Adding and Connecting JIRA Instances

Owned by Kevin Pham (Deactivated)
Apr 15, 2020
5 min read

Zephyr allows connecting to multiple Jira instances within your organization. The process to setup and configure Jira include:

  1. First, selecting Jira as the Defect Tracking System (DTS), and configuring all the Jira instances in your organization you'd like Zephyr to connect to.

  2. Then, configuring each project in Zephyr to connect to one of the configured Jira instances.

Please follow the sections below:

Selecting the Defect Tracking System (DTS)

The DTS setup can be accessed as an Administrator under System Setup. Three options are available:

  • No DTS: Disables defect tracking and removes the Defect Tracking icons for all users.

  • Zephyr: Uses Zephyr's own interface and database to track defects. Allows users to file new defects, view and modify existing ones, and create reports without the use of Jira.

  • Jira: Allows connecting to multiple Jira instances for defect tracking.

 

Once a Defect Tracking System is selected the user should log out and log back into the system again for it to become effective.

Pick carefully, as switching to another Defect Tracking System at a later stage is not recommended.

Adding your Jira Instances

After selecting Jira as the DTS (see above), following the steps below to configure all of your Jira instances.

Adding an On-Premise Jira with Zephyr Cloud (Vice-Versa)

In the scenario that you're using a Zephyr cloud instance and you're trying to integrate an on-premise Jira instance (or vice-versa):

  • You'll need to your networking team to set a firewall parameter/rule to allow traffic between your Jira and Zephyr if your Jira instance is behind a firewall.This is done to allow your Jira instance to communicate externally to Zephyr standalone bidirectionally. 

    • Lookup the IP address of the Zephyr cloud instance (You can use an online service for this such as https://www.whatismyip.com/dns-lookup/ or you can use the command line with "nslookup").

    • Verify the IP address is working by adding the /flex/html5 postfix to the URL

      • Example: https://34.235.46.188/flex/html5

    • Use the IP address to set the firewall rule to allow traffic to flow bidirectionally between Jira and Zephyr.

  • Another option for your networking team is to set up a Tomcat that would sit in front of your firewall to communicate bidirectionally with your on-premise Jira instance.

Should your networking team face any challenges with this, please contact and create a support ticket using the following link: https://support.getzephyr.com

Please pay attention to the note below regarding Jira user permissions:

Jira Permissions Note

The user account used to setup Jira must have the following Jira permissions:

  • Browse Project Permissions for All Projects

  • Issue Permissions - Assignable User, Assign Issues, Close Issues, Delete Issues, Edit Issues, Link Issues, Move Issues, Set Issue Security, Transition Issues

  • Comments Permissions

  • Attachment Permissions

  • Jira Web-hook Enabled

    • Issues Related Events - Updated, Deleted

    • Project Version Related Events - Released, Unreleased, Created, Moved, Updated, Deleted

    • Project Related Events - Updated, Deleted

Please ensure with your Jira administrator that these permissions are granted prior to proceeding.

1. Click on the ‘+’ button to add a new Jira instance to Zephyr:

2. Configure the Authentication type for Jira:

If you are trying to connect a Jira Cloud instance, you must use OAuth 1.0 authentication. This is because Jira Cloud does not allow you to authenticate with a username and password in regards to GDPR.

  • A module will be displayed with two options for your Jira instance authentication

    • Basic cookie-based authentication

    • OAuth 1.0 authentication

3. Fill in the fields for adding a JIRA instance.

  • Basic cookie-based authentication

    • Name – A name used to define the instance of Jira.

    • Jira URL – The URL of the Jira instance that you are adding to Zephyr.

    • Default – Check box that allows the user to use this newly added Jira instance to be the default Jira instanced used across Zephyr.

    • Username – The username that is used to log into the Jira instance for the Jira URL.

    • Password – The password that is used to log into the Jira instance for the Jira URL.

  • OAuth 1.0 Authentication

    • Name – A name used to define the instance of Jira.

    • Jira URL – The URL of the Jira instance that you are adding to Zephyr.

    • Default – Check box that allows the user to use this newly added Jira instance to be the default Jira instanced used across Zephyr.

    • Consumer Key Name – Name given for the consumer key for Jira.

    • Consumer Private Key – Unique key that defines your Jira instance to authentication through OAuth.

4. Click on the ‘Confirm’ button to finalize the fields for the Jira instance.

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Editing an Existing Jira Instance

Editing a Jira instance to update the Jira URL does not impact the linked requirements and defects.

1. Click on the button to begin editing the selected Jira instance.

2. Add any edits or changes to the Jira instance can be done by simply changing the text within the fields.

3. Click on the 'Confirm' button to finalize any additional edits/changes to the Jira instance.

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Configuring Zephyr Projects for a specific Jira Instance

You may have multiple Jira instances configured in Zephyr, but you may have only one Jira instance connected to a project at a single time.

Follow the steps below to configure which Jira instance shall be used for a specific Zephyr project:

1. Select the Zephyr project of interest:

2. Scroll down and look for the "Connected JIRA" drop-down list.

  • This drop-down list contains the entire list of JIRA instances that were added in the system from the Defect Tracking page.


3. Click on the drop-down list and select an existing Jira instance that you want to connect to this specific project. 

  • A warning message will be displayed: this warning indicates that if you change the Jira instance to a different one after you've been using the system for a while, the list of linked requirements and defects will disappear. These are note wiped out from the system and will re-appear once the original Jira instance is selected again.

4. Scroll down and then click the "Save" button to finalize connecting a JIRA instance to a project.

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