When you’re in the thick of things, it’s easy to get caught up in your work and forget to update your Jira tasks. But neglecting to update your work can affect your team especially when you’re running on a tight deadline. Forgetting to do something as simple as moving a task from “in progress” to “done” and alerting the right person can create a delay that can cascade to the rest of the project.
On the flip side, keeping Jira updated with Jenkins build information allows project managers, DevOps, and other team members to gain real-time visibility into the progress and status of software builds. This transparency allows everyone to understand where the project is at, what the team’s overall progress is during the crucial development stage, and ensure a successful build.
Constantly updating Jira – or constantly chasing people to update their Jira tasks – can be tedious especially if you’re switching between Jenkins and Jira. This is where automation comes in. Not only does it help to integrate Jenkins and Jira, but Jira workflow automation speeds up development and keeps everyone up-to-date on progress.
Why you should consider Jira workflow automation
In most teams, automation is a great way to modernize your workflow, especially in task-intensive industries like software development.
Here are four benefits you gain by automating software development workflow on Jira:
1. It saves time.
Tasks like compiling source code, running tests, and generating reports in software development are time consuming and repetitive. Automating them saves a lot of valuable time for developers, project managers, and DevOps alike.
2. It speeds up build and deployment.
With automation, you can set up rules once certain conditions are met, such as automatically triggering builds whenever code changes are pushed out. This helps to accelerate the build process and enables faster delivery of features for your end-users.
3. It ensures consistency and standardization.
Automated workflows ensure that the same process is used consistently across all development projects, creating a standardized approach everyone can follow. It also reduces the risk of errors and allows reliable outcomes.
4. It enables continuous integration.
Working off different platforms forces you to deal with a lack of cohesion between the two. Automation helps to create a bridge; you can set Jenkins to monitor the repository for changes and trigger builds accordingly, and reflect these changes in Jira.
How you can incorporate Jira workflow automation in software development
Automating your development workflow helps to streamline tasks like testing, deployment, and issue tracking, especially when these tasks involve switching between Jenkins and Jira.
Here are four ways you can automate some of the tedious tasks in software development:
1. Create alerts for failed or unsuccessful builds
During the development process, builds can fail. These failures can go unnoticed especially if there isn’t a warning system set up to alert the team in both Jenkins and Jira.
One easy way to ensure that this doesn’t happen is to set up a rule that will automatically create an issue in Jira whenever a build in Jenkins fails or is unsuccessful. From there, you can transition related Jira issues to specific statuses or assign them to team members for investigation. That way, project managers and DevOps are alerted in Jira about the issue immediately and can take action for resolution.
2. Automate version management and closely track project releases
Keeping track of build versions manually is a challenge, especially when there are multiple releases under one project. Automating the process eliminates the risk of manual errors and creates clear milestones you can refer back to when tracking the progress of releases your team has completed.
Consider using Jira as your recordkeeper and set rules to automatically create a new version of the build whenever a release build completes. Each version will represent a clear milestone or release point for the software, creating a record of your releases for reference.
3. Always keep your Jira tasks updated by transitioning issues linked to a build
Forgetting to update Jira tasks is a common issue faced by most teams. When developers start work on a build in Jenkins, it’s easy to forget they should also update the associated task on Jira to reflect the work.
Setting rules to automatically update a linked Jira task when work starts on Jenkins is an excellent way to bypass this problem and make sure your Jira board reflects the actual state of the work.
4. Automatically trigger builds and tests in Jira
It’s never easy to work off multiple platforms. Using Jira as a central platform that can track tasks and triggers creates a centralized workflow and reduces the need to switch between Jenkins and Jira.
When you trigger a build in Jira, it’s always associated with a specific task or issue. This ensures that builds are initiated in context and provides a clear link between code changes.
Automate your workflow today
Whether you’re a project manager, developer, or part of the DevOps team, embracing automation is a strategic advantage you can’t afford to overlook, especially if you find yourself switching between Jenkins and Jira. Automation saves time and speeds up development while smoothing over any integration issues that may crop up. In short, embracing Jira workflow automation empowers your team.
An integration app like Jenkins Integration for Jira bridges the gap between Jenkins and Jira, helping teams automate tedious tasks like keeping Jira boards updated, tracking software versions, and triggering builds. Read the next blog to learn more about choosing the right integration app for your team.
