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URL: https://www.cdata.com/kb/tech/jira-cloud-metabase.rst

⇱ How to integrate Metabase with Jira Data

How to integrate Metabase with Jira Data

👁 Jerod Johnson
Jerod Johnson
Director, Technology Evangelism
Use CData Connect AI to connect to live Jira data and create an interactive dashboard in Metabase from Jira data.

Metabase is an open source data visualization tool that allows users to create interactive dashboards. When paired with CData Connect AI, users can easily create visualizations and dashboards linked to live Jira data. This article describes how to connect to Jira and build a simple visualization using Jira data.

CData Connect provides a pure cloud-to-cloud interface for Jira, allowing you to easily integrate with live Jira data in Metabase — without replicating the data. Connect looks exactly like a SQL Server database to Metabase and uses optimized data processing out of the box to push all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc) directly to Jira, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return Jira data.

About Jira Data Integration

CData simplifies access and integration of live Jira data. Our customers leverage CData connectivity to:

  • Gain bi-directional access to their Jira objects like issues, projects, and workflows.
  • Use SQL stored procedures to perform functional actions like changing issues status, creating custom fields, download or uploading an attachment, modifying or retrieving time tracking settings, and more.
  • Authenticate securely using a variety of methods, including username and password, OAuth, personal access token, API token, Crowd or OKTA SSO, LDAP, and more.

Most users leverage CData solutions to integrate Jira data with their database or data warehouse, whether that's using CData Sync directly or relying on CData's compatibility with platforms like SSIS or Azure Data Factory. Others are looking to get analytics and reporting on live Jira data from preferred analytics tools like Tableau and Power BI.

Learn more about how customers are seamlessly connecting to their Jira data to solve business problems from our blog: Drivers in Focus: Collaboration Tools.


Getting Started


Configure Jira Connectivity for Metabase

Connectivity to Jira from Metabase is made possible through CData Connect AI. To work with Jira data from Metabase, we start by creating and configuring a Jira connection.

  1. Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection
    2. 👁 Adding a Connection
  2. Select "Jira" from the Add Connection panel
    3. 👁 Selecting a data source
  3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Jira.

    To connect to JIRA, provide the User and Password. Additionally, provide the Url; for example, https://yoursitename.atlassian.net.

    👁 Configuring a connection (Salesforce is shown)
  4. Click Save & Test
  5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Jira Connection page and update the User-based permissions. 👁 Updating permissions

Add a Personal Access Token

When connecting to Connect AI through the REST API, the OData API, or the Virtual SQL Server, a Personal Access Token (PAT) is used to authenticate the connection to Connect AI. It is best practice to create a separate PAT for each service to maintain granularity of access.

  1. Click on the Gear icon () at the top right of the Connect AI app to open the settings page.
  2. On the Settings page, go to the Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
  3. Give the PAT a name and click Create. 👁 Creating a new PAT
  4. The personal access token is only visible at creation, so be sure to copy it and store it securely for future use.

With the connection configured and a PAT generated, you are ready to connect to Jira data from Metabase.

Connect to CData Connect AI from Metabase

After creating the connection in Connect AI, navigate to your Metabase instance. Use the SQL Server interface to connect to Connect AI.

  1. Navigate to the administration screen (Settings -> Admin) and click "Add Database" from the "Databases" tab 👁 Adding a new database connection to Metabase.
  2. Configure the connection to Connect AI and click "Save"
    • Database type: Select "SQL Server"
    • Name: Name the connection (e.g. "Jira (Connect AI)")
    • Host: tds.cdata.com
    • Port: 14333
    • Database name: The name of the connection you just created (e.g. JIRA1)
    • Username: A Connect AI username (e.g. [email protected])
    • Password: The PAT previously created
    • Click to Use a secure connection (SSL)
    👁 Configuring the connection to Connect AI.

Execute Jira Data with Metabase

Once you configure the connection to Connect AI, you can query Jira and build visualizations.

  1. Use the "Write SQL" tool to retrieve the Jira data 👁 Click the 'Write SQL' button.
  2. Write a SQL query based on the Jira connection in CData Connect AI, e.g. 

    SELECT Projects.LeadName, Issues.Summary FROM Projects, Issues WHERE Projects.Id=Issues.ProjectId
    👁 Collected data (Salesforce is shown).
  3. Navigate to the "Visualization" screen, choose a visualization, and configure the visualization 👁 Collected data (Salesforce is shown).

More Information & Free Trial

At this point, you have built a simple visualization from Jira data in Metabase. You can continue to work with live Jira data in Metabase just like you would any SQL Server database. For more information on creating a live connection to Jira (and more than 100 other data sources), visit the Connect AI page. Sign up for a free trial and start working with live Jira data in Metabase today.