Access Jira Service Management Data as OData Feeds in Tableau

The CData API Server, when paired with the ADO.NET Provider for Jira Service Management (or any of 200+ other ADO.NET Providers), provides Jira Service Management data as OData Web services. This article will explain how to use the API Server to provide the underlying connectivity to Jira Service Management data in Tableau's business intelligence tool.

Set Up the API Server

Follow the steps below to begin producing secure Jira Service Management 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 Service Management

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

You can establish a connection to any Jira Service Desk Cloud account or Server instance.

Connecting with a Cloud Account

To connect to a Cloud account, you'll first need to retrieve an APIToken. To generate one, log in to your Atlassian account and navigate to API tokens > Create API token. The generated token will be displayed.

Supply the following to connect to data:

• User: Set this to the username of the authenticating user.
• APIToken: Set this to the API token found previously.

Connecting with a Service Account

To authenticate with a service account, supply the following connection properties:

• User: Set this to the username of the authenticating user.
• Password: Set this to the password of the authenticating user.
• URL: Set this to the URL associated with your JIRA Service Desk endpoint. For example, https://yoursitename.atlassian.net.

Note: Password has been deprecated for connecting to a Cloud Account and is now used only to connect to a Server Instance.

Accessing Custom Fields

By default, the connector only surfaces system fields. To access the custom fields for Issues, set IncludeCustomFields.

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 Service Management entities you want to allow the API Server to access by clicking Settings -> Resources.

Additionally, click Settings -> Server and set the Default Format to XML (Atom) for compatibility with Tableau.

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 Real-Time Jira Service Management Data Visualizations

Follow the steps below to create data visualizations based on the remote Jira Service Management data:

1. In Tableau, select 'Connect to data'. In the 'On a server' section, click OData.

   

2. In the resulting wizard, enter the URL of the OData endpoint for the API Server. Append the name of the table you want to access to the OData entry URL. For example:

   https://your-server/api.rsc/Requests
3. Select the 'Use a Username and Password' option and enter the username and password of a user who has access to the API Server.

4. Tableau uses the table metadata exposed by the API Server to detect dimension and measure columns.

   

5. To view the Jira Service Management data, right-click under the table name in the Data section of the dashboard and select the View Data option. The Jira Service Management data will appear in Tableau.