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Analyze Jira Data in R via ODBC
Create data visualizations and use high-performance statistical functions to analyze Jira data in Microsoft R Open.
Access Jira data with pure R script and standard SQL. You can use the CData ODBC Driver for Jira and the RODBC package to work with remote Jira data in R. By using the CData Driver, you are leveraging a driver written for industry-proven standards to access your data in the popular, open-source R language. This article shows how to use the driver to execute SQL queries to Jira data and visualize Jira data in R.
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
Install R
You can complement the driver's performance gains from multi-threading and managed code by running the multithreaded Microsoft R Open or by running R linked with the BLAS/LAPACK libraries. This article uses Microsoft R Open (MRO).
Connect to Jira as an ODBC Data Source
Information for connecting to Jira follows, along with different instructions for configuring a DSN in Windows and Linux environments.
To connect to JIRA, provide the User and Password. Additionally, provide the Url; for example, https://yoursitename.atlassian.net.
When you configure the DSN, 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.
Windows
If you have not already, first specify connection properties in an ODBC DSN (data source name). This is the last step of the driver installation. You can use the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure ODBC DSNs.
Linux
If you are installing the CData ODBC Driver for Jira in a Linux environment, the driver installation predefines a system DSN. You can modify the DSN by editing the system data sources file (/etc/odbc.ini) and defining the required connection properties.
/etc/odbc.ini
[CData JIRA Source]
Driver = CData ODBC Driver for Jira
Description = My Description
User = admin
Password = 123abc
Url = https://yoursitename.atlassian.net
For specific information on using these configuration files, please refer to the help documentation (installed and found online).
Load the RODBC Package
To use the driver, download the RODBC package. In RStudio, click Tools -> Install Packages and enter RODBC in the Packages box.
After installing the RODBC package, the following line loads the package:
library(RODBC)
Note: This article uses RODBC version 1.3-12. Using Microsoft R Open, you can test with the same version, using the checkpoint capabilities of Microsoft's MRAN repository. The checkpoint command enables you to install packages from a snapshot of the CRAN repository, hosted on the MRAN repository. The snapshot taken Jan. 1, 2016 contains version 1.3-12.
library(checkpoint)
checkpoint("2016-01-01")
Connect to Jira Data as an ODBC Data Source
You can connect to a DSN in R with the following line:
conn <- odbcConnect("CData JIRA Source")
Schema Discovery
The driver models Jira APIs as relational tables, views, and stored procedures. Use the following line to retrieve the list of tables:
sqlTables(conn)
Execute SQL Queries
Use the sqlQuery function to execute any SQL query supported by the Jira API.
issues <- sqlQuery(conn, "SELECT Projects.LeadName, Issues.Summary FROM Projects, Issues WHERE Projects.Id=Issues.ProjectId", believeNRows=FALSE, rows_at_time=1)
You can view the results in a data viewer window with the following command:
View(issues)
Plot Jira Data
You can now analyze Jira data with any of the data visualization packages available in the CRAN repository. You can create simple bar plots with the built-in bar plot function:
par(las=2,ps=10,mar=c(5,15,4,2))
barplot(issues$TimeSpent, main="Jira Issues", names.arg = issues$Summary, horiz=TRUE)
Ready to get started?
Download a free trial of the Jira ODBC Driver to get started:
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Jira ODBC Driver
The Jira ODBC Driver is a powerful tool that allows you to connect with live Jira project management data, directly from any applications that support ODBC connectivity.
Access Jira like you would a database - query Projects, Groups, Workflows, etc. through a standard ODBC Driver interface.
