Connect Jira and Confluence Server to Slack Today!

[#1]

Hello Atlassian community,

My name is Trevor and I’m a product manager for the product integrations team at Atlassian and today I’m proud to announce we’re launching two new integrations for our server customers who use Slack. We heard your cries for this and have started building integrations for Jira and Confluence Server! Today we’re releasing our first version of the Jira Server for Slack app that gives you all of the functionality you’ve been asking for. We’re also releasing our Confluence Server for Slack integration to help keep you up to date in Slack with all things Confluence.

Receive Jira and Confluence Server notifications where you work

Email? Never heard of it! If you’re anything like us, you use Slack on a daily basis for all of your work needs. With these two new apps, you can now subscribe to Jira and Confluence Server to send notifications directly into Slack.

Project and Space admins rejoice! Any project admin can set up the notifications in the newly added Slack configuration screen. From the configuration screen, you can fine tune which notifications are sent to what channels using advanced filtering via JQL.

Dedicated Channels make a return!

With the Jira Server integration, you can create or connect issues to dedicated channels. Remember that last incident where your communications about a Jira ticket was spread over 7 slack channels? Now you can consolidate the chatter into a single Slack channel.

When you associate the Slack channel, that channel will automatically subscribe to all updates about the issue. When viewing that issue in Jira, you’ll be able to see the channel association, as well as any mentions of the issue in other rooms that have Jira configured. Never fear missing out on important communication again!

Welcome to Slack, Confluence Server

Today we’re also announcing our first release of our Confluence Server integration in Slack. Keep up to date with your favorite spaces or blogs in Confluence directly from in Slack. Set up notifications for blog posts in your space to your #announcements channel in Slack for a simple blog post to slack channel workflow! This release also supports the ability to subscribe to Confluence Questions and Calendar events.

 

FAQs

How do I get started with Jira Server for Slack?

First, grab your Jira administrator - they’re required to get this set up. Then you’ll need to install the Jira Server for Slack (Official) app from the Atlassian marketplace.

From there, you will establish a connection between your Jira Server and Slack. The detailed documentation for this installation can be found here.

How do I get started with Confluence Server for Slack?

Same as Jira Server, you’ll need your site administrator. Install the Confluence Server for Slack (Official) app from the Atlassian marketplace.

From there, you will establish a connection between your Confluence and Slack. The detailed documentation for this installation can be found here.

Does this work if my Jira or Confluence instances are behind a corporate firewall?

If your Jira or Confluence instance is behind a corporate firewall, the Slack integrations will work in “limited connectivity” mode. This means you’ll be able to be notified in Slack when things happen in Confluence or Jira, but you won’t be able to unfurl tickets or pages in Slack. To unlock full functionality, you can open the ports that Jira and Confluence Server use, so Slack can communicate with your instances.

Does this work with Data Center products?

Yes, absolutely. Both Jira Server for Slack and Confluence Server for Slack are compatible with their data center counter parts.

What’s coming next?

This is just the beginning of our quest to bring updates to Atlassian Server customers who are using Slack. We’re planning on adding even more features and capabilities our Slack integrations in the near future. Keep in touch on Community and let us know what features you’re looking for.

We’re also planning on releasing the source code for this integration in the near future so you’re able to build your own features on top of the integration. Look in the near future for another community blog post detailing how to access the code!

[Trevor Thompson]

We've just released version 1.0.1 that supports Jira 8!

[Alfa-Bank Atlassian Team]

Hi!

When the Bitbucket version of app is expected ?

[Trevor Thompson]

Hello! We're working on Bitbucket Server + Slack  right now. We are hoping to have a beta very soon. If you're interested please email me at trevor.thompson@atlassian.com

[Rique Santiestevan]

@Trevor Thompson  - this specific use case is tripping me up - I feel as if I must be missing something obvious, but I can't seem to get there: "When viewing that issue in Jira, you’ll be able to see the channel association, as well as any mentions of the issue in other rooms that have Jira configured."

When you say "other rooms", do you mean other Slack channels? I thought "rooms" was a Hipchat term? If you do mean other Slack channels, I've tested this without success. I've mentioned my test case in two other channels which I've linked successfully with Jira (they receive notifications of new tickets and changes to tickets in my project) - and yet there's no indication in Jira of those mentions. I've also mentioned my test case in the dedicated channel which I've linked with that case and there's nothing added to Jira in that case, either.

Do the channels have to be public? Our channels are almost exclusively private. Is there a configuration step which we may have overlooked? As mentioned, all of my linked Slack channels are displaying updates where tickets are added or changed... it is the other side of the link where there's no joy... Jira never updates its ticket whenever that ticket is mentioned in Slack. Any help?

[Luiz Silva]

@Rique Santiestevan 👋

Currently, the integration skips private channels indeed.

We first implemented this way for security concerns with the principle private conversations should remain private.

We did, however, notice from previous feedback like yours that people diverge in their workflows so we do have plans to optionally enable storing mentions in private channels.

[testleng]

Hello, any plans for a Microsoft Teams integration with Jira, Confluence and Bitbucket server?

[Luiz Silva]

@Alfa-Bank Atlassian Team FYI We've launched Bitbucket Server for Slack integration.

[Alfa-Bank Atlassian Team]

Wow! Thank you.

