As you may know, we've been writing integrations for enterprise systems since 2001 and we built the first connector for Salesforce.com and JIRA several years ago. Each week, we get asked to build a connector to a different system that someone is using, or is planning to. These requests range from cloud-based systems, such as Salesforce.com, NetSuite, Dynamics all the way through to back-end systems such as Siebel (see this case study) or in-house, customized systems.

Each time we have a new connector, there is a number of tasks that we have to go through - items such as connectivity and mappings are two areas that come up time and time again. We're always looking for better ways to do things and our team worked closely with the team at Atlassian to build the NextGen connector framework for Atlassian products. Note that the framework is for Atlassian products, not just JIRA - look out for more stuff coming out soon!

We've been working hard over the past year getting this in place. Working with Atlassian's latest standards such as AppLinks, Remote Links and the new plugin architecture. We've placed a lot of effort into this program of work and so has Atlassian. We've had their team working in our offices, and our team in theirs in 3 locations around the world - including code level reviews. As far as being the most robust way to connect, it won't get more thorough than this.

Our customers have asked for a robust, well-supported and customizable way to deliver connectors - and we're glad to see it now live. You can evaluate and purchase the new NextGen-based Connector for Salesforce.com and JIRA now from our site or the Atlassian Plugin Exchange. Also, keep an eye out for new Connectors from our Partners at Get Satisfaction, Zendesk, uTest and SauceLabs - they have new connectors based on our framework going up on the plugin exchange shortly.

We have more in the works, if you're a software company looking to connect your product to the Atlassian Platform in a trusted and reliable way, then talk to us.