How to make JSM and JS work together

Gui Ávila December 24, 2020

Hi!

I'm trying to figure out the best way to make a JSM project and a Jira Software project work together smoothly. I'm searching for the proper way for help desk agents have developers fix bug requests and notify customers that the problem is solved.


The problem is that when a customer creates a new request, the issue is in JSM project. And developers work in a JS project (and usually don't have access to JSM project, because each developer would need a product license for JSM). 
Could someone please give me a hand?

We have 2 projects: a Jira Software project, for our development team, and a JSM project, for our customer support team.

When a customer opens a new request for a bug, a new issue is created in JSM project. From now on, what is the best way/workflow for the developers fix that bug and automatically notify the help desk agent that the bug is fixed so the customer can receive a reply? If all users in Jira Software could see JSM issues, the problem was solved, because the developers could see the description and fix the bug. As far as I know, the only way would be to add developers as help desk agents on JSM, but that would cost us very much.

So I thought about this:

- Make an automation that creates a new issue in Jira Software with the title, description and attachments from a specific issue. 
- When a new bug request is created in JSM project, the help desk agent could manually trigger that automation in the issue view, and a new issue would be created in JS project.
- The issue created in JS project would have the same title and description of the JSM issue, so the developer can understand the bug reported by the customer.
- The JS issue would be linked to the JSM issue, with the link type set as "blocks".
- When the JS issue is resolved, via another automation a new comment would be added to JSM issue warning the assignee (help desk agent) that the problem is solved.
- Help desk agent can manually answer the customer saying that the problem is solved.

The problem is that we would work with 2 different issues about the same subject. Not sure if this is correct and desirable.

Please, am I in the right path? Jira products are very advanced and complex to set, I'm not sure if this is the best way to achieve the result.

I'm sure that making JS and JSM work together is a very common question/task. Any help/suggestion is very well appreciated!

Thank you very much,

Gui.

3 answers

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Gui Ávila December 26, 2020

@Ravi Sagar _Sparxsys_ and @Joseph Chung Yin 

 

If JSM agents don't have product license for JS and also JS developers don't have product license for JSM, how can developers make questions to agents and vice versa? Very often developers may need more information and need to be in touch with agents commenting in the same issue.

Did not figured out how to solve this problem.

Thanks!

Daniel Ebers
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December 27, 2020

According to documentation is works this way:

For Jira users not licensed for another Jira application on the same server or Cloud site, browse and comment permissions can be granted on projects. For example, Jira Software users can comment on Jira Service Management issues and Jira Service Management agents can browse and comment on Jira Software issues, without giving the user a paid license for the other product.

I made the part which I believe to be relevant for your case bold.

In summary Agents can make comments (and browse - as without they would not able to comment) but for "more" you would need to assign a license seat. For example, if you want to let them edit also, you would need two licenses for an Agent (on for JSM to do the work, one license for JS to create issues for a developer).

The quote from above was taken from here:

https://confluence.atlassian.com/confeval/jira-service-management-evaluator-resources/jira-service-management-how-jira-service-management-works-with-jira-core-software

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Gui Ávila January 4, 2021

Hey, @Daniel Ebers . Thanks a lot! Awesome, I did not know about that. Thanks for your help, I really appreciate!

Gui Ávila January 8, 2021

Thanks, worked!

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Ravi Sagar _Sparxsys_
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December 25, 2020

@Gui Ávila 

Your approach is good. Nothing wrong with two issues with same title. You don't create development tasks for all the JSM tickets anyways. You can have a transition "Send to dev" so you can always report on "How many incidents required help from dev teams".

Your automation also looks good to me. Adding a comment back to JSM ticket and letting agent take further action on the ticket makes lot of sense. You can also add a public comment using automation but that is upto you.

Ravi

Gui Ávila December 26, 2020

@Ravi Sagar _Sparxsys_ Thanks, Ravi!

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Joseph Chung Yin
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December 24, 2020

@Gui Ávila -

In our env (JS Data Center v8.9.1 and JSM v4.9.1), we have successfully integrated both the JSM project with our JS projects by doing the following -

1) All JSM agents are granted access with the Browse/Create Issue/Modify Reporter permissions against the relevant JS projects.  NOTE - JS users don't need to have JSM agent licenses.

