Automatically Import Features From Jira Into Aha! for Roadmap Planning
September 23, 2013

Automatically Import Features From Jira Into Aha! for Roadmap Planning

by Brian de Haaff

Update: We recently launched our most powerful Jira integration ever. Learn more about it here.

You can now import issues directly into Aha! from Jira. This builds on our existing integration with Jira that allows you to: (1) push your completed features and requirements in Aha! into Jira and (2) automatically keep your features and requirements in Aha! up-to-date if text or status changes are made in Jira. The added import capabilities are important for product management teams that have issues captured in Jira but are looking to take advantage of Aha! for more structured product strategy, roadmapping, and detailing of features and requirements.

There are two good reasons to use this new functionality: (1) to seed your Aha! account with features already captured in Jira and (2) to incrementally add features to Aha! that have been created in Jira after your initial upload.

To get started, you first need to create an Aha! and Jira integration. If you have an Aha! account, login, and go to Account Settings and then Product Settings and select the product that you want to create an integration for (if it does not already exist). Select Integrations and choose Jira. Complete the integration using the form and the test button to confirm that it works. If you do not have an account yet what are you waiting for, sign up for a 30 day trial to see what you are missing.

Please note that once an issue has been imported into Aha! from Jira, it will not be imported again, even if an import is run again for the same project. However, if you are not sure if an issue has been imported, there is no harm in using the import button again. The following are the steps required to import issues from Jira directly into Aha!

Step 1 Choose the Aha! product and release to import your issues from Jira. As noted above, issues can only be imported into Aha! products that have a working Jira integration. Only issues that have not already been imported will be uploaded into Aha!

Step 2 We suggest that you use the default filter to specify which issues to import. Only issues that do not have a status of “resolved” in Jira will be imported as features in Aha! If you have deep knowledge of Jira (or know someone who does) you can specify a JQL string that can be used to further filter the issues that will be imported.

Step 3 The next step is to test the import. We do this by confirming that we can access up to the matching issues. If the test is successful, we will return a message below that includes all of the matching issues. This will include issues that have already been imported into Aha! So, if you are not sure if issues have been uploaded before, we suggest that you simply use the import button again below.

Step 4 Complete the import from Jira. Remember that only issues that have not already been imported will be uploaded. Once you import, go to the product and release specified above to confirm that all of the issues were imported as Aha! features.

The import will take place in the background and make take several minutes or longer depending on the amount of info that needs to be imported.

Aha! now fully supports your use of Jira — allowing you to automatically import features from Jira into Aha!, move features from Aha! to Jia, and keep Aha! and Jira in sync when status and text changes are made in Jira.

Brian de Haaff

Brian de Haaff

Brian seeks business and wilderness adventure. He is the co-founder and CEO of Aha! — the world’s #1 product development software — and the author of the bestseller Lovability and The Startup Adventure newsletter. Brian writes and speaks about product and company growth and the journey of pursuing a meaningful life.

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