Work with Live Jira Service Desk Data in Power Query

Power Query is a data transformation and data preparation engine. When paired with CData Connect Cloud, you get instant, cloud-to-cloud access to Jira Service Desk data from Power Query. This article shows how to connect to Connect Cloud from Power Query through Microsoft Excel and get live access to Jira Service Desk data for transformation and preparation.

CData Connect Cloud provides a pure SQL, cloud-to-cloud interface for Jira Service Desk, allowing you to easily integrate with live Jira Service Desk data in Power Query — without replicating the data. CData Connect Cloud looks exactly like a SQL Server database to Power Query and uses optimized data processing out of the box to push all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc) directly to Jira Service Desk, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return Jira Service Desk data.

Configure Jira Service Desk Connectivity for Power Query

Connectivity to Jira Service Desk from Power Query is made possible through CData Connect Cloud. To work with Jira Service Desk data from Power Query, we start by creating and configuring a Jira Service Desk connection.

1. Log into Connect Cloud, click Connections and click Add Connection
2. Select "Jira Service Desk" from the Add Connection panel
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 Create & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Jira Service Desk Connection page and update the User-based permissions.

Add a Personal Access Token

If you are connecting from a service, application, platform, or framework that does not support OAuth authentication, you can create a Personal Access Token (PAT) to use for authentication. Best practices would dictate that you create a separate PAT for each service, to maintain granularity of access.

1. Click on your username at the top right of the Connect Cloud app and click User Profile.
2. On the User Profile page, scroll down to the Personal Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
3. Give your PAT a name and click Create.
4. The personal access token is only visible at creation, so be sure to copy it and store it securely for future use.

With the connection configured, you are ready to connect to Jira Service Desk data from Power Query.

Working with Live Jira Service Desk Data in Power Query

With the connection to Connect Cloud configured, you are ready to work with live Jira Service Desk data in Power Query.

1. In Microsoft Excel, open the Power Query Editor (from the Data ribbon, click Get Data -> Launch Power Query Editor)
2. Click New Source -> SQL Server
3. In the SQL Server database modal:
   • Set Server to tds.cdata.com,14333
   • (Optional) Set Database to the name of the Jira Service Desk connection (e.g. JiraServiceDesk1 )
4. In the SQL Server credentials modal, select "Database" and
   • Set User to your Connect Cloud username (e.g. user@mydomain.com )
   • Set Password to the PAT for the above user
5. Click Connect
6. Select the table(s) you wish to work with in the Navigator and click "OK"

At this point, you have live access to Jira Service Desk data from Power Query for transformation and preparation.

SQL Access to Jira Service Desk Data

Now you have a direct connection to live Jira Service Desk data from Microsoft Power Query. You can create more connections and transform and preparte your data to better drive business — all without replicating Jira Service Desk data.

To get real-time data access to 100+ SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your cloud applications, sign up for a free trial of CData Connect Cloud.