Jira Connector for Alteryx : Update issue comment via SQL

Learn how to update issue comment using the Jira Connector for Alteryx. This connector enables you to read and write Jira data effortlessly. Track, manage, and automate issues, projects, worklogs, and comments — almost no coding required. We'll walk you through the exact setup.

Let's dive in!

Jira ODBC Driver Powering this integration

High performance
Bidirectional
Low-code / No-code
Easy to use

Built on the ZappySys API Driver, the Jira ODBC Driver is a high-performance, low-code / no-code solution. It enables you to connect to Jira data without any coding right in your SQL Server, or any ODBC/JDBC application. Part of the ODBC PowerPack.

Documentation

Create data source using Jira ODBC Driver

Download and install ODBC PowerPack (if you haven't already).
Search for odbc and open the ODBC Data Sources (64-bit):
Create a User data source (User DSN) based on the ZappySys API Driver driver:

ZappySys API Driver
- Create and use a User DSN if the client application runs under a User Account. This is the ideal option at design time (e.g., when developing in Visual Studio). Use it for both types of applications (64-bit and 32-bit).
- Create and use a System DSN if the client application runs under a System Account (e.g., as a Windows Service). This is usually the required option in a production environment. If your Windows Service is a 32-bit application, you must use the 32-bit ODBC Data Source Administrator to configure this
When the Configuration window appears give your data source a name if you haven't done that already, then select "Jira" from the list of Popular Connectors. If "Jira" is not present in the list, then click "Search Online" and download it. Then set the path to the location where you downloaded it. Finally, click Continue >> to proceed with configuring the DSN:

JiraDSN

Jira

Now it's time to configure the Connection Manager. Select Authentication Type, e.g. Token Authentication. Then select API Base URL (in most cases, the default one is the right one). More info is available in the Authentication section.

API Key based Authentication

Jira authentication

Firstly, login into your Atlassian account and then go to your Jira profile:

Go to Profile > Security.
Click Create and manage API tokens.
Then click Create API token button and give your token a label.
When window appears with new API token, copy and use it in this connection manager.
That's it!

API Connection Manager configuration

Just perform these simple steps to finish authentication configuration:

Set Authentication Type to API Key based Authentication [Http]
Optional step. Modify API Base URL if needed (in most cases default will work).
Fill in all the required parameters and set optional parameters if needed.
Finally, hit OK button:

JiraDSN

Jira

API Key based Authentication [Http]

https://[$Subdomain$].atlassian.net/rest/api/3

Required Parameters
Subdomain	Fill-in the parameter...
Atlassian User Name (email)	Fill-in the parameter...
API Key	Fill-in the parameter...
Optional Parameters
CustomColumnsRegex
RetryMode	RetryWhenStatusCodeMatch
RetryStatusCodeList	429
RetryCountMax	5
RetryMultiplyWaitTime	True

Personal Access Token (PAT) Authentication

Jira authentication

Follow official Atlassian instructions on how to create a PAT (Personal Access Token) for JIRA

API Connection Manager configuration

Just perform these simple steps to finish authentication configuration:

Set Authentication Type to Personal Access Token (PAT) Authentication [Http]
Optional step. Modify API Base URL if needed (in most cases default will work).
Fill in all the required parameters and set optional parameters if needed.
Finally, hit OK button:

JiraDSN

Jira

Personal Access Token (PAT) Authentication [Http]

https://[$Subdomain$].atlassian.net/rest/api/3

Required Parameters
Subdomain	Fill-in the parameter...
Token (PAT Bearer Token)	Fill-in the parameter...
Optional Parameters
CustomColumnsRegex
RetryMode	RetryWhenStatusCodeMatch
RetryStatusCodeList	429
RetryCountMax	5
RetryMultiplyWaitTime	True

OAuth (Must change API Base URL to V3 OAuth)

Jira authentication

OAuth App must be created in Atlassian Developer Console. It is found at https://developer.atlassian.com/console/myapps/ [API reference]

Firstly, login into your Atlassian account and then create Jira application:

