A PostgreSQL Interface for Jira Service Desk Data

There are a vast number of PostgreSQL clients available on the Internet. From standard Drivers to BI and Analytics tools, PostgreSQL is a popular interface for data access. Using our JDBC Drivers, you can now create PostgreSQL entry-points that you can connect to from any standard client.

To access Jira Service Desk data as a PostgreSQL database, use the CData JDBC Driver for Jira Service Desk and a JDBC foreign data wrapper (FDW). In this article, we compile the FDW, install it, and query Jira Service Desk data from PostgreSQL Server.

Connect to Jira Service Desk Data as a JDBC Data Source

To connect to Jira Service Desk as a JDBC data source, you will need the following:

• Driver JAR path: The JAR is located in the lib subfolder of the installation directory.

• Driver class: cdata.jdbc.jiraservicedesk.JiraServiceDeskDriver

• JDBC URL: The URL must start with "jdbc:jiraservicedesk:" and can include any of the connection properties in name-value pairs separated with semicolons.

  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, you will need to 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.

  Built-in Connection String Designer

  For assistance in constructing the JDBC URL, use the connection string designer built into the Jira Service Desk JDBC Driver. Either double-click the JAR file or execute the jar file from the command-line.

  java -jar cdata.jdbc.jiraservicedesk.jar

  Fill in the connection properties and copy the connection string to the clipboard.

  A typical JDBC URL is below:

  jdbc:jiraservicedesk:ApiKey=myApiKey;User=MyUser;InitiateOAuth=GETANDREFRESH

Build the JDBC Foreign Data Wrapper

The Foreign Data Wrapper can be installed as an extension to PostgreSQL, without recompiling PostgreSQL. The jdbc2_fdw extension is used as an example (downloadable here).

1. Add a symlink from the shared object for your version of the JRE to /usr/lib/libjvm.so. For example: ln -s /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk/jre/lib/amd64/server/libjvm.so /usr/lib/libjvm.so
2. Start the build: make install USE_PGXS=1

Query Jira Service Desk Data as a PostgreSQL Database

After you have installed the extension, follow the steps below to start executing queries to Jira Service Desk data:

1. Log into your database.
2. Load the extension for the database: CREATE EXTENSION jdbc2_fdw;
3. Create a server object for Jira Service Desk: CREATE SERVER JiraServiceDesk FOREIGN DATA WRAPPER jdbc2_fdw OPTIONS ( drivername 'cdata.jdbc.jiraservicedesk.JiraServiceDeskDriver', url 'jdbc:jiraservicedesk:ApiKey=myApiKey;User=MyUser;InitiateOAuth=GETANDREFRESH', querytimeout '15', jarfile '/home/MyUser/CData/CData\ JDBC\ Driver\ for\ Salesforce MyDriverEdition/lib/cdata.jdbc.jiraservicedesk.jar');
4. Create a user mapping for the username and password of a user known to the MySQL daemon. CREATE USER MAPPING for postgres SERVER JiraServiceDesk OPTIONS ( username 'admin', password 'test');
5. Create a foreign table in your local database: postgres=# CREATE FOREIGN TABLE requests ( requests_id text, requests_RequestId text, requests_ReporterName numeric) SERVER JiraServiceDesk OPTIONS ( table_name 'requests');