Jira automation for Google Workspace users: Complete Guide

Google Workspace and Jira automation: A starting point

Jira is a tool for tracking issues and projects. It helps development teams coordinate and manage software releases.

Google Workspace is a cloud-based office suite that includes Google’s productivity and collaboration tools like Google Forms, Sheets, Slides, Calendar, and more.

To automate those two tools, we’ll use Zenphi. Zenphi is a no-code business process automation platform built explicitly for Google Workspace users. It enables you and everyone in your company to automate their processes without writing a single line of code.

If you don’t have a zenphi account yet – create one for free.

 

Automate Jira and Google Sheets

Jira is a great task management tool, but when it comes to generating reports, sometimes you want to use something familiar, like Google Sheets. However, doing it all manually can be a headache. With zenphi, you can automatically transfer all the Jira issues to Google Sheets and create reports from there.

Time to set up: 10 min

 

Step 1. Create a Space.

Create a Space – a home to your process automation – in a couple of clicks.

 

Step 2. Create Google Sheets.

Create a sheet where you want to import your Jira Issues and map out all the required parameters. For example, Issue ID, Issue Due Date, Summary, Assignee, Project, etc.

Step 3. Create a Jira Automation Flow.

Flow is your visual automation builder. Create a new one and choose a Scheduled Flow as a Trigger. It means that the automation will be launched on a set schedule. For instance, every day.

Now, you are in the Flow Designer. That’s where you’ll drag and drop the Actions – the automated steps of your process – to your Trigger.

This Flow will read the Jira Issues that we indicate by conditions, and for each found Issue, it will generate a Row in the specified Google Sheet.

Let’s see how you configure each step of your Flow in more detail.

 

Set up the Trigger.

To do that, just click on the Trigger icon, and indicate the conditions from the right sidebar that appears. Let’s say that we want to export the Jira Issues every day.

Drag and Drop the “Search Issue” action from the Jira section.

Click on the gear icon inside this action once you attach it. In the right sidebar that will appear, you’ll need to configure a few details.

1. Jira Connection – connect your Jira account, so zenphi can find the Jira Issues. It’ll take you a few seconds and it’s absolutely secure.

2. Jira clouds – once you authorize the Jira account, zenphi will automatically show you the clouds that are connected to this account.

3. Condition – indicate the parameters of the Issues you want to export. It can be all the Issues from a specific Project or with the specific Due Date.

4. Select fields to return – indicate what Issues data you want to export.

To check what data is going to be returned with this action, switch to the Output section. Later, you’ll be able to use this data in your further actions.

 

Drag and Drop the For each Item action from the Jira section

As we probably have multiple issues to export from Jira, zenphi will return the Collection of Issues. However, we need to put each Issue to the Google Sheet one-by-one. That’s why we use another zenphi action called For each Item. It will take the Collection of Issues and process each of them separately.

Again, click on the gear icon to set up this action. In the Collection fields, we need to indicate the Collection of the Jira Issues that were found with the previous Search Issue action. For that, we’ll use the Token Picker. With the Token Picker you can find the data that is coming from all the Actions and the Trigger in this Flow.

The Output of the Foreach Item Action will be the Jira Issues details that we’ll put to Google Sheet in the next action.

 

Drag and Drop the “Add Row” action from the Google Sheet section

Here are the fields that we need to set here:

1. 1. Connection – Authorize your Google Sheet account.
   2. File – click on the Drive icon and find the file we created at Step 2.
   3. Sheet Name – click on the Sheet icon and choose the needed Sheet from the dropdown.
   4. Columns – click on the Load Columns button and zenphi will automatically read the columns you have in the chosen Sheet.

Now, we need to map out what data will be imported to each column. To do that, we’ll use the help of the Token Picker again.

Click on the Token Picker icon in the Value fields, and choose the parameter from the Foreach Item Output. Do this for each Column Value.

 

Step 4. Test your Jira Automation Flow.

Our Flow is ready, and it’s never a bad idea to test the automation before launching it. Luckily, with Zenphi you can do it in two clicks. Firstly, Save your Flow. Then, click on a Test Run button and choose the “Start a new test instance” option.

Once the test has started running, you’ll see how all the steps are processing from the left sidebar.

When the Test is complete, you should see all the Jira Issues in your Google Sheet.

Step 5. Publish.

When you are satisfied with the Test Results, Publish your Flow. Once it’s published, you’ll get all the needed Jira Issues right into your Google Sheets once a day.