Add a Jira Software Data Center source

This is for:

Developer System Administrator

When you have the required privileges, you can add the content of a Jira Software (Server) instance to a Coveo organization.

Tip
Leading practice

The number of items that a source processes per hour (crawling speed) depends on various factors, such as network bandwidth and source configuration. See About crawling speed for information on what can impact crawling speed, as well as possible solutions.

Source key characteristics

The following table presents the main characteristics of a Jira Software Data Center source.

Features Supported Additional information

Indexable content

Jira projects[1], issues, comments, attachments, and work logs

Content update operations

refresh

check

Takes place every hour by default.

A rescan or rebuild is required to retrieve:

  • Changes (creation, modification, deletion) on Jira projects

  • Deletion of issues, and work logs, attachments, and comments on issues

rescan

check

Takes place every day by default.

rebuild

check

Content security options

Same users and groups as in your content system

check

Install Coveo’s plugin to index issue-level permissions.

Specific users and groups

check

Everyone

check

Metadata indexing for search

Automatic mapping of metadata to fields that have the same name

This setting is disabled by default and not recommended for this source type.

Automatically indexed metadata

Examples of auto-populated default fields (no user-defined metadata required):
 

  • clickableuri

  • jifieldsassigneedisplayname

  • jifieldscreated

  • jifieldspriorityname

  • jifieldsstatusname

  • title
     

After a content update, inspect your item field values in the Content Browser.

Extracted but not indexed metadata

The Jira Software Data Center source extracts some of the metadata that the Jira API makes available, such as project-related metadata on issues. The source extracts Jira issue standard fields as metadata named fields.<FIELD_NAME> and custom fields as metadata named fields.customfield_<ID>, where <ID> is the numeric identifier of the Jira custom field.
 

After a rebuild, review the View and map metadata subpage for the list of indexed metadata, and index additional metadata.

Requirements

Jira Software Data Center instance accessible to Coveo

If access to communication ports between Coveo and the Jira Software Data Center instance is restricted, you must open the appropriate ports in the network infrastructure, such as firewalls, to allow Coveo to access the content.

Note

Single sign-on (SSO) isn’t supported. If your instance uses an SSO, create a native Atlassian crawling account directly in Jira to bypass it and crawl the instance content.

Plugin

Install Coveo’s plugin on your Jira Software Data Center instance to support indexing all permission types, including issue-level permissions.

Crawling account

When you want to retrieve the content of your Jira Software instance, a crawling account with read permission is required. The source can only include the issues which are accessible by the source credentials you supply. You must therefore assign the source credentials to all necessary Jira Software permission schemes required to gain access to the issues to include.

However, when you want to index permissions along with the content, you must also grant the Jira Administrators global permissions to the source credentials.

Note

When configuring the source, you must use the credentials of a native Jira Software user. Users managed by other identity providers such as Google aren’t supported.

Add a Jira Software Data Center source

A Jira Software Data Center source indexes on-premises (server) content. To retrieve cloud content instead, see Add a Jira Software Cloud source.

Tip
Leading practice

It’s best to create or edit your source in your sandbox organization first. Once you’ve confirmed that it indexes the desired content, you can copy your source configuration to your production organization, either with a snapshot or manually.

See About non-production organizations for more information and best practices regarding sandbox organizations.

Follow the instructions below to add a Jira Software Data Center source that uses the desired content retrieval method.

  1. On the Sources (platform-ca | platform-eu | platform-au) page, click Add source.

  2. In the Add a source of content panel, click the On-premises (server) or the Crawling Module (crawlingmodule) tab, depending on your content retrieval context. With the latter, you must install the Crawling Module to make your source operational.

  3. Click the Jira Software Data Center tile.

  4. In the Add a new Jira Software Data Center source panel, provide the following information:

    • Name: The source name can’t be modified once it’s saved. Therefore, make sure to use a short and descriptive name, using letters, numbers, hyphens, and underscores. Avoid spaces and other special characters.

    • Address: The base URL of your Jira Software Data Center instance. Ensure to include the protocol (https:// or http://).

    • Authentication: How Coveo should log in to your Jira Software Data Center instance to index your content.

      If you select Personal access token

      1. Create a crawling account dedicated to your source. This account must have access to all the content that you want to index. See Source credentials leading practices for other leading practices to follow. This account must also have the Jira Administrators global permission.

      2. Create a personal access token for your crawling account.

      3. Back in the source configuration panel, enter this access token.

      If you select Basic authentication

      1. Create a crawling account dedicated to your source. This account must have access to all the content that you want to index. See Source credentials leading practices for other leading practices to follow. This account must also have the Jira Administrators global permission.

      2. Back in the source configuration panel, enter the username and password of this account.

      If you select No login - Content to index is public

      1. Click Next.

      2. Select who will be able to access the source items through a Coveo-powered search interface. For details on this parameter, see Content security.

    • Project (available with the Enterprise edition): Optionally, associate your source with Coveo projects.

  5. Click Add source.

  6. Specify your source settings. Refer to the following sections for detailed information on the source settings:

"Configuration" tab

When configuring or editing your Jira Software Data Center source, the Configuration tab is selected by default. It contains your source’s general and authentication information, as well as other parameters that let you specify the content to index.

"Content to index" subtab

The Content to index subtab lets you define the content that you want to make available as search results.

Additional content

Optionally, you can index the files attached to the indexed issues and comments.

You can also index comments posted on issues. By default, these comments will be indexed as metadata of issue items. However, you have the option to index comments as individual items instead. If you do, access permissions will also be indexed, which means that only the users allowed to access a comment will be able to find it through a Coveo-powered search interface.

Moreover, you can index work logs from time entries on indexed issues.

"Authentication" subtab

The Authentication subtab contains settings used by the source crawler to emulate the behavior of a user authenticating to access restricted Jira Software Data Center content.

