}})

Have a Service attribute that links to the Service object on your Products, and slap these fields onto a request form. Users would have to select a Service Object first, then this Product Object field will show values, just like how it works for Server

(Quick tip: Insight fields don't work on Hidden Request forms, the form has to be in a portal group)

Of course, ideally, I want to use the Affected Services field so that I can use Change Management. I'll keep working on guessing what the placeholder is here. It's not affectedServices :)

If i was to search for the asset in thr global search would it return all the tickets containing this new asset in the custom field?

Yes, you can JQL queries for assets with the iqlFunction() JQL function, eg: "Service Object" IN iqlFunction("Tier = \"Tier 3\"")

Also another one, is the linked tickets bit in the insight side now available?

So i can click on an asset in insight and see all realated tickets?

Just for Unresolved tickets. Can't customise the filter yet.

[Nick Georgakopoulos [Nimaworks]]

@Charlotte Nicolaou unfortunately I cannot get it to work for ${reporter} placeholder.

I have two object types "Server" and "Employee" and I have an "Employee" object attribute and a "User" attribute on Server object.  

As @Alex van Vucht (GLiNTECH) mentions it works when referencing a customfield, e.g. "Owner = ${customfield_10078}" (where customfield_10078 is an Insight cf set to "objectType = Employee").

After selecting an Employee in portal the "Server" Insight customfield shows all Servers related to the specific Employee.

What really is important for us is the use of ${reporter} placeholder or currentUser() function. And that does not work. When I change "Server" Insight customfield configuration to  "Owner.User = ${reporter}" or "Owner.User = currentUser()" or "User =  ${reporter}" no options are shown in portal for "Server" field.

 

When I set in the configuration to a static value like "Owner.User = ngeorgakopoulos" or "Owner.User = 60a79b13b050a700xxxxxxxx" where 60a79b13b050a700xxxxxxxx is the Atlassian Account ID, it works.

We have a lot of cases where we cannot migrate customers to the cloud because of the lack of ${reporter} functionality.

Cheers,

Nick

[Alex van Vucht (GLiNTECH)]

Hi @Nick Georgakopoulos [Nimaworks] 

I just did a quick check, and it's working fine for me:

On the Insight side:

• Object Type: Host
• Attribute: Owner (User-type)

On the Jira side:

• Custom field name: Host Object
• Scope IQL: objectType = Host
• Issue Scope IQL: Owner = ${reporter}

Now when I put this custom field on a request form (remember, the form has to be in a portal group, ie. not a hidden form), if a host object has me as the Owner, only that host object becomes available for selection. If I am not the Owner on any Host Object, then I can't see or select anything.

[Nick Georgakopoulos [Nimaworks]]

Hi @Alex van Vucht (GLiNTECH) ,

You are right!

I have created a new portal customer, added to Insight object and it is working as expected. Nevertheless using my user does not show any objects, I guess I will open a ticket to Atlassian support to investigate further. 

Nick

[Connor]

@Charlotte Nicolaou 

Is there any news about the migration tool for migrating from the original Insight cloud app to this new version?

[Florian Reingräber]

Hi @Charlotte Nicolaou ,

do you have any updates about the placeholder topic? Will it be shipped soon? :)

Thank you

[Ken Connally]

Hello @Connor 

We're anticipating having something for migration in Q4.

[Ken Connally]

Hello @Florian Reingräber 

We have some support for placeholders now: https://support.atlassian.com/jira-service-management-cloud/docs/configure-the-insight-object-field/

Let us know if that answers your question.

[Alex van Vucht (GLiNTECH)]

We're anticipating having something for migration in Q4.

@Ken Connallythis will be exciting. We've got a couple of clients with quite sophisticated Insight ITSM configurations which would be a nightmare to get to cloud presently.

As it stands at the end of July, here's a wishlist of features:

Migration

With OpsGenie Services integration, blindly migrating Insight schema and objects isn't as useful as people think. I would prefer to do a rebuild because Insight deployments tend to get a bit woolly over time as they are adjusted to changing business processes. Insight's flexibility and ease of use has its downsides after all. It's more that object data needs to be able to migrated, and this could be tens of thousands of objects so this needs to be timed to reduce impact on service management.

Observing how clients use Insight, they generally have schemas with a very large number of objects which are associated to a small number of Jira projects (typically this is Insight discovery), or schemas that are tightly managed and used across many projects (these would be the candidate schemas for integration with OpsGenie). Consider using the field contexts for Insight custom fields to guide what Insight schemas are relevant to what projects and inform clients to plan out their Insight Cloud migrations and adjust their field contexts accordingly.

An ideal migration method would be for JCMA to examine the Server Insight schema and create a Object Schema in cloud with a corresponding import configuration. This has two major benefits:

1. Working with a migration-specific import configuration would let users adjust their Insight Cloud object schema and import configuration to take advantage of OpsGenie Services schema, optimise their Insight configuration, and further separate the migration planning from the migration itself.
2. JCMA can execute this Insight import days or weeks beforehand, then at the time Jira projects migrate, JCMA can execute this import as an update of these previously migrated objects.

