Looking best practice to store vendors and sites info

[Syed Haider]

I am looking for ideas and suggestions that would follow the "Jira" way to store Vendor/site information. My client has quite a few satellite locations. These are small sites with their own ISPs, vendor contacts with some information. Very generic and varies from site to site. How would you go about storing this info? So if a call comes in that site 123 is experiencing internet issues, the tech agents of Jira SD would be able to find information about that site.

Here is an example:

Site 123

Curious Citizen

Address

Router is stored in closet 123 and here is the configuration info.

Thoughts? Clear as mud? :)

Thank you for taking the time to reply

[Michael Andolfatto · Accepted solution]

Hi @Syed Haider ,

If the information is already stored in an external datasource, you could consider using the Elements Connect plugin to retrieve it. You can see an example below- based on a field selection (User in this case), a new Details field auto populates with information pulled from the datasource.

Alternatively, you could look at Insight Asset Management (recently purchased by Atlassian) to create a database within Jira for all of your site information and display it whenever it is linked to a Jira issue.

[Syed Haider]

This information is scattered all over the team in their emails, notes, and documents. I am trying to bring it organize it. I just got the Jira SD going last month and I have been trying to make Jira SD central repository for many items. Still stumbling my way through a lot of features and learning.

I like that option you suggested with elements connect plugin. I will keep that in mind for a few other items we have.

I did download and install the Insight Asset Management (IAM). I really really struggled with getting the license bit started and almost gave up. I have been trying to make that work for a week now. I will spend some time with it again today.

So, when you say to create a database within Jira, can you please elaborate? I can create a DB within the db and add tables with data. But I assume you are asking to let IAM create a DB and use that? Or is it better to create another "asset" that is also a vendor?

In some ways I have an upper hand because I don't have to connect to an existing tool or work with one. I can start fresh in Jira and customize it right from the start.

Thanks

[Michael Andolfatto]

Insight uses its own specific terminology, so I suggest checking out their glossary. (Detailed info here)

For the use case that you listed above, you would want to define a "Site" Object Type within an Object Schema. You would then populate your Object Type with Objects (Assets) such as Site A, Site B, Site C, etc. Each Object then has its own Attributes like Address, User Contact, etc.

On the Jira side of things, you're able to configure Insight custom fields that can select Objects from your Object Schema. When a Customer selects Site A from the field, you can choose to have attributes pulled alongside it so that in the issue it displays the address of Site A, the user to contact, any "additional details" such as "server is located in closet..."