If your team is looking for a way to integrate your commits and pull requests to the Jira ticket, but you do not have access or your company has blocked installing apps from the Atlassian Marketplace, then there still is a way. Using a Personal Access Token can provide some basic integration between the two.

Having Github linked to the Jira ticket have a few advantages.

Linking Github to Jira helps you track changes

Commits, Branches, and Pull Requests can be viewed right from Jira, reducing the need to switch applications to see what changes are linked to the ticket, as well as see the statuses. This makes it easier to know when to move tickets to a different column on the Kanban board, and whether the ticket is ready for testing or able to be marked done.

Linking Github to Jira helps you create branches directly from Jira

Branches can be made in Jira, simplifying the development process and reducing the overhead of switching applications. The branch name is also auto-filled, including the ticket number and summary. This provides uniformity in-branch naming and also guarantees a unique name and easy tracking between changes and business requirements. If the business has an approval process for deployment to live production applications, the linkage provides more insight into that process also.

Linking Github to Jira allows for easier rollback of changes

When utilizing Microservice Architecture, it can be difficult to track what commits were made across what services. Seeing all the PRs and Commits in one location will make this process much easier. If an entire ticket needs to be pulled out of a release, the process will be quick compared to manually checking each service to determine if any commits need to be rolled back.

How to Link GitHub and Jira

Before attempting the below approach, check out installing GitHub for Jira first. This will require admin privileges. GitHub for Jira will provide deeper integration. Tasks can be automated in Jira with Smart Commits as well. Smart Commits can automate adding comments, update time tracker information, etc.

Check out the following link for more information on this.

https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1219592/github-for-jira?tab=overview&hosting=cloud

Generating a Personal Access Token to Link Github to Jira

Log into GitHub and access the settings, then navigate to Developer settings

Navigate to Personal access tokens and click Generate new token

Chose the Note (Name), Expiration, and check all permissions you would like to give to Jira.

After selecting the permission, click Generate token. The Personal Access Token will be given. Do not close this page until copied into Jira or have copied to a secure location.

Provide Personal Access Token to Jira

Log into your Jira and navigate to Profile under your Icon in the top right. Scroll down to Git Integration for Jira preferences. Choose a GitHub Server, click the Enter your PAT button.

Enter the token copied earlier and click Update.

That’s about it. Now, if feature branches and commits begin with the Jira Ticket number, it will show under details of that ticket in the right column. How many commits, branches, and pull requests can be visible. Branches can be created from here as well and will be pre-filled with ticket numbers and a summary. Clicking on the commits link will show detailed info for the commits.

Summary: Linking Github to Jira

Time to complete this integration is minimal, but the benefits to the team would be worth the effort. Integrating Jira and Github does not only provides traceability of changes but reduces day-to-day effort. If using Microservice Architecture, the benefit will be greater.

Github and Jira are two applications the teams will be interacting with daily and will be switching between them many times throughout the day otherwise. This can reduce your team’s effort and increase everyone’s efficiency.