Visualize Jira Data in TIBCO Spotfire through OData



Integrate Jira data into dashboards in TIBCO Spotfire.

OData is a major protocol enabling real-time communication among cloud-based, mobile, and other online applications. The CData API Server, when paired with the ADO.NET Provider for Jira, provides Jira data (or data from 200+ other ADO.NET Providers) to OData consumers like TIBCO Spotfire. This article shows how to use the API Server and Spotfire's built-in support for OData to access Jira data in real time.

About Jira Data Integration

CData simplifies access and integration of live Jira data. Our customers leverage CData connectivity to:

  • Gain bi-directional access to their Jira objects like issues, projects, and workflows.
  • Use SQL stored procedures to perform functional actions like changing issues status, creating custom fields, download or uploading an attachment, modifying or retrieving time tracking settings, and more.
  • Authenticate securely using a variety of methods, including username and password, OAuth, personal access token, API token, Crowd or OKTA SSO, LDAP, and more.

Most users leverage CData solutions to integrate Jira data with their database or data warehouse, whether that's using CData Sync directly or relying on CData's compatibility with platforms like SSIS or Azure Data Factory. Others are looking to get analytics and reporting on live Jira data from preferred analytics tools like Tableau and Power BI.

Learn more about how customers are seamlessly connecting to their Jira data to solve business problems from our blog: Drivers in Focus: Collaboration Tools.


Getting Started


Set Up the API Server

Follow the steps below to begin producing secure Jira OData services:

Deploy

The API Server runs on your own server. On Windows, you can deploy using the stand-alone server or IIS. On a Java servlet container, drop in the API Server WAR file. See the help documentation for more information and how-tos.

The API Server is also easy to deploy on Microsoft Azure, Amazon EC2, and Heroku.

Connect to Jira

After you deploy the API Server and the ADO.NET Provider for Jira, provide authentication values and other connection properties needed to connect to Jira by clicking Settings -> Connections and adding a new connection in the API Server administration console.

To connect to JIRA, provide the User and Password. Additionally, provide the Url; for example, https://yoursitename.atlassian.net.

When you configure the connection, you may also want to set the Max Rows connection property. This will limit the number of rows returned, which is especially helpful for improving performance when designing reports and visualizations.

You can then choose the Jira entities you want to allow the API Server access to by clicking Settings -> Resources.

Authorize API Server Users

After determining the OData services you want to produce, authorize users by clicking Settings -> Users. The API Server uses authtoken-based authentication and supports the major authentication schemes. Access can also be restricted based on IP address; by default only connections to the local machine are allowed. You can authenticate as well as encrypt connections with SSL.

Create Data Visualizations on External Jira Data

  1. Open Spotfire and click Add Data Tables -> OData.
  2. In the OData Connection dialog, enter the following information:
    • Service URL: Enter the API Server's OData endpoint. For example: http://localhost:8032/api.rsc
    • Authentication Method: Select Username and Password.
    • Username: Enter the username of an API Server user. You can create API users on the Security tab of the administration console.
    • Password: Enter the authtoken of an API Server user.
  3. Select the tables and columns you want to add to the dashboard. This example uses Issues.
  4. If you want to work with the live data, click the Keep Data Table External option. This option enables your dashboards to reflect changes to the data in real time.

    If you want to load the data into memory and process the data locally, click the Import Data Table option. This option is better for offline use or if a slow network connection is making your dashboard less interactive.

  5. After adding tables, the Recommended Visualizations wizard is displayed. When you select a table, Spotfire uses the column data types to detect number, time, and category columns. This example uses TimeSpent in the Numbers section and Summary in the Categories section.

After adding several visualizations in the Recommended Visualizations wizard, you can make other modifications to the dashboard. For example, you can apply a filter: After clicking the Filter button, the available filters for each query are displayed in the Filters pane.

Ready to get started?

Learn more or sign up for a free trial:

CData API Server