Jira global automations could also be created ahead of Jira project migration to correspond to the old Insight automation rules.

Object comments

Insight objects aren't Jira issues, so I really don't like object comments. Comments are transient: they are a statement from a moment in time. Objects are permanent: I want to know that what I see on an object is its current state. If an object needs to be discussed, it's best done on a Jira issue - which typically are what initiate the comment anyway - or a Confluence page.

I prefer a Comment Textarea attribute (I typically call this Note) so that the comment is always relevant to the object. The change history then documents how this Comment changes over time. I would suggest Server Insight to Cloud migrations should add a Comment or Comment (migrated) Textarea attribute for object types where objects have comments, and add Seraver comments as change history for this object attribute. Match Actor and Created to the comment author and date.

Related Jira issues

The easiest implementation would be to add a "Related issues" configuration tab on the object schema where users could select existing Jira filters. Consider also making this available on the object type level so that filters can be defined for an object hierarchy, and a different filter can be specified as a default. Also consider letting users choose their favourite filters from the Related Jira issues list.

Import

We do really need the Endpoint URL import. I can understand why this was disabled due to security and performance concerns, and I believe elsewhere Atlassian said they were looking at bringing this back, but secrets handling in Insight server is really not very good.

Consider supporting Bitbucket Pipelines as an import source instead:

• Secrets can be handled better and support more diverse implementation
• Multiple sources can be collected into a single source.
• Work can be offloaded to a service that can be billed to customers as Pipelines minutes to discourage abuse of too-frequent import scans
• Repositories can be used to store these often very large import files.
• Educating customers about Pipelines is also good for cross-product promotion :)

Users would select "Bitbucket Pipeline" instead of "File". Insight would offer to create a pipeline and/or repository in a linked Bitbucket DVCS account that emulates the old Endpoint URL feature, so that users only need to update a YAML file for endpoint and add the secret.

The work done into bringing Bitbucket into Micros could really pay off here.

Discovery

A "Upload to Insight Cloud" feature:

• Discovery import modal has a "Cloud upload" as a source.
• Selecting this generates a unique base64-encoded token for this import config.
• This contains tag, target and token for scans to upload via SFTP to Atlassian owned S3 buckets
• Put this in your Insight Discovery application config
• "Do import" now looks for latest scan file in this S3 bucket.
• Alternatively, just make this into a Bitbucket pipeline instead. The "cloud upload" could be to create a Bitbucket pipeline and put the Insight Discovery config into the repo. Insight would upload the scans to a Bitbucket repository which can then trigger the import. That standardises it into the above proposed process.

Automation

Much like how there a project automations which can be made by project administrators, there needs to be object automations that can be made and managed by Insight managers.

We also need these actions:

• For objects branch:
  • Has three ways of loading objects for iterating over them:
    • By IQL
    • In object reference (Insight object context rules only) 
    • In Insight custom field (Jira issue context rules only)
  • That branch's context changes to Insight objects, ie. {{object}}, so that the Edit Object action can be used.
• Do Insight import action:
  • This would be significantly more powerful than the Insight Server import "synchronisation" feature.
  • Consider supporting an issue attachment smart value as the import source.
  • If Endpoint URLs are re-introduced, then specify the endpoint so that smart values can be used.

(Edit) Oh, let's get {{triggerObject}} smart value for "When object created/updated/deleted" rules. This satisfies quite simply the "How do I copy values from one object to another object", which is trivial in Insight Server automation.

• When object updated
• If: objectType = Employee and status = Closed
• Then: For all objects referenced in object attribute: Assigned Assets
  
  • If object attribute matches: Status = Active
  • Edit object:
    • Status: Support Requested
    • Note: {{triggerObject.Name}} left the company at {{triggerObject.Updated}}, asset requires return

This follows Automation's model for copying field values from one Jira issue to a linked Jira issue so should be fairly intuitive to Jira power users.

[Ken Connally]

Thank you for the feedback @Alex van Vucht (GLiNTECH) . I have shared this with our product team.

[Mark Hostetler]

Are the reporting tools found in Server/Datacenter coming over to Cloud?

[Ken Connally]

@Mark Hostetler 

Generally yes, although, as you might expect, in slightly different fashion to support the cloud experience.

[Florian Reingräber]

@Ken Connally thank you! Everything I was looking for :)

[Juul Weijers]

Hi, has the Insight been rolled out completely? Or is there a roadmap with features that are still being developed or rolled out?

[Dirk Ronsmans]

Hey @Juul Weijers ,

You can always follow along on the public roadmap.

https://www.atlassian.com/roadmap/cloud?selectedProduct=jiraService&search=insight

This shows still features coming in Q4 2021 and probably will continue to grow in 2022

[Martyn]

Please can everyone interested in this part of the Jira suite go to this link and vote on this bug to be fixed

JSDCLOUD-9880 

It is currently gathering interest so please vote and drop a comment.

The bug relates to the connected Jira issues section on an asset, currently it is statically set to show only unresolved issued and there is no way to change this to show all.

A vital element when using any asset tracking software.

Thanks