Let's Automate JIRA with Blue Prism!
Created by Atlassian, JIRA has become a leading solution for agile project management, task tracking, and software development. Originally designed as a tool for logging bugs, it has evolved into a versatile platform that supports diverse business functions. Beyond software teams, organizations now use JIRA as a unified system for workflow automation, progress monitoring, regulatory adherence, and cross-departmental collaboration. Its adaptability, customization options, and seamless integration with other tools have established it as a vital component in modern digital workflows.
- Let's Automate JIRA with Blue Prism!
- Some Industry Use Cases of JIRA
- Advantages of Using JIRA
- How Blue Prism Can Be Used to Automate JIRA
- Getting Started with JIRA API Integration in Blue Prism
- Ready-to-Deploy JIRA API Assets from Blue Prism DX
- Get started with the Jira VBO from the SS&C Blue Prism Digital Exchange (DX):
Some Industry Use Cases of JIRA
JIRA’s usage has expanded far beyond traditional software teams. Its adaptability allows it to serve as a workflow engine in a wide variety of business functions:
- Software Development
Teams rely on JIRA for sprint planning, backlog management, bug reporting, code deployment tracking, and release scheduling. It integrates well with CI/CD pipelines and DevOps tools like Jenkins and Bitbucket. - IT Helpdesk & Service Management
JIRA Service Management is used for managing IT support requests, service-level agreement (SLA) monitoring, incident and problem management, and IT asset tracking. Automating ticket routing and escalation paths streamlines support efficiency. - HR & Recruitment
Human Resource departments use JIRA to manage onboarding checklists, track recruitment stages for each candidate, coordinate interview feedback, and streamline documentation processes, ensuring compliance and timeliness. - Operations
Operations teams use JIRA to track the status of internal projects, document approval workflows, handle escalations, and manage vendor coordination. It provides real-time visibility and accountability across teams. - Marketing
Marketing departments leverage JIRA to coordinate campaign planning, content production, event management, and social media workflows. Visual boards and due-date tracking help ensure on-time delivery and content consistency.
Advantages of Using JIRA
- Advanced Reporting
Get detailed project insights through burndown charts, cumulative flow diagrams, velocity metrics, and custom dashboards that help measure team performance, predict risks, and plan accurately. - Role-Based Access Control
Fine-grained permission settings allow organizations to ensure users only access relevant projects, issues, and fields, enabling secure collaboration across departments or vendors. - Robust APIs & Integrations
JIRA’s extensive REST API enables seamless integration with tools like Confluence, Slack, Git, Jenkins, Salesforce, and RPA platforms like Blue Prism, allowing automation at scale. - Improved Time Management
Time-tracking fields, work logs, and due-date monitoring help teams manage their productivity and meet deadlines consistently, improving project delivery timelines. - Cloud and On-Premises Options
Enterprises can choose between JIRA Cloud (managed by Atlassian) or JIRA Server/Data Centre (self-hosted), depending on their compliance, scalability, and data residency requirements.
How Blue Prism Can Be Used to Automate JIRA
- Auto-Create JIRA Tickets
Blue Prism can monitor systems, mailboxes, or logs to identify issues and automatically create corresponding JIRA tickets. This is especially useful for exception handling, IT alerts, and system monitoring. - Update Ticket Status
Based on the outcome of an automated process (e.g., a system fix or a batch job run), Blue Prism can transition the status of an issue in JIRA, maintaining real-time accuracy of project states. - Fetch JIRA Data
Bots can extract relevant data like issue summaries, assignees, due dates, or comment threads to generate audit reports, send email summaries, or feed data into BI tools. - Bulk Updates
Instead of manual edits, Blue Prism can update fields such as priority, status, or labels across hundreds or thousands of issues—saving countless hours of manual effort during migrations, reassignments, or cleanups. - Close Tickets
After validating that an automation has resolved an issue successfully (e.g., after a retry of a failed transaction), Blue Prism can close the ticket and update stakeholders automatically. - Comment on Tickets
Blue Prism can insert detailed execution logs, error screenshots, or resolution steps directly into JIRA comments, improving traceability and cross-functional transparency.
