REST Assured: You’ve Already Done the Work (And You're Already Paying for It)

[#1]

If you're an admin or power user in Jira, JSM, or Confluence—you’ve probably spent a lot of time configuring things to suit your team's workflows. Custom fields, workflows, issue types, automation rules—you name it.

Here's the truth:
Everything you've built is already exposed via REST.
And REST isn’t just for devs anymore.

✅ Need a report that combines sprint status across 20 teams? REST.
✅ Want to sync Jira with Notion, Google Sheets, or Power BI? REST.
✅ Need a list of all open Epics with custom fields? You guessed it—REST.

Most teams don’t realize they’ve already done the hard part—defining the structure. 

Attached is a screenshot from a REST Endpoint Browser I threw together to help me navigate the endpoints I can use to get related objects.   A link to the Power BI is there too.  Feel free to poke around.

Power BI REST Browser 

[Darryl Lee]

Holy crap. Your dashboards are amazing.

Going to dig into this! Thank you for sharing!

[Gary Spross]

I keep telling myself I'm going to make time to build out an app that will allow me to view (and potentially edit) configurations via the REST API, but then I never find the time. The dashboard style layout you have built out here is very impressive and would be amazingly useful.

[David Nickell]

@Darryl Lee  - Thanks.  "Holy Crap" made me smile.

@Gary Spross  - I have done much of the configuration VIEW in the past;  I think there are 2 uses cases. 

(1) I was working with a client that tried to do a lot of configuration on their own.  With a mix of company and team managed products, there isnt a consistent interface for an admin to know what they can manipulate and how to get to it.  Very confusing to new admins (see the third screen shot - I gave them hyperlinks).

(2) Documentation for your PMO and users.  Creating documentation is tough for us tech types.  So having a self documenting system (which in effect you do with the REST API), it sure is nice to have ready made PDFS etc.  The problem is - Workflows which we can't get to through REST.  But no matter -- the graphical representation of the designer is tough to beat.  So an occasional copy/paste won't kill you.

Hope this provides some Insight

[Darryl Lee]

@David Nickell so it's not a REST endpoint, but there is an endpoint that will get you the XML of a workflow. Of course converting it to a graphical representation is considerably more difficult.

The endpoint is:

YOURSITE/secure/admin/workflows/ViewWorkflowXml.jspa?workflowMode=live&workflowName=WORKFLOWNAME

And your regular API token will work with that endpoint.

Years ago I learned that Jira's workflow format is actually OSWorkflow (OpenSymphony Workflow), and I googled and there's a fork of it that contains some kind of Graphviz visualization library for workflows. There's some cool (if old-school looking) images here:

https://github.com/will-gilbert/OSWf-OSWorkflow-fork/tree/master/images

[David Nickell]

@Darryl

I supported on-premis server installs from 2008-2020.  All of my REST Based reporting now was initially SQL back then ;-),  And I definitely tried to automate the text based Workflow Management.  I was a VBA junkie and could bring in the XML, parse it, create new steps, etc.   .

These days I'll still do my  workflows visually in Draw.io first to discuss with stakeholders before trying to complete them in the designer.    Hopefully none of us are spending hours on end re-inventing workflows.   I can't imaginge automating the creation and maintenance at this point.

That said - a current client was initially adamant that he wanted his own project templates (like we see Atlassian Offering).  Its taken some time to getting him to grasp the shared workflows and schemas.  

So... maintenance? The Cost Benefit through REST isnt there any longer (IMHO),  But the documentation angle might be worthwile especially if everything else IS atuomatically generated.  

Here's a challenge for you.  (And if you do it, you'll beat me to the market).  But take the workflow documentation you do have and audit what actually happened to the tickets.  Was it really a manager who aproved that step?  Did somone circumvent the workflow goals with a creative clone and move?  Auditors love finding that kind of stuff ;-)

[Katie Swanson-Wikelius]

I came across this little nugget in my email this morning and thought it might be able to help me gather some information that, unfortunately, Jira doesn't make available.  That is, getting a list of the access groups and which projects they're associated with.  I can get a list of users who are all assigned to those groups, but not the projects.

