Aha! Roadmaps | Integrate with Jira Server

Successful products do not happen by accident. They are often the result of seamless collaboration between product and development teams. Developers need strategic context for their work. Product managers need progress updates to inform their roadmap.

But all too often, product managers have to use developer tools just to provide context and track updates — then manually update their own product plans elsewhere. They spend their days in multiple tools, trying to be the glue that brings strategic vision and successful go-to-markets together.

The integration between Aha! Roadmaps and Jira Server, Atlassian's on-premises product, keeps product and development teams in their tools of choice — without sacrificing context or collaboration. Real-time, two-way updates mean that strategic and progress updates flow back and forth immediately. And you can customize the integration to match your team's workflow and terminology.

Atlassian plans to end support for Jira Server in early 2024. If you are a current Jira Server customer, it is time to start thinking about migrating your account to Jira Cloud.

Click any of the following links to skip ahead:

• Prerequisites

• How to think about the integration

• Integration structure

• Recommendations for network configuration

• Recommendations for secure configuration in Jira

• Integrate to an IP address without a public hostname

• Add additional security

Prerequisites

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How to think about the integration

The Aha! Roadmaps Jira integration is two-way, which means information can be updated in either tool. Send your planned work to Jira, get notified when the Jira issue's status updates, and use comments to keep each team up to date.

Before configuring any integration for the first time, it is important to fully understand how to think about integrating Aha! Roadmaps with your development tool. Aha! Roadmaps should come first in the process —build out or import your records in Aha! Roadmaps, then send them to Jira. You can customize the ways that fields map to each other between the two tools, and even customize whether you want integrated records to update automatically, or only after your review.

This integration supports sending the following Aha! Roadmaps records to Jira:

• Initiatives

• Releases / Schedules

• Epics

• Features / Activities

• Requirements

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Integration structure

The integration uses the Jira REST API to create and update records in Jira while Jira webhooks are used to notify Aha! Roadmaps of changes in Jira. This allows Aha! Roadmaps to keep the record status and other fields in sync with Jira as defined in your integration configuration — and to provide links to access Jira Server issues directly. Communication between Aha! Roadmaps and Jira occurs over HTTPS in both directions.

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Recommendations for network configuration

Following these recommendations is not essential, but doing so improves the usability and security of the integration.

• Aha! Roadmaps makes asynchronous inbound calls to Jira, so the Aha! Roadmaps data center IP addresses must be allow listed in any firewall configuration using current IP addresses.

• Aha! Roadmaps requires a publicly resolvable, valid JIRA Server URL to link to in the integration.

• If you have both an internal and external server URL, use the Internal server URL field in the Configure account step of your Aha! Roadmaps integration configuration. The Internal server URL field will appear if you enter a URL in the Server URL field that does not include "atlassian.net." If you use the Internal server URL field, you will be able to access Jira from both inside and outside your company firewall. Links on integrated records will automatically use the correct URL.

• Use a web proxy for incoming requests to Jira so that the connection from Aha! Roadmaps can be terminated in the DMZ.

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Recommendations for secure configuration in Jira

• Create a new Jira user specifically for the integration. The credentials for this user will be entered into Aha! Roadmaps during the configuration setup. Doing so allows you to customize permissions, and allows you to trace any changes made by the integrations. All changes made in Jira by Aha! Roadmaps will be attributed to this user.

• Limit the integration user's permissions to the Jira projects that will be used in the integration.

• Use a JQL filter in the webhook configuration to limit the webhook to only send information for projects used in the integration.

• Aha! Roadmaps can recommend a JQL query for you in the Enable step of Jira integrations 2.0. Once you have set up a Jira integration for each of your desired products, click the Generate recommended JQL query link to generate a JQL query based on your enabled Jira integrations. This recommended query ensures that only activities related to integrated projects are sent to Aha! Roadmaps from Jira. If you have projects that you do not wish to be shared with Aha! Roadmaps, then this filter will ensure that data never flows through the webhook.

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Integrate to an IP address without a public hostname

Aha! Roadmaps can directly integrate with on-premises tools such as Jira Server, but sometimes you need to configure the integration without using a public hostname.

For this to work, you need to have a public dedicated IP address for the integrated system. It cannot be a virtual server or a proxy responsible for hosting multiple subdomains.

Note: Only attempt this configuration when your organization controls the IP address, and that address is sure to remain stable.

In Aha! Roadmaps, navigate to Settings ⚙️ Workspace and open your integration configuration. From the Configure account step:

• Server URL: Add the public dedicated IP address for your integrated system.

• Username: Add the email address or Jira username from your Jira profile page that the integration should run as.

• Password: Enter your password.

• Validate certificate: Leave this box unchecked.

Note: You must leave the Validate certificate box unchecked, since there is no hostname to verify the HTTPS/TLS certificate against.

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Add additional security

2.0 integrations with on-premises tools have the option to include a client certificate for added integration security.

To set a client certificate, open your integration settings and click the More options icon in the upper right, then click Set client certificate. From here, enter the private key and certificate — we recommend creating a private key and client certificate specifically for this purpose — and click Save to save your changes.

If you use an integration template to manage multiple integrations in the same workspace, set the client certificate in your integration template. That way, you only need to set the client certificate once.

Note: This feature will only provide additional security when the server that Aha! Roadmaps is communicating with validates the certificate. This is usually only possible with customer-configured on-premises integrations. Client certificate authentication is in addition to the standard username and password/token authentication and is not a replacement.

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