How to connect Jira and Power BI using Power BI Jira Connector

Gain data-driven, actionable insights to optimize performance

Microsoft Power BI is a powerful data visualization platform. It unifies data from multiple sources so users can create interactive dashboards and reports for actionable insights.

If your organization depends on Atlassian’s Jira (a mission-critical application), it’s important to bring Jira data into Power BI so you can base decisions on the most comprehensive and precise data available.

Power BI Jira Connector from Appfire—the number one Atlassian Marketplace vendor for connector apps—empowers organizations to quickly, securely, and reliably connect Jira and Power BI to build sophisticated, up-to-date, custom dashboards and reports.

Combine and visualize data from different Jira instances (on-prem and cloud), Jira projects, and other data sources in Power BI for insights that will help you tackle Jira related KPIs and sprint metrics.

See how quickly issues are being resolved, how bugs get handled, how assignees are performing—across all of your projects, teams, products, or divisions. Get a truly holistic view of how work gets done within your organization.

Let’s dive in.

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Why bring Jira data into Power BI

Before we discuss how to bring Jira data into Power BI, let’s consider why you’d want to.

To take advantage of Power BI’s capabilities to create reports and dashboards, you need to connect multiple data sources. Jira data offers a wealth of knowledge around how teams get work done, and provides insight into productivity, redundancies, KPIs, and more.

Combining Jira data with the reporting capabilities of Power BI, you can visualize outputs, projects, and goals in a whole new way.

Project and team managers, data analysts, engineering leads, support managers and DevOps leads can create reports in Power BI based on Jira data to identify areas of improvement. Managers can view performance over time across teams and divisions, and compare results.

And you can provide access to data and dashboards in one place, rather than sending team members to multiple platforms to gather information. This is key for stakeholders who aren’t familiar with Jira or don’t have access to all the necessary reports or instances.

“We have 30+ projects and with Jira creating different fields for each project, we needed a way to consolidate them all in a simple and quick way. The Power BI Jira Connector helped us streamline our process significantly.”

Helius Guimaraes

Below are some high-level examples of what teams can do with Jira data in Power BI:

For Agile software development teams

• Spot resource constraints at a glance
• Assess KPIs like estimated time, actual time, and time remaining
• Evaluate number of issues per assignee and number of bugs per project
• View sprint and performance metrics for different products
• and more

For IT Service Management teams

• Analyze SLA tracking, escalation processes, and stats across units
• Evaluate service ticket requests and performance categories
• Easily report on time to resolution
• Enable team members to work more independently and efficiently
• Implement financial tracking and reporting
• and more

For Project Managers

• Compare performance across teams and identify areas for improvement
• Keep resource utilization data and project information at your fingertips
• Track Portfolio, Program, and Project data for easy status updates
• Combine data from different projects and sub-projects to get a holistic view of results
• Closely monitor project status and KPIs and act quickly to address problems or seize opportunities
• Prioritize projects and keep them on track
• and more

And these are just the some use cases. Others include sprint tracking and tracking data across projects. You can also visualize Jira data alongside data from other sources to build custom reports for expanded comparison and data analysis.

Learn how to power up your organization’s decisions with Jira data and Power BI. The possibilities are truly endless.

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Build vs buy: why get a Power BI Jira connector

In the past, you could use a free Jira content pack provided in Power BI to export data from Jira into Power BI. But this solution had limitations, and often led to unpredictable results. The lack of support for limited fields and options (and lack of support behind the firewall) made the Jira content pack less than ideal.

Now what? Are you supposed to build your own connector?

For data residing in a Jira Server and Data Center instance

If you have a deep understanding of database structure and self-hosting options, such as Jira Server and Data Center, you can connect your Jira database directly to Power BI.

Unfortunately, the Jira database structure is not documented by Atlassian and it changes over time. This makes it difficult to build and even harder to maintain, because it requires a re-write or an update every time the database changes (which happens without notice).

And if you need get data from other Jira apps (those that are already supported by the Power BI Jira Connector), you would need to understand their database structure as well. It’s complex to set up, and there is virtually no support and documentation.

This is not a small undertaking: it’s very time consuming and costly, often with unreliable results.

For data residing in a Jira Cloud instance

The situation is even worse for Jira Cloud, because there is no easy way to export data into Power BI. Many have tried, most have failed at bringing Jira data into Power BI using Jira content pack or writing their own custom integrations.

Both of these options require Jira API knowledge and substantial development and database skills, plus time and expertise to develop, maintain, and support the infrastructure. This integration method is slow, unscalable, and prone to performance issues.

That’s why Appfire solved this problem with Power BI Jira Connector. A simple three-step installation takes only minutes. Then just wait for Jira data to automatically load into Power BI, and you are good to go. No maintenance required, no additional tools needed.

Using Appfire’s Power BI Jira Connector is reliable, secure, and fast. It abstracts all the technical details and requirements, and Power BI users can start using the database to build insights and impact business right away.

Because building your own connector involves such complex setup, is not scalable, and costs so much time and money, thousands of companies choose to run this Jira connector instead.

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Why choose Appfire’s Power BI Jira Connector

Keep your Jira data safe and make it accessible to the right people, even without a Jira license

As a Jira Admin, you can quickly and securely set up Appfire’s Power BI Jira Connector and avoid hours of manual and unreliable setup of Power BI to Jira connection. With Power BI Jira Connector up and running, team members can build and view reports based on Jira data directly in Power BI.