So, as a VERY novice person in realm of scripting, code, etc., would this wonderful looking tool be able to help me gather that information?  And how might I go about doing that?

Thank you in advance!

[David Nickell]

Cool -- A real world question!   So - I am going to throw an answer out without doing a lot of validation -- but I think I am close.  (its been a while since I've managed a Really Big Organization).

I hope any inaccuracies here are overlooked given the speed at which I replied :-) 

• I was starting off with a really complicate discussion of Projects and Permissions Schemes (See the ERD below)
• The potential REST Calls are in one of the screenshots.  If you are trying to associate Users to Groups, you may still need those.
• But then I looked closely at the User Endpoints... there is one for seraching users assigneable to a project.

So that is my "start of an answer".   If you have permissions, these are all GET calls you can run in a browser.    If I need to refine the answer some more, I'll have to do it later.   But I hope this helps.

[Katie Swanson-Wikelius]

@David Nickell Thank you for the start!  I'm looking into how to use this information to get what I'm looking for since I've never worked with APIs or GET calls.  Any other tips or tricks are definitely appreciated!

[Felix Malinis]

@David Nickell - this is great and thanks very much for sharing! This is the type of topic I wish Atlassian Team had more of. If you haven't thought about giving a presentation at Atlassian Team '26, please consider it. I'm sure it would be packed.

[David Nickell]

A couple of things -- this was the easiest one to use as an example.  I typed my site followed by the Assignable User REST Endpoint into a browser. 

https://splitdimedata.atlassian.net/rest/api/3/user/assignable/multiProjectSearch?projectKeys=LShttps://splitdimedata.atlassian.net/rest/api/3/user/assignable/multiProjectSearch?projectKeys=LS

It pulled back the names I show (in formatted JSON).

What I didn't provide in the sample Endpoint browser were the required parameters.  (I have a more robust version I haven't shared - yet).  To answer your question, I jumped to developer.Atlassian.com and looked up the rules for the endpoint. 

In Closing — here’s the philosophical debate of the day.
(And no, this isn’t a sales pitch… yet.)

I’ve been a developer for decades (too many to count) and a Jira admin for 17 years. That officially makes me a nerd who’s comfortable operating at the REST layer. Don’t be me. 😄

That said, I am working on a series of REST-based solutions that I’ll be releasing next week on a subscription basis. For a small monthly fee, subscribers will get access to tools, downloads, and supporting documentation (like my ERD and sample workflows).

But! There are also thousands of professionally developed, fully vetted, and integrated plugins in the Marketplace — and chances are, a few of them can help you manage your users without writing a single line of code.

So if you're interested in continuing to explore and learn REST yourself, I’ll be happy to help (just reach out next week for access to my tools and docs). But if you’d prefer to focus your time elsewhere, I can also point you toward solid REST-based solutions that just work.

It’s really a balancing act:

• Plugins = install, configure, and get back to your real job

• REST APIs = more control, more learning, and often, lower costs over time

Either way, you’re moving in the right direction just by asking the questions. 👍

[Katie Swanson-Wikelius]

@David Nickell Thank you again for all of that information!  It definitely helps point me in the more correct direction.  My situation is more self-taught and trying to get around having to beg my company for money to purchase said Jira add-ons and plugins.  So, I try to pick up things as I go and as needed for random, niche requests from end users.

One question I do have is setting up the API itself.  Because I've never done it for myself and not sure what options I would need to choose in order to get the results I'm looking for.  I have an option to create one with or without scopes.  Then, if I select the recommended option of "with" scopes, there are Read, Write, and Delete options available.  I would assume in this case, Read would be really the only necessary option.  So, the question is, do I need it with more freedom and use the "without" scopes or just have the Read options?

