Extend the features of your enterprise applications and improve workflow with Jira Service Desk integration

As I’ve blogged about previously, business applications like CRM and ERP are designed to do one type of business process well and generally don’t offer cross-business collaboration and work management features. And if they do, it tends to be awkward and not a driver of productivity across the organization. That’s where Atlassian’s applications like Confluence and Jira Service Desk really shine.

The good news for IT and line of business managers is there is a growing range of options for integrating corporate applications with Atlassian’s collaboration tools. Here are some Jira and JSD enterprise integration options which add a new dimension to work management.

CRM and sales management

Getting CRM and sales management to talk with JSD is a powerful combination for better customer service and incident management. See my blog on the business benefits of connecting Salesforce with Atlassian applications for an example.

There are also connectors available to integrate the call center with JSD to allow customers to create support tickets over the phone. 

Project and program management 

Jira is a great project management tool in its own right, but it also complements many other project and program management applications. You can combine Jira with popular applications like Microsoft Project, Trello and Basecamp.

The important thing is to avoid isolated work package and incident management. Running a project or program is complex enough without having to deal with siloed task tracking.

Financials and back office

This is an interesting use case for Jira and JSD integration. Back office enterprise apps tend to focus on one business process – such as accounting, ERP and stock control – but that doesn’t mean the organization won’t benefit from integration with the service desk.

For example, there is a Freshbooks connector for Jira which will export spent work hours from issues directly into an invoice. Quickbooks and MYOB are also integration options. 

Authentication and SSO

Single sign-on (SSO) is often seen as a “quick win” for enterprise integration and Jira has many options for reducing manual logins.

SSO can be applied within the Atlassian ecosystem of products or with many popular cloud and enterprise applications. The SAML standard can be applied across services such as Google Apps, Azure AD and Salesforce.

Real-time communication

Jira can be integrated with real-time communication and collaboration apps to enable faster issue resolution from pretty much any device. Popular ones include:

• Slack. Slack has developed a ground-up following in the enterprise and connecting it with Jira enables real-time support channels for your service desk.

• HipChat. Atlassian’s own HipChat can be hooked up to JSD for instant notifications which should result in more speedy responses from IT.

There are also connectors available for Microsoft’s Skype services (business and personal).

There’s really no limit to the possibilities with Jira and JSD integration with other enterprises services, either hosted in-house or in the cloud. You can even convert Jira tickets into a job post.

At ServiceRocket we work with clients to help them get the most out of their applications and enterprise integration is showing exciting innovation potential worth keeping an eye on.