Getting Started with JIRA API Integration in Blue Prism
After exploring the industry use cases, benefits of using JIRA, and how Blue Prism can automate key JIRA operations, it's important to know that you don’t always have to start from scratch. Blue Prism’s Digital Exchange (DX) offers ready-to-use assets that make JIRA integration even simpler.
Ready-to-Deploy JIRA API Assets from Blue Prism DX
Blue Prism Digital Exchange hosts pre-built solutions for interacting with JIRA via REST APIs. One such solution provides all the essential JIRA APIs. The list of actions available in this package is:
- Create Issue
Used to create a new JIRA issue such as a task, bug, or story. If the JIRA instance allows subtask creation, this action also supports creating subtasks under existing issues. - Create Issues
Facilitates bulk creation of multiple issues in one go, which is particularly helpful during project setup, migrations, or importing tasks from other systems. - Assign Issue
This action assigns a JIRA issue to a specific user. It is commonly used in automation workflows to delegate tasks automatically based on predefined rules or role-based ownership. - Delete Issue
Deletes an existing issue from JIRA permanently. This action should be used with caution, especially in production environments, as deletion is irreversible. - Do Transition
Performs a workflow transition on an issue (e.g., from “To Do” to “In Progress”) and can also update issue fields during the transition if the screen is configured accordingly in JIRA. - Edit Issue
Allows updating of existing issue fields such as priority, summary, description, or custom fields. Useful for dynamic updates based on bot execution results. - Get Change Logs
Retrieves the complete history of changes made to a JIRA issue, including field updates, status changes, and comments. Ideal for audit logging and traceability. - Get Create Issue Data
Returns metadata required to create an issue, including available projects, issue types, and create screen fields. This is helpful for dynamic form population or validations before issue creation. - Get Edit Issue Data
Provides the list of editable fields visible to the user for a given issue. Useful for validating which fields can be updated dynamically. - Get Issue
Fetches complete details of a JIRA issue including summary, status, assignee, comments, custom fields, etc. Often used in reporting, dashboard updates, or process logic decisions. - Get Transitions
Lists all possible transitions for a given issue based on its current status and user permissions. Helps in validating available workflow actions before attempting transitions. - Notify
Creates an email notification related to an issue and adds it to JIRA’s mail queue. It allows sending custom notifications triggered by automation events.
Get started with the Jira VBO from the SS&C Blue Prism Digital Exchange (DX):
https://digitalexchange.blueprism.com/cardDetails?id=124036
This package offers a plug-and-play setup to start working with JIRA APIs by simply configuring a few steps inside Blue Prism. It's an excellent starting point for automating ticket operations without writing raw HTTP logic manually.
Authentication & Permissions
The JIRA REST API follows the same permission model as the web interface.
- If you're not logged in, you're treated as an anonymous user.
- If you’re logged in but lack access rights, you still won’t be able to view or perform actions via the API.
Therefore, make sure the API user has the necessary project permissions (create/edit/assign issues, etc.)
Generate Atlassian API Token
To authenticate with the API:
- Use your Atlassian email and an API token instead of a password.
- If you don’t have a token yet, follow this guide: Manage API Tokens for Atlassian Account
Build the Authorization Header for API Calls
The REST API uses Basic Authentication with a BASE64 encoded string in this format:
useremail:api_token
This string must be encoded in BASE64 and passed in the HTTP header as:
Authorization: Basic <encoded_value>
To generate this encoded string inside Blue Prism:
- Use the Base64Encoder Utility available on Digital Exchange:
Base64Encoder – Blue Prism DX - Alternatively, you can manually generate the string using online tools or refer to Atlassian documentation:
Basic Auth for JIRA REST APIs
The authentication steps have been shown above. By following these steps, you can easily integrate and automate JIRA processes directly from Blue Prism. This setup not only saves development time but also enables faster issue resolution, seamless reporting, and end-to-end workflow automation across the organization.