2) JSM agents use link issue function to manually link JSM issues to JS issues.  NOTE - We standardized the link type that JSM agents use - "Required".  So when the linked issue relationship is created, the JS issues will have "is required by" link to the JSM issues.

3) We also modified the JSM workflow to auto-create JS issues (in some special cases) and inside the process, we also linked the JS issues back to the JSM issues via post function calls.  We use the following Add-on - Jira Misc Workflow Extension (https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/292/jira-misc-workflow-extensions-jmwe?hosting=datacenter&tab=overview) to achieve the WF customization.  This is a great add-on for any Jira env by the way.

4) We used the JSM out of the box "Automation" rule to trigger the JSM issues to auto-closed when the associated JS issues are completed.  In this case, the Automation rules run using a special service account (one which we granted with JSM agent license).  NOTE - In the setup, it works only when a JSM issue have only one linked JS issue.  If there are more linked JS issues, then the rule (using the out of the box "Automation") will still auto-closes the JSM issue even if other linked JS issues are not closed.

5) To address the case where one JSM issue have multiple JS linked issues, we developed custom scripts (scripted post-function call via Script Runner for Jira add-on) to handle auto-closure of the JSM "Parent" issue by validating that all the linked JS issues are closed. This WF custom post function call is implemented both affected JSM and JS projects.

Our solutions have worked very well for our integration between JSM and JS envs.

Hope this helps.

Best, Joseph Chung Yin

Jira/JSM Functional Lead, Global Infrastructure Applications Team

Viasat Inc.

Gui Ávila December 26, 2020

@Joseph Chung Yin Thanks for your help!

Tim McMinn February 7, 2021

@Joseph Chung Yin

any advice on how to add comments from JS to JSM linked issues?

Joseph Chung Yin
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February 7, 2021

@Tim McMinn -

As in JSM, there are two different types of comments (Public or Internal).  You will need to develop custom processing (maybe post function calls in your JS WF) to copy the JS comments to the JSM issues.  In most cases, it will be adding an internal comment to the JSM issue.

This process will require technical development.  I don't have an exact solution for this ask yet.  

Best, Joseph

MamadouPathe_DIALLO July 22, 2021

Hello @Joseph Chung Yin ,

I know this post is old but Gui's post is the closest explanation to what i am facing right now except in my case it all has to do with request(new dev or evolution of an existing application). 

Here is a description of my use case with different status a request can have in JSM:

The workflow describes how feasibility studies are made till feedback to customers.

Receive-->Analysis-->Approbation Comity-->Feedback

From Approbation Comity-->Feedback, a custom screen pops up with the following fields:

Feasible(dropdown list), Start date, Due date

Q1: Can i make start date and due date appear only if the value in the feasible field is "feasible"?

The Feasible field is filled by the Business Analysts(use JSM) and the dates by the dev team(use JS).

Q2: How can i make them fill these values?

Q3: After the values are filled is there a way to create an epic in JS with the dates previously chosen?

 

Thank you in advance for your reply

Daniel Ebers
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July 25, 2021

It might make more sense to create a new thread on this one, but there are a few basics that jump into ones eye:

From Approbation Comity-->Feedback, a custom screen pops up with the following fields:

Transition screens won't display in customer portal - so this described way will not work.

Q1: Can i make start date and due date appear only if the value in the feasible field is "feasible"?

This is normally possible in Jira Server with "Behaviours". They are to date also not available for Jira Cloud. This described way will not work.

Q2: How can i make them fill these values?

You can make fields "required" to fill out by setting the respective option in Field Configuration. If you want to make it only required during a transition using a validator in the workflow is absolutely doable.

Q3: After the values are filled is there a way to create an epic in JS with the dates previously chosen?

This is a classical job for Automation. Automation comes included with your cloud plan.

From the restrictions faced above you will need to work out for yourself if they are acceptable for your team. If so, you could have a cross-check with Marketplace (https://marketplace.atlassian.com) to see if there are Apps which are capable of overcoming the limitations. For 1) (transition screen) I think there are some. For 2) (dependency between fields to fill out it will get very tricky).

Like MamadouPathe_DIALLO likes this
MamadouPathe_DIALLO July 26, 2021

Hi @Daniel Ebers,

Thank you for you reply

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