Best way to reference other ticket-systems?

[Mikhail T]

Hello! Though, like most enterprises, wy try to have a single issue-tracker, we aren't there yet... And some tickets need to reference tickets in other ticketing systems we use (maintained by ourselves or even by outside vendors).

What is the best way to store such references in Jira? Do we create custom-fields for each one or is there a better way?

Also, while we plan to store just the ticket ID (such as 0001 or FOO-0AFF), we'd like Jira to render them on the ticket's screen as a proper link with the href being http://bugzilla.vendor1.example.com/bug0001</strong<>> or https://jira.vendor2.example.com/jira/FOO-0AFF</strong<>> . Is there a reasonably easy way to provide such a template for each custom field as well?

Thanks!

[Mikhail T · Accepted solution]

Seems like creating "Web Links" (stored in the database in table named "remotelink") is the way to do this cheaply -- without coding a custom field type.

Now, if only I could figure out, how to generate the proper JSON to have these remote links automatically created :-(

[Theinvisibleman]

Hi Mikhail,

The only way that I can think of would be to create issue links from your JIRA to an external URL (which in this case is your alternate issue tracker). You can of course specify both the URL as well as the link text that appears.

I would recommend that you have a look at this documentation for the full details and instructions - Linking Issues

[Mikhail T]

But there is more in a datum "VENDOR1BUG Foo" than a link to the bug-description... And there is even a small chance, the actual URL may change some day... So we thought of using custom fields. For example:

• VENDOR1TICKETS: 0012, 1031
• VENDOR2TICKETS: FOO-001, FOO-002, BAR-107

Is there a way to make contents of a particular custom field to render as a link, however? Thanks!

[Theinvisibleman]

So your requirements would be for them to be dynamic links, I presume? As in, when the URL of the issue changes, the URL of the link would change as well?

[Mikhail T]

Yes, ideally, when the URL for tickets of an external issue-tracker BAR changes, we'd like to be able to update a template somewhere once and have Jira begin generating the links following the new URL-scheme for all tickets -- old and new alike.

It is not, strictly speaking, a requirement, but certainly a nice-to-have.