[Darryl Lee]

@Katie Swanson-Wikelius while I admire your spirit and your company's frugality, I've gotta say that there's one app that I feel is 100% worth the price (or worth a free trial to get what you need):

• (Formerly Bob Swift's) Jira CLI (you can install it with a free trial license)

Then, after installing the client, you can get what you're asking for in one fell swoop:

acli --action runFromProjectList -s https://YOURSITE.atlassian.net --user YOUREMAIL --password YOURAPITOKEN --common "--action getProjectRoleActorList --project \"@project@\" --role @all --outputFormat 2 --quiet" >> grouproles.csv

What's happening is you're running a special "action" runFromProjectList, that can run another action for all the Projects on your site. The action you're running is in the --common section, and that action is getProjectRoleActorList. That action requires the --project parameter, and for that we're using the  special @project@ variable that is provided by runFromProjectList. For --role we want them @all, and --outputFormat 2 means Comma-Separated Values. Finally, --quiet suppresses a little summary message of "15 project role actors found" that you don't need in your CSV.

If it works, it should produce a CSV file named grouproles.csv like so:

"Project","Role","Name","Type","Group","User","User Key"
"BT3","Administrators","jira-administrators","atlassian-group-role-actor","jira-administrators","",""
"Project","Role","Name","Type","Group","User","User Key"
"ON","Administrators","jira-administrators","atlassian-group-role-actor","jira-administrators","",""
"Project","Role","Name","Type","Group","User","User Key"
"RPTCM","Administrators","org-admins","atlassian-group-role-actor","org-admins","",""
"RPTCM","Administrators","jira-administrators","atlassian-group-role-actor","jira-administrators","",""

You should then be able to import this into Excel or Google Sheets. You'll need to remove the duplicate header lines ("Project", "Role", "Name"..) but then you should be able to sort it by Group name so you can see what projects each Group has access to. 

Now, here's a secret about CLI that @David Nickell might be interested in as well: if you add a -v to right after the acli, the output will include the REST commands that it uses to get what you need.

For instance, to get all the project names? I see it making this call:

Response code: 200, message: OK, url: https://MYSITE.atlassian.net/rest/api/latest/project/search?status=live&maxResults=50&startAt=0

It's a really handy shortcut if you do want to start digging into the REST API, as sometimes the documentation and examples are a little sparse.

Anyways, hope this helps you and maybe some others too!

[David Nickell]

@Darryl Lee  is wise :-)...  Back in the day, the BobSwift CLI tools were the go to solution for getting everything done the UI couldn't

So here is my counter solution (sorry I didn't get back sooner). (and I will re-read you comment/question in a second becaue I don't know how much if it applies once I show you this)

If you're cool with Excel... Behold ... Rest Calls from MS Excel

Note - this is one very simple call..  If you get good at it and learn how to string them together, you can come work for me at SplitDime.  (of course, jk... lets see if the masses really like these solutions next week) 

And forgive my if this makes anyone mad, but all the way back to the title of this article... YOU'vE DONE THE WORK.  Yes, you may have to learn REST APIs.  But you won't have to learn Bob Swift this, Tempo That, or Power BI Connector.  Nor pay for it.  And the entire planet is running on APIS.. So here come the integrations.

Welcome to Cloud Computing!

1. Open Excel, go to Data, add a source
2. Put the Rest Endpoint in place and add your authentication  (I'll provide API key instructions separately)
3. You will drop into Power query.
4.  Adjust your results and when done, "close and Load"
5.  Enjoy your results and impress you friends

[David Nickell]

Okay ... I think I have earned the right for a commercial.  I've been working on these solutions for a VERY long time.   Once I began collaborating with ChatGPT (which was able to stay in synch with my scattered brain) it started giving me these odd, unsolicited compliments on my solution.  So I finally asked if ChatGPT thought I was needy or something.  It replied it was really impressed.  So I asked it for a recommendation and here is what it provided, ver batim, with no word smithing by me:

[Susan Waldrip]

Congrats @David Nickell , you've made the AI "Big Time"! Thanks very much for sharing your app and your work, wishing you much success as you move forward with it!

[Katie Swanson-Wikelius]

@Darryl Lee @David Nickell Thank you so much for all the great information!  And, having just got myself knee-deep into the Excel Power Query by accident, I think I'll try that option to see if I can get it to work.  However, I'll also try as many options as possible to learn and see what works best.  :D