Agile web development teams use project management tools like Jira to structure workflow and simplify administrative tasks.
However, project management is not the only tool today’s businesses use. Business Intelligence, or BI, is also popular among web developers. For example, applications such as Microsoft Power BI help transform records into analytical data that helps make strategic decisions in a company. The integration of Jira and Power BI systems makes a lot of sense.
Knowledge of the project and the web development process is crucial for IT teams. This makes Jira an important database for decision-making. Analysing information from Jira is essential if an IT company wants to remain efficient and make more money in the future.
The perfect management platform has three components:
- software technology
- systems
- strategy
Gartner’s Magic Quadrant report predicts that associations that offer people access to a regularly updated catalogue of domestic and international data will see a doubling of business value derived from analytics investments by 2020 compared to companies that do not. BI systems will become more sophisticated because people in management positions need to make accurate and quick decisions with relevant data. All this information needs to be instantly accessible.
Why it is advantageous to combine Power BI and Jira
Power BI is one of the best representatives of Business Intelligence software
Business Intelligence is coupled with up-to-date applications that provide quick access to current business perspectives based on available statistics.
BI software monitors and evaluates databases and provides quantitative results in analyses, reports, dashboards, tables, charts, and maps to provide users with comprehensive BI data.
Microsoft Power BI is undoubtedly one of the most commonly used.
Jira is a valuable source of business data for analysis
A common characteristic of all agile applications is a graphical dashboard that visualises the team’s progress. Looking at the dashboard, accessible to all team members, you will immediately understand how many tasks are in progress, the average time needed to solve them, etc.
Jira displays essential information on a dashboard so project managers can see it, focus on critical areas, and ensure that customer requirements are processed fully and on schedule. Tracking helps supervisors monitor overall progress and details of ongoing sprints.
Why is it beneficial to integrate Jira and Power BI?
Jira monitors key performance indicators or KPIs such as the number of tasks, project velocity, hours spent on the project, etc. With this data, managers can make informed decisions on how to plan resources. With archives and historical data, gaps in the system can be found. Administrators can then combine data from multiple channels with Power BI. For example, a web API collects data from a cloud-based task management system. This data is then combined with data from other data sources. Agile methodologies coordinate communication and scheduling, while business systems assist in delivering work on time.
Steps required when setting up Power BI & Jira integration
You can integrate Jira with Power BI in several ways. One is to ask the Jira administrator to do this on the Jira API side. This is a fairly complex operation. You don’t need to be an admin or have advanced Jira skills. Any user who has access to the project can export data from Jira to Power BI using the plug-in. For example, the Power BI Connector for Jira makes exporting files from Jira to Power BI easy according to specific user access permissions.
And this is how it works…
1. Where to find the Power BI Jira plug-in
The Power BI Connector for Jira from Alpha Serve can be downloaded from the Atlassian Marketplace.
All Marketplace apps have a 30-day free trial to try the product before you buy.
2. How to install Power BI Connector for Jira
Start by opening the Jira app. Use the navigation menu to navigate to the Power BI tab. Click on the “Create a Data Source” button to create a new connector:
After being redirected to “Create a Data Source“, perform the following steps:
- enter the name and description of the data source,
- use “Filter issues for this Data Source.”
- check all required fields,
- check all the details you have selected,
- submit the form.
Now, select the data you want to export to Power BI. Only the Jira administrator has the required permissions to choose custom fields.
Power BI Connector for Jira generates a data source URL for working with BI systems. Copy this URL to export data to the Power BI system.
3. How to import data from Jira into Power BI
Now launch your Power BI Desktop and follow these steps:
1. Click on “Get Data” (1) > “OData feed” (2) and paste the URL:
2. Select the required tables and click on “Load“:
The files are uploaded to Power BI:
For more information, please refer to the User Guide created by Alpha Serve.
Power BI in Jira – Some everyday use cases
Companies can use Jira’s business intelligence analytics to implement better strategies. By using Jira data in BI applications and exploring it, a company can maintain its competitiveness.
Below are a few use cases of Power BI integration with Jira.
Human resource management in software development sprints
In software development, BI tools continually raise one of the most pressing questions: should teams accept or reject the concept of an agile methodology that allows programmers to be versatile and innovative in serving users’ needs (customers)?
- Managers who create highly organised plans with set tasks and fixed time frames put constraining pressure on software engineers. Factors such as estimated and actual delivery times leave no room for engineers to be creative, improvise, and relax.
- Coders like to work in sprints and like to set their workload. However, from a business perspective, higher workloads lead to higher results. The secret to effective agile development is to allow flexibility while keeping the organisation active.
- Resource management requires BI tools to determine the most pressing issues and tasks for individual team members, ticket types, and average bug/bug testing time. Developers can easily handle self-management and deviation from their goals by helping to monitor work progress and coordinate team progress, especially during sprints.
These technologies do not set strict protocols and responsibilities but make everyone’s job easier.
Supervisors in the support team
There are thousands of apps that help administrators prioritise. Some of these tools are designed to track different ways to support users, including service requests and ticket types. Data monitoring provides additional information on the median time to close a ticket and the percentage of tickets closed on time. The support team is, therefore, handled more centrally but dynamically enough to support imaginative freedom. For example, this will help uncover recurring problems and their occurrence patterns.
Working on the development of multiple projects
Maintaining multiple projects involves monitoring many activities simultaneously: the number of projects underway, the stage of each project, the project’s timing status, and the five most critical deferred tasks.
Apps support projects by assisting employees in setting criteria and breaking the project into smaller tasks. This helps in the chronology of the projects delivered. As software engineers work on parts of the project together, each project status will need to be managed appropriately. This process is often divided into shorter loops that gradually form the final deliverable. Such phases change between meetings and development sprints, which is essential regarding project schedule status. Keeping the loops short and collecting developer feedback during planning allows the team to adapt and focus. In particular, it will enable you to avoid creating problems.
Power BI dashboards help managers quickly access comprehensive project information. This bird’ s-eye view allows you to continuously monitor project status and key performance indicators and respond promptly to likely trouble spots.
Summary
Any company needs to get the bigger picture of a project, the number of projects, and their team’s productivity. The more relevant the data source a company incorporates into its business analysis, the more detailed insight it will gain into its performance. Jira is undoubtedly one of the most critical data sources for IT companies, regardless of size or specialisation, as it provides information on core business activities. Adding Jira as a data source to Microsoft’s Power BI will allow you to see the bigger picture and gain valuable insights.
When using Power BI, each team member can get meaningful information delivered most clearly and logically on a customised dashboard with meaningless data excluded. From this perspective, having a simple and usable framework to connect Jira and Power BI provides a significant business advantage. The ability to quickly build a project or team dashboard outside a given project without advanced Jira administrative knowledge or extensive permissions and entitlements undoubtedly increases technical team engagement and performance.
This blog was prepared in cooperation with our partner company, Alpha Serve.
If you need assistance from experts with implementing or configuring Atlassian products or advice on using them most effectively in your company, please do not hesitate to contact us.
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