Connecting to Jira

Note that this is a paid feature.

It can be a pain to get your historical data into that comma-separated list of tasks completed per week. Four weeks is pretty straight-forward, but if you’re looking back 6 months or more, it can get tedious. Monte can simplify this process.

How it works

Monte uses the Jira API to pull in the historical data for the project. It will then calculate how many tasks were completed per week and how many tasks are remaining. This data is then formatted and sent to Monte where it is used to generate the forecast chart. After initial setup, you’ll be able to pull the latest information from Jira with the click of a button.

Setup

First, you’ll need to create the connection to Jira.

  1. Click on the top-right 3-dot menu and select Project Settings.
  2. Click on Connect to Jira.

You’ll be redirected to Jira to authenticate and authorize Monte to access your Jira data.

  1. Choose the Jira site you want to connect to Monte.
  2. Click Accept.

You’ll be redirected back to Monte and the Jira connection will be setup.

Basic Configuration

Let’s configure the connection.

  1. Select the Jira Site you want to use.
  2. Select the Jira Project you want to pull data from.
  3. Optionally, you can set the Since Date to pull in data from a certain date in the past. Otherwise, it’ll pull in all data from that project’s history.
  4. Click Save.
  5. Back in the main Monte view, click the Update Data button and you’ll see the information loaded up.

Now you can update the data with the Update Data button anytime you want.

Advanced Configuration

The basic configuration may import too many issues. For example, maybe you only want to include issues with issue type of “Task” or “Story”. You can do this using Jira’s advanced search with Jira Query Language (JQL). You can enter JQL functions to return the remaining tasks and the past completed tasks.

  1. Click on the top-right 3-dot menu and select Project Settings.
  2. Check Use Jira Query Language (JQL) checkbox.
  3. Fill in the JQL for remaining tasks and JQL for past tasks inputs.

After you enter JQL in those fields, Monte will validate that the JQL is valid using the Jira API. If the JQL is invalid, you’ll see an error message with information about what went wrong.

It’s probably a good idea to refine your JQL in Jira so you can see exactly what issues are included.

One note: order doesn’t matter for Monte, so there’s no need to include ORDER BY in the JQL.

Examples: JQL for remaining tasks

project = <<insert your project code>> AND statusCategory = Done
project = <<insert your project code>> AND type IN (Task, Improvement) AND statusCategory = Done

Examples: JQL for past tasks

project = <<insert your project code>> AND statusCategory != Done
project = <<insert your project code>> AND statusCategory != Done AND type IN (Task, Improvement) AND created >= -52w

For more information on JQL, see the official Jira JQLdocumentation.

Conclusion

The Jira connector can save you a lot of time and effort by automatically pulling in the data from your project. Give it a try!

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