Multiple versions of Jira in use

[Chaz_]

Hi,

If there are multiple versions of Jira in use, this can create complexity in building Service Now integrations into each Jira instance. Ideally, a company would standardise their use of Jira instances as much as possible.

When this is not possible due to various geographies and ways of working, what recommendations are there for building JIRA integrations to keep the design simple, reusable and scalable and without having to re-create the integration each time? Not sure what features Service Now offers to support this kind of model.

Thanks.

[Ryan Duce · Accepted solution]

I would talk to all your Jira instance owners and understand the common requirements between all of them.

Then, build a ServiceNow scripted REST API endpoint which will be a target for your webhook. Recommendations

• Put it in a scoped app with its own role to secure access to the API and protect unintended updates
• Define a limited set of attributes from the Jira webhook payload that you'll accept and handle, based on the common ground of the instance holders
• Ensure you have adequate error codes and documentation so that webhook failure can be actioned in Jira.

Benefits of this approach

• Data integrity is maintained in ServiceNow
• Instance owners can self-serve using the documentation and error codes you supplied
• Catering only to the common ground encourages Jira instance owners to converge on process and standard if they want to integrate to ServiceNow.
• You own the endpoint, not the instance owners, and can therefore maintain it in line with the rest of the platform.
• One integration endpoint = less maintenance, upgrade and scope creep during implementation.

I would strongly recommend against separate integrations for each instance as this increases time to value and encourages exceptions, complex logic and disparate ways of working.

[dhirennotani]

Hi @Chaz_ ,

I would recommend you to try out a fully decentralized and a dedicated bi-directional integration solution like Exalate.

You can integrate between multiple ServiceNow and Jira (Cloud, DC) instances and it is very scalable.

It provides you an access to it's own Groovy based scripting engine which is very customizable and flexible so you can write your own rules and choose what information needs to be synced across all the connections.

You don't even need to worry about the version upgrades and there are a lot of code templates which you can reuse.

Thanks, Dhiren