Set up

A walkthrough of the set up process when integrating Avion with Jira Cloud.

Authentication

Before you dive in, please note that the user that you choose to authenticate with Jira Cloud must be a Jira Administrator and a Project Administrator. Avion will not let you proceed without these privileges. If these privileges are revoked after the integration is setup, you will get unexpected behaviour.

Here is a guide to enable these permissions.

For this reason, you might choose to create a specific integration user that can be controlled by a trusted member of your business. This mitigates against the situation where you have to delete a user that Avion is authenticated with if a person leaves your business. More info.

You might need to allow pop-ups if you browser blocks them, as Avion uses a pop-up window to authenticate with Jira.

Project selection

Select the project you wish to integrate with. Currently Avion supports a direct mapping of one or many story maps to one Jira project, although we recommend keeping it simple with a one to one mapping.

Backbone syncing / epic mapping choice

Here you can choose how you would like Avion to map to your Jira epics. It’s worth having a think about this decision, as it will change how the integration feels to work with on a day-to-day basis.

If you would like more details about epic mapping, you can read our guidance here, Epics — our thoughts.

Map story type

Select from all your issue types (not including your epic type or subtasks) and map one to Avion's stories.

Map story states

Map your Avion workflow to your Jira states. Advice and info.

Webhook set up

Setting up a webhook means that every time a change is made in Jira, Avion is notified and can therefore update your story map. This is essential for a two-way integration.

Follow the prompts and Avion will automatically set up a webhook for you. If you already have webhooks for other story maps, please don't delete them. Each story map needs a unique webhook.

Please be aware that the API token you entered earlier in the process is used to create the webhook. So, if this stage fails, the issue is most likely that your API token was incorrect. The API token should not be your password.

Import from Jira

Import your backlog from Jira Cloud and even specify a JQL query to restrict what issues are imported, although this is not a requirement. Advice and info.

If you have a company-managed project, epic links will be respected on import.

If you have a team-managed project, parent/child epic links will not be respected, due to restrictions with the Jira Cloud APIs. We hope to be able to use this relationship in the future. Also, after import, team-managed projects use issue linking to represent epic hierarchy.

Your JQL query will be saved for future imports, but can also be changed later