Jira address: The base URL of your Jira Software Data Center instance. Ensure to include the protocol (https:// or http://).

Authentication: How Coveo should log in to your Jira Software Data Center instance to index your content.

If you select Personal access token

  1. Create a crawling account dedicated to your source. This account must have access to all the content that you want to index. See Source credentials leading practices for other leading practices to follow. This account must also have the Jira Administrators global permission.

  2. Create a personal access token for your crawling account.

  3. Back in the source configuration panel, enter this access token.

If you select Basic authentication

  1. Create a crawling account dedicated to your source. This account must have access to all the content that you want to index. See Source credentials leading practices for other leading practices to follow. This account must also have the Jira Administrators global permission.

  2. Back in the source configuration panel, enter the username and password of this account.

If you select No login

Go to the Content security tab, and then select who will be able to access the source items through a Coveo-powered search interface. For details on this parameter, see Content security.

"Identification" subtab

The Identification subtab contains general information about the source.

"Items" tab

On the Items tab, you can specify how the source handles items based on their file type or content type.

File types

File types let you define how the source handles items based on their file extension or content type. For each file type, you can specify whether to index the item content and metadata, only the item metadata, or neither.

You should fine-tune the file type configurations with the objective of indexing only the content that’s relevant to your users.

Example

Your repository contains .pdf files, but you don’t want them to appear in search results. You click Extensions and then, for the .pdf extension, you change the Default action and Action on error values to Ignore item.

For more details about this feature, see File type handling.

Content and images

If you want Coveo to extract text from image files or PDF files containing images, enable the appropriate option. The extracted text is processed as item data, meaning that it’s fully searchable and will appear in the item Quick view.

Note

When OCR is enabled, ensure the source’s relevant file type configurations index the item content. Indexing the item’s metadata only or ignoring the item will prevent OCR from being applied.

See Enable optical character recognition for details on this feature.

"Content security" tab

Select who will be able to access the source items through a Coveo-powered search interface. For details on the content security options, see Content security.

Note

The Same users and groups as in your content system option requires you to provide the credentials of a Jira Administrator account on the Configuration tab, under Authentication.

"Access" tab

On the Access tab, specify whether each group (and API key, if applicable) in your Coveo organization can view or edit the current source.

For example, when creating a new source, you could decide that members of Group A can edit its configuration, while Group B can only view it.

For more information, see Custom access level.

Build the source

  1. Finish adding or editing your source:

    • When you’re done editing the source and want to make your changes effective, click Add and build source/Save and rebuild source.

    • When you want to save your source configuration changes without starting a build/rebuild, such as when you know you want to make other changes soon, click Add source/Save. On the Sources (platform-ca | platform-eu | platform-au) page, click Launch build or Start required rebuild when you’re ready to make your changes effective and index your content.

      Tip
      Leading practice

      By default, a Jira Software source indexes the entire Jira Software instance content. To index only certain projects, click Save, and then specify the desired address patterns in your source JSON configuration before launching the initial build. See Add source filters for further information.

  2. On the Sources (platform-ca | platform-eu | platform-au) page, follow the progress of your source addition or modification.

  3. Once the source is built or rebuilt, review its content in the Content Browser.

Index metadata

To use metadata values in search interface facets or result templates, the metadata must be mapped to fields. Coveo automatically maps only a subset of the metadata it extracts. You must map any additional metadata to fields manually.

Note

Not clear on the purpose of indexing metadata? Watch this video.

  1. On the Sources (platform-ca | platform-eu | platform-au) page, click your source, and then click More > View and map metadata in the Action bar.

  2. Review the default metadata that your source is extracting from your content.

  3. Map any currently not indexed metadata that you want to use in facets or result templates to fields. The source extracts Jira custom fields as metadata named fields.customfield_<ID>, where <ID> is the numeric identifier of the Jira custom field. For help associating Jira custom field names with their numeric identifiers, see this article.

    1. Click the metadata and then, at the top right, click Add to Index.

    2. In the Apply a mapping on all item types of a source panel, select the field you want to map the metadata to, or add a new field if none of the existing fields are appropriate.

      Note

      For advanced mapping configurations, like applying a mapping to a specific item type, see Manage mappings.

    3. Click Apply mapping.

  4. Return to the Sources (platform-ca | platform-eu | platform-au) page.

  5. To reindex your source with your new mappings, click your source, and then click More > Rebuild in the Action bar.

  6. Once the source is rebuilt, review your item field values. They should now include the values of the metadata you selected to index.

    1. On the Sources (platform-ca | platform-eu | platform-au) page, click your source, and then click More > Open in Content Browser in the Action bar.

    2. Select the card of the item for which you want to inspect properties, and then click Properties in the Action bar.

    3. In the panel that appears, select the Fields tab.

Required privileges

You can assign privileges to allow access to specific tools in the Coveo Administration Console. The following table indicates the privileges required to view or edit elements of the Sources (platform-ca | platform-eu | platform-au) page and associated panels. See Manage privileges and Privilege reference for more information.

Note

The Edit all privilege isn’t required to create sources. When granting privileges for the Sources domain, you can grant a group or API key the View all or Custom access level, instead of Edit all, and then select the Can Create checkbox to allow users to create sources. See Can Create ability dependence for more information.
Actions Service Domain Required access level

View sources, view source update schedules, and subscribe to source notifications

Content

Fields

View

Sources

Organization

Organization

Edit sources, edit source update schedules, and edit source mappings

Organization

Organization

View

Content

Fields

Edit

Sources

View and map metadata

Content

Source metadata

View

Fields

Organization

Organization

Content

Sources

Edit

What’s next?

1. Jira project metadata is included on the issues of the project, but the projects themselves aren’t included.