Build Jira Service Desk-Connected Dashboards in Redash

Redash lets you connect and query your data sources, build dashboards to visualize data and share them with your company. When paired with CData Connect Server, you get instant, cloud-to-cloud access to Jira Service Desk data for visualizations, dashboards, and more. This article shows how to create a virtual database for Jira Service Desk and build visualizations from Jira Service Desk data in Redash.

CData Connect Server provides a pure SQL Server interface for Jira Service Desk, allowing you to easily build reports from live Jira Service Desk data in Redash — without replicating the data to a natively supported database. As you build visualizations, Redash generates SQL queries to gather data. Using optimized data processing out of the box, CData Connect Server pushes all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc) directly to Jira Service Desk, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return the requested Jira Service Desk data.

Create a Virtual SQL Server Database for Jira Service Desk Data

CData Connect Server uses a straightforward, point-and-click interface to connect to data sources and generate APIs.

1. Login to Connect Server and click Connections.
2. Select "Jira Service Desk" from Available Data Sources.
3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Jira Service Desk.

   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.

4. Click Save Changes
5. Click Privileges -> Add and add the new user (or an existing user) with the appropriate permissions.

With the virtual database created, you are ready to connect to Jira Service Desk data from Redash.

Visualize Jira Service Desk Data in Redash

The steps below outline creating a new data source in Redash based on the virtual Jira Service Desk database in Connect Server and building a simple visualization from the data.

Create a New Data Source

1. Log into Redash, click on your profile and click "Data Sources"
2. Click the " New Data Source" button
3. Select "Microsoft SQL Server" as the Data Source Type
4. On the configuration tab, set the following properties:
   • Name: Name the data source (e.g. Jira Service Desk (CData Connect))
   • Host: The full URL to your CData Connect instance (e.g. https://connect_server_url)
   • Port: The port of the CData Connect SQL Server endpoint (e.g. 1433)
   • User: A CData Connect user
   • Password: The password for the above user
   • Database name: The name of the virtual database for Jira Service Desk (e.g. JiraServiceDesk1)
   • Click the checkbox to Use SSQL
5. Click Create
6. Click the "Test Connection" button to ensure you have configured the connection properly

With the new Data Source created, we are ready to visualize our Jira Service Desk data.

Create a Jira Service Desk Data Visualization

1. Click Create -> New Query
2. Select the newly created Data Source (you can explore the data structure in the New Query wizard)
3. Write a SQL statement to retrieve the data, for example:
   SELECT RequestId, ReporterName FROM Requests WHERE CurrentStatus = 'Open'
4. Click the "Execute" button to load Jira Service Desk data into Redash via CData Connect
5. Use the Visualization Editor to create and analyze graphs from Jira Service Desk data
6. You can schedule the query to refresh and update the visualization periodically

SQL Access to Jira Service Desk Data from Cloud Applications

At this point, you have a direct, cloud-to-cloud connection to Jira Service Desk data from Redash. You can create new visualizations, build dashboards, and more. For more information on gaining SQL access to data from more than 100 SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources from cloud applications like Redash, refer to our Connect Server page.