Airtable Sync integration: Jira Data Center

Note

• As of February 15, 2024, Atlassian no longer offers Jira Server product support and recommends upgrading to Jira Data Center or Jira Cloud.

• If you are using Jira 9.0 or earlier, please ensure that the Jira user connecting the Jira Data Center integration has the "Create Issues" permission in the Jira project you are syncing to Airtable. Without this permission, some field data from Jira will not sync.

This article covers how to sync Jira Data Center issues to an Airtable base. This particular sync is for organizations using Jira on-prem. If your organization uses Jira Cloud, then we cover that in a separate support article.

Note

If you are setting up your organization’s first Jira Data Center sync, then please make sure that your organization's IT/Airtable/Jira admin(s) have reviewed our server and firewall requirements and taken the necessary steps before you connect your Jira Data Center account with Airtable. These steps only need to be done once but are required.

Setting up a Jira Data Center sync

1. Navigate to a base where you want to sync data into Airtable.

2. Add a new synced table by clicking the + Add or import button.

3. Scroll down to the bottom of the list and click the XX more sources… option.

4. Browse or search for “Jira” and then click Jira Data Center.

5. Next, select an existing Jira Data Center account, or connect to a new Jira Data Center account. You will see a list of the Jira Data Center instances your Airtable admin has set up. To connect to a Jira Account, select the Jira Data Center instance that you want to use to create the synced table. If you do not see the Data Center that you want to use, then you will need to contact one of your organization's Jira admins and have them follow the steps outlined in this article.

6. After clicking Continue, you will be prompted to authorize Airtable to connect to your Jira account. For more on authentication, jump below.

   Note

   If you encounter the "Could not authorize the account" error, then the connected account may have hit the Jira REST API rate limit.

7. Once you have connected a Jira Data Center, you’ll then be able to choose which issue “Filter” to use for creating Airtable records. For this sync, only starred filters are available to choose from. See Atlassian's documentation if you need help setting up a new filter or adding a filter to your favorites. It’s important to choose a filter with conditions that won’t change. Whenever a filter’s conditions are changed in Jira, records that no longer match are deleted, along with any additions made in Airtable.

   1. For example, if you’ve synced a filter that only has open bugs, and a bug is closed, the Airtable record will be deleted along with any record comments and activity, and other field data that may have been added. If that same bug is reopened, a new Airtable record will be created.

   2. As a result, we recommend choosing a filter that is unlikely to change.

      Note

      If you’ve lost Airtable records due to a changed filter, we may be able to help. Please reach out to our support team to request help.

8. After clicking Next, you’ll be presented with two sync options; you can sync:

   1. All fields from the source view (Jira filter), including any fields added by Jira in the future.

   2. Specific fields from the source view (Jira filter) - If you choose to sync specific fields you’ll be shown a menu where you can toggle each individual field that you want to sync from Jira. You can find more information about Jira fields below.

9. Before creating your synced table, there are Settings options that will allow you to choose how often you want to sync, and how to handle records that are deleted or hidden from the source (Jira). These options are:

   • The frequency of syncing. Right now, the options are manual syncing and automatic syncing which happens around every 5 minutes.

   • Whether or not deleted records (issues in the selected Jira filter) should be removed from the Airtable table. By default, deleted events will be removed.

10. Once you’ve selected your desired settings, click the Create table button. The sync operation will retrieve all issues in the selected Jira filter and generate Airtable records.

Understanding supported Jira fields

Security and OAuth scopes

Authentication

The Jira Data Center integration on Airtable uses OAuth to authenticate requests from individual users in your Jira Date Center instance. The OAuth consent screen will look like this:

Airtable will only have access to the issues and filters that the user who connected the Jira Sync has access to. If the user who connected a Jira Sync has their Jira or Airtable account deactivated, the sync will stop working.

Note

There is no separate plugin or app that needs to be installed on the user’s Jira instance. The data that we retrieve from Jira’s API is transmitted securely via HTTPS and will not be used for any purpose other than the synced table.

Jira Data Center Scopes

Airtable integrates with Jira Data Center (On-Prem) through OAuth 1.0a. You do not need to provide scopes and the integration’s permissions will match the individual’s permissions granted in Jira Data Center. For more information, check out Jira’s documentation here.

The tokens are transmitted between Airtable and Jira securely via HTTPS. On Airtable’s side, the tokens are stored in databases that are encrypted at rest.

FAQs