[Alfa-Bank Atlassian Team]

Hello again!

Jira and Confluence integration provide the ability to work in the connection mode only from the Atlassian server to the Slack. This is useful when the Jira or Confluence is deployed in the organization’s network and is not published on the Internet.

But integration of Bitbicket does not allow to complete the configuration process on the side of the Slack without specifying https URL to Bitbucket server. So we can not use this app for now. 

Please note the wish and realize the possibility of integration without a Bitbucket server published on the Internet.

[Luiz Silva]

The requirement of having it available on the Internet to complete Slack configuration is the same across all Server apps. This is a Slack limitation.

While Slack to Server communication won't work, so you can't have link unfurling and slash command, for instance, Server to Slack integration should still work.

Thus, you should still be able to copy the credentials provided by Slack into the plugins' configurations and configure them to post notifications to Slack.

[Alfa-Bank Atlassian Team]

There is a setup option with Advanced connection type and description "Create your own custom Slack App. Use this option if you need connect multiple instances to the same Slack workspace."

When I specify all the necessary parameters of the Slack app used by Jira and Confluence, I've got an error:

"The credentials you entered are not in a valid format. Please, check if you entered the correct JSON text."

But there is no JSON. Does this option work correctly?

[Luiz Silva]

You just found a bug. We'll be releasing a new version with a fix for this soon. 

Meanwhile, please use the basic version. If you really need the advanced option, you can try manually crafting the JSON required by the basic version using the credentials of your custom App.

[Application Support]

Will it ever be possible to have bidirectional communication between JIRA and Slack if your JIRA is not accessable via Internet? For now it seems we have to buy a 3rd party plugin.

Cheers,

[Trevor Thompson]

Hi @Application Support

No matter what the solution, to unlock bidirectional communication between Jira and Slack, you must create some sort of hole in your firewall. 

For our app, this is done by requesting that you explicitly open a firewall port in order to enable this type of communication.

For other apps, this is done by implicitly opening a hole in the firewall somehow, either through long polling or websockets. The advantage of doing it this way is that it works out of the box, however regardless of how you look at the differences, you're still opening a hole in your firewall to allow Slack to communicate with Jira.

We have chosen the route of requiring that you explicitly open a firewall port as we feel it is generally a better practice to explicitly open your Jira to the internet (and thus, your network / security team has full control over it) rather than doing it implicitly, in which your network / security team might not be okay with and won't have as much control over.

To fully answer your question - Yes, it is possible today with this plugin, but it requires you to explicitly open a firewall port to communicate between Slack and Jira.

Hope this helps

Trevor

[Luiz Silva]

@Application Support FYI A new release was published fixing the bug you had found and with new cool features such as personal notifications.

[Application Support]

Which bug do you mean? I´ve tried the new version yesterday within our dev instance and it seemed to be the same that Slack could not communicate with our JIRA (Slack -> JIRA). 

[Luiz Silva]

Hey!

I actually meant @Alfa-Bank Atlassian Team's bug when using the advance configuration mode. Sorry about the confusion.

[jonathan.cook@tylertech.com]

Is there a way to integrate multiple slack accounts back to a single Confluence page?  I am only seeing one so I'm assuming that is the case but can't find a definitive yes/no answer anywhere.

[Gonchik Tsymzhitov]

Hi! 

Do you have some recomendation who works behind firewall? 

We would like to use the Slack -> Jira integration

Cheers.

Gonchik Tsymzhitov

[Application Support]

+1 @Gonchik Tsymzhitov , im also highly interested because some paid apps already achieving this..

[Chris Grewe]

What specific port needs to be open on the server in order for the Slack -> JIRA side of the integration to work? 

[Luiz Silva]

@Chris Grewe Your Jira/Confluence/Bitbucket Server needs to be reachable by Slack servers via regular HTTPS requests (port 443).

[Luiz Silva]

@Gonchik Tsymzhitov @Application Support 

Currently, there are no plans to support integrating with Slack from a behind a firewall, e.g. using WebSockets or HTTP polling.

I understand it could provide a relatively smoother experience during the installation. However, part of the technical reasoning behind this decision is as follows:

• I'm aware Slack RTM exits but it doesn't scale well for our use cases, so we opted for the standard and recommended Events API, which is basically HTTP-based WebHooks.
• With that, bypassing one's firewall would require a new proxy of some sort. It was thought through but in the end it leads to multiple security and legal implications, since now your data would flow through an intermediary party.

Third-party solutions usually use one of the two approaches mentioned above (RTM or a proxy) and for sure they might work well for you. My intention here is just to make you aware of some of the implications.

As Trevor mentioned earlier, opening a port and path to your instance could just be the easiest solution.

If you run Jira, Confluence, or Bitbucket Server on your own internal server and face limitations regarding making them available securely over the Internet, you may think about using using DDNS solutions for the domain and free certificates (https://letsencrypt.org) for securing the connection.

[Melinda Atkinson]

Hi All,
If we start using the dedicated channel link per a jira issue - is there a way to automatically archive that channel when the Jira ticket is closed?  Anyone have a solution for that use case?
Thanks in advance.

[Luke Noel-Storr]

We have Jira Server behind a firewall, and would like to open up ports to allow complete integration.

Is there a way to limit this just to the Slack integration? i.e. something like an ip range to whitelist?