Can I link my Jira Service Desk (JSD) to our Customer's JSD?

[Anish Rajukumar]

Hi,

First, I will try and explain what I am trying to achieve:

• We have a Jira Service Desk (JSD) where we log issues on behalf of our customers. We have one new customer who have their own JSD which they use to log their issues - but now they want us to look into those issues and try and resolve them. 
• In order for us to achieve that, we would like to know IF there is a way by which we can integrate/link our JSD and our customer's JSD, so that
  • When a new ticket is created in our customer's JSD, it creates a new ticket on our JSD too automatically
  • Any updates on customer's JSD, updates our JSD as well automatically
  • Any updates made on our JSD against a linked issue, updates our Customer's JSD ticket too automatically

I am not sure how much of the above is achievable as standard and/or with extensions.

I would be very grateful if someone can give us some advice on how this can be achieved.

If you need more info please let me know. Thanks in advance!

Regards,

Anish

[Jack Brickey · Accepted solution]

Hi @Anish Rajukumar ,

OOTB there isn't a "clean" way of doing this. You might be able to achieve some basic integration using emails and Automation. You could also use the APIs but I doubt your customer would be up for that. Finally, I have looked into exalate-jira-issue-sync addon and it seems nice however it requires installation on both ends, so again the customer may not buy into this.

[Anish Rajukumar]

Thank you, Jack. 

I understand I can set up some automation etc to make sure when the customer raises a ticket, it sends out an email to my JSD email, which automatically then creates a ticket. But what I am not sure of is, once the tickets are created on both ends, does any update on either end (on the already created ticket), update the other end (our JSD or Customer's JSD) automatically via this email automation?

Would like to know if you think that would work or not?

[Jack Brickey]

You could create automation on both sides to update the other side but as Dirk mentions this will be messy. you would trigger on various update and send an email to the other JSM email address (properly forming the subject is key here, i.e issuekey: summary)

[Anish Rajukumar]

Thanks, Jack. Really useful response. I will look at the suggestions made by you and Dirk to take this forward. :)

[Dirk Ronsmans · Accepted solution]

@Anish Rajukumar ,

Out of the box it's gonna be tricky I think. You could try it with Automation rules but those will get messy fast.

i would suggest looking at an integration platform such as Autoblocks or Exalate.

[Anish Rajukumar]

Thank you, Dirk. Grateful for your quick reply.

I had a feeling too that automations might get messy. 

I understand I can set up some automation etc to make sure when the customer raises a ticket, it sends out an email to my JSD email, which automatically then creates a ticket. But what I am not sure of is, once the tickets are created on both ends, does any update on either end (on the already created ticket), update the other end (our JSD or Customer's JSD) automatically via this email automation?

Not sure if you have done anything similar in past, but would like to know if the above works or not?

[Dirk Ronsmans]

In theory that could work with just comment updates.

Once a ticket is update on either side you could send out a customer reply which gets picked up and added as a comment. I wouldn't recommend this tho cause you'll have no control on how you parse/handle the incoming email content.

The email functionality out of the box imho is not set up to work as a full integration. 

To have a fully working integration:

• statuses
• comments
• other fields..

Imho there is almost no solution besides having an Integration API and then I'm afraid you'll have to look towards the apps both @Jack Brickey and me mentioned.

Exalate indeed needs to be installed on both sides, Autoblocks is a separate product which acts as an intermediate which pulls/pushes both tools.

In the long run the investment you make on one of those apps (or another) will quickly be won back compared to having to build and maintain a full integration using emails which has a lot less control.

[Anish Rajukumar]

Thanks, Dirk. I appreciate your quick and useful response. I have enough info now to look at how best to get this solution done. :)

[Syed Majid Hassan -Exalate- · Accepted solution]

Hi @Anish Rajukumar

The use case you have described is achievable via Exalate. In fact, you can enhance the use case to include as many custom fields or workflows as you want. With a bi-directional synchronization setup between the two Jira instances, the workflow would be as follows:

• Issue is created in your client's JSD and all the validations etc. are performed there.
• Issue is then sent over to your JSD via some automation trigger (status perhaps).
• Your team works on the issue in your own JSD instance and updates are synced back to client JSD (if you want them to). This is where Exalate comes into its own by allowing you to choose as much (or as little) data to share back with the client. 

This way you will maintain full autonomy while saving yourself from the manual duplication efforts. I work as a Pre-Sales Engineer with Exalate and would happily recommend our tool to add value to your business processes by introducing this automated integration to your workflow.

Please review this quick video to get an idea of how this would fit into your use case. If you like what you see and would like to know more, please feel free to book a demo. You can also explore how the solution works here.  

Happy syncing!

Thanks

Syed

[Anish Rajukumar]

Thanks, Syed.

[Matthias Gaiser _K15t_ · Accepted solution]

Hi @Anish Rajukumar

what you describe is a standard use case for an issue sync app like the mentioned app Exalate, Backbone or others. I'm working for the team behind Backbone Issue Sync.

In these apps, you can configure/script which issue types, fields, status, comments, etc. you want to keep in sync (and also what not). E.g. in a JSM setup, you might only want to synchronize the public comments but not the private ones.

Some time ago, I've written this blog post on our website which also illustrates your use case.

For connecting a Jira Server/DC with another Jira instance (Server, Cloud or Data Center), we also offer a remote license option so that you only need to install Backbone in one instance and can still sync with the other instance. This blog also illustrates that use case. However, we don't have that yet for Cloud to Cloud synchronizations. Feel free to vote for that feature request in our public Jira project.

All the best for your search. If you want to get a demo about Backbone, let us know via help@k15t.com and we'd be happy to help.

Cheers,
Matthias.

[Anish Rajukumar]

Thank you, Matthias. Appreciate your detailed response. I will look into this.