Save your stakeholders valuable time by giving them access to Jira data directly inside Power BI. Help them discover insights and improve business processes. Whether they want to improve productivity, enhance deliverability of products and services, optimize governance, or generate high-level reports for executives, direct access to Jira data will help.

No more manual data entry (which means no more data entry mistakes). Power BI’s visual builder will help project managers, data analysts, and database administrators to gain insight from your Jira data so they can take action.

And they don’t even need a Jira license to access that data.

Enterprise-level Business Intelligence for teams of any size

Bring data from disparate Jira sources—even combined on-premise vs. cloud deployments—into one Power BI instance for global, top-level reporting. Combine Jira data with other data sources like Excel, SharePoint, and other databases to build custom reports in Power BI. Appfire’s Power BI Jira Connector makes it easy.

Share with stakeholders to collaborate on building reports and dashboards. Anyone (depending on permissions you set) can work with Jira data in Power BI, even without Jira access.

Anyone can work with Jira data in Power BI even without Jira access

Flexible solution for robust Jira data import

You can retrieve selected Jira data or all data for importing into Power BI, and filter by Jira project or component to gain insights quickly. Create a separate connector URL with JQL statements and fields to create a custom data source for your specific needs. Schedule automated data refreshes to make sure you’re looking at the most up-to-date information.

Appfire’s Power BI Jira Connector supports importing an unlimited number of records into Power BI. It supports any Jira Issue fields, including custom fields. Customize Jira issue data (fields) to be imported: you can include Agile, Jira Service Management, custom, time reporting, sprint metrics like velocity and commitment, and history fields.

Easy to get started with a simple, 3-step set up

It is very easy to get started with Appfire’s Power BI Jira Connector. With just a few clicks, you can set up, set permissions, and select data types. The connector does the rest for you. Once the data is imported, you can start building reports and dashboards in Power BI. Then you just set up automatic refreshes to ensure data accuracy going forward.

Appfire’s Power BI Jira Connector delivers great value:

• Securely export Jira data into Power BI
• Avoid hours of manual setup of Power BI to Jira connection
• Get more reliable and up-to-date results
• Enable data analysis to build more sophisticated reports
• Give stakeholders the insight they need to improve business processes
• and more

Below, you can see how easy it is to set up Appfire’s Power BI Jira connector.

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Power BI Jira Connector key features

• Import Jira data into Power BI and setup scheduled refreshes for powerful analytics and reporting
• Create a separate connector URL with JQL statements and fields to create a custom data source for your specific needs
• Build reports in Power BI, then share with team members or managers, including those without Jira access
• Select from a range of Jira fields: Agile, Jira Service Management, custom, time reporting, sprint metrics and history fields
• Use OData feed to import into compatible software (Microsoft Excel)
• Merge with other data sources (Excel, database, etc.)
• Integrate with Tempo Timesheets, Insights, and more.
• Simple app integration setup with a secure, fast, reliable connection and configurable security permissions to control who can access data in Power BI
• Top-notch Appfire support and step-by-step documentation to help you get started

You can try Appfire’s Power BI Jira Connector for free.

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How to set up your Jira and Power BI connection in 3 steps

Below, we cover Power BI Jira Connector’s easy, three-step setup

1. Install the add-on
2. Generate connector URL
3. Import data in Power BI Desktop

To use Appfire’s Power BI Jira Connector to export data from Jira into Power BI, you need an Atlassian account for Jira login, and access to Power BI.

Integrating your Jira instance with Power BI is simple, and you only need to do it once. A few quick steps is all it takes to automate the flow of Jira data into Power BI.

You’ll need Jira administrative privileges to get it done.

Here is a quick overview of the step-by-step process:

1. Download and install Appfire’s Power BI Jira Connector.

2. Create your unique connector URL within your Jira instance to automate the flow of data into Power BI.

Copy a connector URL from Jira > Power BI Jira Connector > My Connector URLs

3. Open Power BI and add your unique URL to import Jira data into Power BI.

Power BI Jira Connector uses OData protocol to import Jira data into Power BI. Paste the link.

Jira and Power BI are now integrated. Don’t forget to set up scheduled refreshes inside Power BI Server or Power BI Online to ensure your data is always up-to-date.

For more details on how to set up the app, read the Power BI Jira Connector documentation.

The app is now called Power BI Jira Connector. Please excuse some references to its former name as we are in the process of updating our product documentation.

Once Jira and Power BI are connected, you can hone in on the type of data you’d like to have at the ready for reporting, comparison, and tracking.

Look through the Jira data fields you’ve chosen to import to understand where this information may be useful for current or new dashboards. After you’ve updated the data being pulled into current reports or created anything new, you can schedule automatic refreshes and set up specific reports to be emailed out.

For any non-Jira users, you can use the Publish feature to make reports or dashboards accessible when needed.

In conclusion

For many companies (small and large), especially in the IT field, Jira is one of the primary sources of data. Adding Jira data into Power BI empowers your team to get a comprehensive view of actionable insights.

Try Power BI Jira Connector for free now – it’s simple to set up. Install the app, generate a connector URL to import data in Power BI Desktop, and start building reports and enabling your team in just minutes.

Last updated: 2023-06-05

Connectors & IntegrationData VisualizationReportingTime TrackingImport/Export Tools

Power BI Jira Connector 

Jira Software Jira Service Management Jira Work Management