ServiceNow Jira integration guide

In this ServiceNow Jira integration guide, we will go over why you need to integrate Jira with ServiceNow. We will explore what are the characteristics of the best integration tool to connect ServiceNow with Jira and how to configure it in practice.?

If you already have a use case and you are ready to start your ServiceNow Jira integration, book a free demo and see how easily it can be done with ZigiOps. You can start your PoC immediately after the demo.

Let’s dive in.?

ServiceNow Jira integration benefits:?

• Eliminate bottlenecks and data discrepancies?
• ?Аutomate important tasks and operations to eliminate manual work?
• Improve the overall visibility, traceability and organization of internal IT tasks, operations and customer issues?
• Improve the collaboration and communication between the service desk and DevOps departments?
• Freedom of choice to work with the preferred tools?

ServiceNow Jira Integration Cases?

The service desk team receives a new incident in their ServiceNow queue. After investigating the issue, they find out that the problem is a result of a software bug and should be handled by the development team.?

A team member needs to log a Jira issue or jira bug manually, and log-in all necessary details, attachments and other files. After the DevOps team receives the ticket and fixes the issue, they need to log in to ServiceNow and update/close the ticket.?

This exercise is not only time-consuming, but almost every time it leads to someone forgetting to log extra details, or to update the ticket status.?

Integration tools can simplify this process by creating a secure, bi–directional ServiceNow Jira integration. An integration tool will automatically create and update tickets with all the necessary information, attachments, comments, and more.?

We will be using the ZigiOps integration platform for the purpose of showcasing how to establish a seamless Jira to ServiceNow integration.?

We will go through a step-by-step process of a sample ServiceNow Jira integration.?You can check out our Jira ServiceNow video tutorial for further clarification and details:

Initial Setup of the ServiceNow Jira Integration?

ZigiOps is a standalone integration platform, which has both an on-premise and cloud version. See the installation process here. The tool doesn’t store any of the transferred data from the ServiceNow Jira integration. It can be either installed on your premises, VM or you can leverage the AWS version of the platform.?

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ServiceNow Connection?

Once you have installed or connected to ZigiOps, you can log in with your username and password.??

Now it is time to choose the systems you want to integrate. ZigiOps uses APIs to connect with ServiceNow and Jira. In our case we first choose the ServiceNow one and fill in three fields:??

• ServiceNow system URL??
• Username??
• Password??

The permissions you will need for ServiceNow depend on the integration use case. In this case, we will look at a ServiceNow Jira integration for incidents to tasks.?

The permissions you need on the ServiceNow side are:?

• incident (READ, WRITE, CREATE)?
• sys_db_object (READ)?
• sys_dictionary (READ)?
• sys_journal_field (READ)?
• sys_glide_object (READ)?

After filling these, ZigiOps automatically checks the connection with ServiceNow and lets you know it’s successful. Meanwhile, in the background, the integration platform collects all metadata from ServiceNow and loads all available fields, in order to make the Jira ServiceNow integration easy to create and configure.?

??Connecting Jira?

Once you have added ServiceNow, its time to add the destination system – Jira (system 2).?

The login process is the same and you will need:?

• Instance URL?
• User?
• Password?

Alternatively, you can connect with a proxy. The permissions you need for Jira are:?

• Add Comments?
• Assign issues?
• Browse Projects?
• Create Attachments?
• Create Issues?
• Edit Issues?
• Resolve Issues?
• Transition issues?

If you are using Jira cloud, you also need to fill in the API token.?

?ServiceNow and Jira Integration Templates?

After you have successfully connected your instances to ZigiOps, it’s time to start configuring the ServiceNow Jira integration.?

ZigiOps comes with ready-to-use templates with default mappings for the most common integration use cases. All templates are fully customizable and support custom fields and can fit into any use case.?

We also have an option for creating an integration from scratch.?

ServiceNow Jira Integration Configuration?

Once you load the ServiceNow Jira integration template for incidents to tasks you need to define a couple of things from the drop-down menus:?

• Place ServiceNow as a source system?
• Put Jira as a destination system?
• Choose the entity type from ServiceNow – in this case, incident?
• Select the entity type from Jira – task?

After that, you can define the triggers in the correlation section. This means that whenever there is new ticket creation, based on a number of rules, ZigiOps will pull it and load all the information in ServiceNow. ZigiOps supports a variety of things including:?

• Reporter?
• Priority?
• Comments?
• Attachments?
• Description?
• Issue Links and more?

Once we are done with this, we can click “Save” and go to the advanced data mapping of the ServiceNow Jira integration.

ServiceNow Jira Integration Mapping?

Once we enter into the data mapping section we can define the type of trigger we would like to use. For this integration, we will be using “polling” which means ZigiOps will check for new incidents in ServiceNow on a predefined interval. You can set the interval for minutes, hours, or seconds.?

After that, we can define the trigger conditions, meaning when this happens in ServiceNow with these corresponding field names – transfer them to Jira.?

In the mapping options, we can define which fields get synchronized. In this case, we have:?

• summary?
• description?
• priority?
• attachments?

?Update Jira Task?

The next step of the ServiceNow integration with Jira is to define when should ZigiOps check for updates in ServiceNow and transfer them to Jira.?

You can again define the polling interval for hours, minutes, or seconds.?

ZigiOps will check ServiceNow for changes every 60 seconds, transform the updates from the incidents, and transfer them to Jira, based on the mappings we have defined.?

ZigiOps will find the corresponding mapping field in Jira and update it with an attachment, comment, or anything we have defined.?

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Update ServiceNow Incident?

After that, we can define the updates on the ServiceNow incidents, based on the actions your DevOps team has taken and placed in the Jira task.?

• ZigiOps will poll Jira for changes on the task/s every 60 seconds, or per the interval you select.?
• The integration platform will transform the Jira task updates to the ServiceNow incidents, based on the mapping?
• ZigiOps will find the corresponding ServiceNow incident and update or close it, if the DevOps team have finalized it.?

Once we are done with that we can save the and enable the integration.???

ZigiOps for Your ServiceNow Jira Integration?

There are many tools on the market that can integrate ServiceNow with Jira. The question here is how stable they are. What amount of data can they transfer? What are the options for customizations? How about the support? And many other questions.?

So why ZigiOps when considering a Jira to ServiceNow integration??

• No-code integrations. Easy to create, maintain and change your ServiceNow Jira integration.?
• Customizable templates. To cover the most popular ServiceNow Jira integration cases and give you the opportunity to sync whatever you want.?
• Unlimited users and workflows. Sync as many ServiceNow instances as Jira ones and transfer as much data as you need without limitations.?
• Excellent customer support. Whenever you need help with your Jira ServiceNow integration – our support team is available to assist and resolve your issues within hours.?

Final Thoughts on the ServiceNow to Jira Integration??

Team collaboration and work effectiveness are two of the main pieces of your operational efficiency puzzle. Nowadays, when everyone on the market is going all-in, a crucial part of success is developing new product features fast and keeping customers and employees happy.

A ServiceNow Jira integration can enable this and help you automate daily tasks and handle issues much faster.??

Choosing the right integration tool will not only heavily offload your employees from burdensome tasks, but also speed up the entire new features development flow with smart automation.??

You can check out the ZigiOps' Jira documentation to see further details on this integration.