Making sure your employees have the right conditions to get their work done is a top priority for every business. So when a computer is not working, a printer is down, or video conferencing won’t connect, you need to be able to quickly and efficiently deal with the request so employees can get back to their regular work. If you have a department managing internal requests from colleagues in Jira, they might struggle to get all the information they need, or worse: spend time trying to fix the wrong asset.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. Elements Connect can help your team get all the information they need from your external databases, all inside Jira.
A classic tale of a broken printer
Let’s imagine you have an Office Management team that uses Jira Business to manages requests concerning office equipment. An employee, David, has just created an issue in the Office Management project because his printer is not working and he needs it for his work. For the “Printer repair” issue, the Office Management project includes 2 standard Jira fields David fills out: printer asset number, and description.
But David made a mistake with the printer reference, and the Office Management team start attempting to fix the wrong printer.
Asking employees to look up serial numbers and manually input them is a recipe for disaster. So a Jira admin might try to create a Jira custom field with a select list to contain all the options available. Instead of manually inputting a reference, employees just have to select from a list.
Manual input errors might be reduced, but now the information in Jira about assets is a duplication of what is already stored in a local CMDB. What happens if a printer is replaced? Those asset numbers in the custom field could quickly become outdated, and manually updating the options with each equipment change or evolution is a poor use of anyone’s time.
After some time spent trying to fix David’s printer, the Office Management team realizes it is no longer under warranty, and the first step should have been to submit an order for a new printer. If only the warranty information had been easily available with the request!
Reduce errors, avoid duplicate and out-of-date data, and save time
Let’s start over with our example of David submitting a request for help with a broken printer, this time with the help of Elements Connect.
With custom fields connected to external databases with Elements Connect, we can reduce errors dues to manual input, have up-to-date data, and most importantly save time getting the issue resolved. David selects the printer reference ID when he creates the issue, and details of the printer (including an image) from the CMDB database are displayed in the issue creation screen.
With the brand, reference, location, and image, it’s easier for David to create an issue with confidence knowing the correct printer has been selected. And once the issue has been created, maintenance information is pulled from the CMDB SQL database through an Elements Connect post-function and added to the issue for the Office Management team. The request can be processed without having to consult multiple sources of information.
If any of these references are updated in the external database, they are automatically available in the Elements Connect fields. Instead of spending time looking up details and double checking that everything is up to date, employees focus on resolving the issue.
Leverage your data in external databases with Elements Connect
You already have your data stored and updated in databases, and after all the time and effort invested to manage and keep those databases up to date, keeping it separate from Jira doesn’t help you or your team. Leverage your data in external databases with Elements Connect and bring everything together where you are tracking your work.
Start using your external data in Jira today
