Using JSM as a means to create JWM issues.

[David Quiram]

Context:

We are using JSM for our internal helpdesk solution for various departments. Us in the IT department maintain the other departments helpdesks, but they are the acting agents in their respective projects. 

Recently we had another department express interest in wanting their department represented in the service portal so that employees would be able to request services of them. Normally this wouldn't be a problem. Just setup another JSM project and train them on using it. Well, they only want to work within JWM. 

They currently have a JWM project for their department tasks and dont want to have to go to another project to check/respond to requests. This is understandable as not every department is super into Jira and we are trying to get more departments interested in using it. 

The issue and initial research:

For the service portal to show options for another project, it needs to be a service project. There is no way around that to my knowledge. If anyone knows anything to the contrary, please let me know. 

In my mind, the way to tackle this project was to use JSM to put Forms on the service portal and leverage automation to "copy" the issue to the JWM project. At that point the "customer" (our employees) would use their issue in the service portal to update the issue as needed and the servicing department would use their JWM to update the issue and respond to the employee. Automation would just be passing the comments back and forth.

I did some research, testing, and finally confirmed that it could work that way. It's very doable, but requires a good chunk of automation back and forth between the two projects. Tonight as I was getting ready to begin setting up the automation, I had a thought and subsequent question...

The question:

Would it be better to continue as we were thinking, setting up multiple layers of automation to pass comments between the JSM and JWM issue

-OR-

Would it be better to just use a workaround as found here   

Does Atlassian/Jira have a use case for this specific example? It would be extremely simple if a JWM project could place Forms directly on the service portal, but that's not possible to my knowledge. So we are left with partially using a JSM project. 

Thank you in advance for your thoughts and recommendations. 

[David Quiram · Accepted solution]

I think I found the inherit problem... JSM "customers" dont require a license, but being a reporter on a JWM issue does require a license, so that would incur additional costs? 

Am I thinking that through correctly? 

[John Funk]

Correct - JWM use requires a license. There is no free customer option for JWM like there is for JSM. So you would need to use another licensed user as the reporter. You could create a service account user with a license to do something like that. You would also copy the customer from the JSM ticket into a text field in JWM so that you have that information. 

[Abhishek Shukla]

Hi David, 

I came across your post while I was looking for a solution to sync copied issues from JSM to JWM. 

I have created an automation that is cloning queries from JSM to JWM but any comments which I make in JSM, later on, are not synced into the JWM project.

Could you please help me how you came up with the automation to achieve the sync described under the following section The issue and initial research?

Thanks in advance!

[David Quiram]

So to make this work, you have to utilize issue links and automation branching. This is the rule that I have setup and it works. We have this setup in global automation since it needs to work both ways for two different projects. 

When you clone an issue, have it add a link to both issues. That is what the automation rule above will use to move a comment from A to B. 

Keep in mind that we are not cloning an issue and then closing it. In our particular use case will have back and forth communications on these issues.  So our automation only needs to move the last comment. 

Also note we have set the actor of the rule to "User who triggered the event". So when a comment is posted, it will be posted as the person who made the comment. Otherwise you will have a lot of comments from the automation service and sometimes knowing who made a comment is very important. 

[David Quiram]

Hopefully that helps move you in the direction you need. If you have more questions, just let us know! 

This has been a very unique challenge. 

[Abhishek Shukla]

Hi David, thanks for your response, it was a great help. I just had to move the automation rule to the global level to get comments synced across both projects. 

Also, this automation rule that I just had setup will work only for newly created tasks, therefore I was wondering if I already have a few queries in JSM that I would like to be cloned to JWM then can I achieve this via new automation or am I asking too much from Jira?

Thanks

PS.- 

Context -  I just want JSM tasks to appear in JWM so that I can use the Kanban board to track their progress but the team wants to work in JSM only, therefore, I am setting up this automation. 

[David Quiram]

Correct, this automation is only for new tasks. If you wanted to copy an already existing issue and all it's comments it would require a different solution. 

Off the top of my head I am uncertain if that is possible, but maybe someone else will chime in with thoughts on it. 

It would almost certainly have to deal with using the attributes for the {{comment}} element. 

If I have any thoughts on it I will certainly let you know! 

[John Funk]

Hi David,

Yes, you can do what you initially describe above, except that I would see no need to keep the initial JSM issue open. Just auto close it when it creates the JWM issue and let all of the communication happen within the JWM issue. That's all assuming that everyone involved are internal users and all have a Jira license.

Another option is to just use the JWM form directly and publish that link on your intranet somewhere. I guess that's probably the issue with why you want it to show in the JSM portal is so that people have a single place to go. If that's the case then you can use the work around option at the end of your post. Everyone will need a Jira license, which they should already have if this is internal people. And now new license for JWM would be required - it is already included. 

[David Quiram]

We only license the bulk of our workforce for Confluence. JWM and JSM we limit to specific departments. 

So I will have to go with my initial though of just using automation to act as a go between for JSM and JWM and pass comments and actions back and forth. 

[John Funk]

Yes, I would do that with automation anyway.