ServiceNow, Azure DevOps and Jira Integration Use Case

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Overview

Kovair OmnibusX is an integration and migration platform that comes with a diverse set of pre-built tool connectors better known as adapters. These permit the seamless unidirectional or bi-directional data synchronization between the various supported work items such as – Incidents, Tickets, Change Requests, Epics, User Stories, Tasks etc.

OmnibusX is a lightweight web-based, user-friendly and intuitive platform which can be easily configured via simple mouse clicks, paired with only a few user inputs. Being a middleware, it ensures robust data synchronization between connected enterprise tools in your ecosystem.

You can track the configured dataflows and safely transfer essential data based on the mapped work items or artefacts. Use dashboards, synchronization monitors, and migration monitors powered by comprehensive data flows, to view real time metrices. A disaster recovery mechanism is integrated into OmnibusX, allowing reflow runs to be performed in the event of a syncing failure, thus mitigating any chances of pertinent data loss.

Connected Tools Ecosystem

ServiceNowServiceNow: ServiceNow is a cloud-based SaaS platform that helps businesses to manage IT services as well as raise and track Tickets to optimize operational efficiencies.
JiraJira: Jira is a Project Management and Issue tracking tool which allows you to track Issues, Bugs, Tasks etc. related to an Agile Project or an Epic.
Azure DevOpsAzure DevOps: Azure DevOps is a platform for end-to-end product development solutions. It provides an integrated set of services to manage software projects from planning to deployment stage.

Objective

The client’s business team uses ServiceNow to manage Incidents. In case of any issues, they raise Tickets or Change Requests to register their concern.

On the other side, the vendor’s Development team uses Microsoft Azure DevOps, while their QA team uses Jira for the Project Management, as well as for pre-deployment and post-deployment activities. The objective of this use case is to collaborate all these three disparate tools, and establish a data synchronization channel, so that the diverse teams using these tools can leverage the best benefits of the tools.

Step-by-step Use Case

  1. The Project Management Team creates an Epic created in Jira.
  2. The Epic then flows to Azure DevOps, where the development team changes its status to Active and start working on the Epic.
  3. Next, the Development team, working in Azure DevOps breaks down the Epic into User Stories and establishes a link to the Epic.
  4. Subsequently, the traceability relation between Epic and User Stories get reflected in Jira automatically.
  5. After the User Stories get implemented and deployed at the client’s end, the Status changes of the artifacts, along with relevant comments and attachments as provided by the users – are synced between Jira and Azure DevOps.
  6. After using the deployed package, the client-side team raises their concerns in ServiceNow by creating Incidents, Change Requests or Problems. These artifacts get synchronized to Azure DevOps instantly and the Development team start working on them.
  7. The Developers in Azure DevOps link the Bugs to one of the User Stories and provide an Estimated Delivery Date, along with necessary comments.
  8. The Bugs automatically gets linked to the User Story in Jira, and the Estimated Delivery Date value along with the comment gets synced to ServiceNow.
  9. As soon as the Development team changes the Status of the Bug to Resolved, the Project Team in Jira and the client-side team both get to know about the Status update instantly.

Business Benefits

The stakeholders are getting following benefits from this integration:

  1. No dependency on manual communication.
  2. Real time visibility on the Customer tickets along with urgency and impact on the business.
  3. The Project Management team get the 360-degree traceability between all the artifacts.
  4. The Development Team, using Azure DevOps, gets to know about the Incidents raised in ServiceNow in real time without any delay.
  5. All the stakeholders can trace the progress of work.
  6. ServiceNow users and Developers can exchange concerns with the help of Comment synchronization.
  7. Shorter turn-around-time for the Bugs.

Conclusion

Configured tool instances enable real time data synchronization between the connected tools and eliminates any delays which can be caused by manual hand-offs or similar processes. By connecting the dots in an organization’s delivery process, the teams become empowered with better collaboration. To sum up, it brings the functional teams together by breaking disparate silos and helps organizations achieve higher ROI – much to the euphoria of our clients.