Go to Atlassian Developer area.
Click Create and select OAuth 2.0 integration item to create an OAuth app:
Give your app a name, accept the terms and hit Create:
To enable permissions/scopes for your application, click Permissions tab, then hit Add button, and click Configure button, once it appears:
Continue by hitting Edit Scopes button to assign scopes for the application:
Select these scopes or all of them:
Then click Authorization option on the left and click Add button:
Enter your own Callback URL (Redirect URL) or simply enter https://zappysys.com/oauth, if you don't have one:
Then hit Settings option and copy Client ID and Secret into your favorite text editor (we will need them in the next step):
Now go to SSIS package or ODBC data source and in OAuth authentication set these parameters:
- For ClientId parameter use Client ID value from the previous steps.
- For ClientSecret parameter use Secret value from the previous steps.
- For Scope parameter use the Scopes you set previously (specify them all here):
  - offline_access (a must)
  - read:jira-user
  - read:jira-work
  - write:jira-work
  - manage:jira-project
  - manage:jira-configuration
  NOTE: A full list of available scopes is available in Atlassian documentation.
- For Subdomain parameter use your Atlassian subdomain value (e.g. mycompany, if full host name is mycompany.atlassian.net).
Click Generate Token to generate tokens.
Finally, select Organization Id from the drop down.
That's it! You can now use Jira Connector!

API Connection Manager configuration

Just perform these simple steps to finish authentication configuration:

Set Authentication Type to OAuth (**Must change API Base URL to V3 OAuth**) [OAuth]
Optional step. Modify API Base URL if needed (in most cases default will work).
Fill in all the required parameters and set optional parameters if needed.
Press Generate Token button to generate the tokens.
Finally, hit OK button:

JiraDSN

Jira

OAuth (**Must change API Base URL to V3 OAuth**) [OAuth]

https://[$Subdomain$].atlassian.net/rest/api/3

Required Parameters
ClientId	Fill-in the parameter...
ClientSecret	Fill-in the parameter...
Scope	Fill-in the parameter...
ReturnUrl	Fill-in the parameter...
Organization Id (Select after clicking [Generate Token])	Fill-in the parameter...
Optional Parameters
Custom Columns for output (Select after clicking [Generate Token])
RetryMode	RetryWhenStatusCodeMatch
RetryStatusCodeList	429
RetryCountMax	5
RetryMultiplyWaitTime	True

Then go to Preview tab to start building a SQL query.
Once you do that, proceed by opening Query Builder:

ZappySys API Driver - Jira

Read and write Jira data effortlessly. Track, manage, and automate issues, projects, worklogs, and comments — almost no coding required.

JiraDSN
Then simply select the Comments table and Update operation.
Continue by configuring the Required parameters. You can also set optional parameters too.
Move on by hitting Preview Data button to preview the results.

If you see the results you need, simply copy the generated query:

Comments

Update

Required Parameters
IssueId Or Key	Select the value from the dropdown
Comment Id	Select the value from the dropdown

UPDATE Comments
 SET Body='Updated at <<FUN_NOW>>'
WHERE Id=10004
WITH(IssueIdOrKey='CS-2')

Click OK to use built SQL query and close the Query Builder.
Now hit Preview Data button to preview the data using the generated SQL query. If you are satisfied with the result, use this query in Alteryx:
ZappySys API Driver - Jira

Read and write Jira data effortlessly. Track, manage, and automate issues, projects, worklogs, and comments — almost no coding required.

JiraDSN
```
UPDATE Comments
 SET Body='Updated at <<FUN_NOW>>'
WHERE Id=10004
WITH(IssueIdOrKey='CS-2')
```
You can also access data quickly from the tables dropdown by selecting <Select table>.

A WHERE clause, LIMIT keyword will be performed on the client side, meaning that the whole result set will be retrieved from the Jira API first, and only then the filtering will be applied to the data. If possible, it is recommended to use parameters in Query Builder to filter the data on the server side (in Jira servers).

Let's not stop here and explore SQL query examples, including how to use them in Stored Procedures and Views (virtual tables) in the next steps.

Jira SQL query examples

Use these SQL queries in your Alteryx data source:

Update an existing comment (plain text body)

Updates an existing comment’s body. Identify the comment by Id in the WHERE clause and the issue by IssueIdOrKey in WITH. Set Body to the new plain text.

UPDATE Comments
 SET Body='Updated at <<FUN_NOW>>'
WHERE Id=10004
WITH(IssueIdOrKey='CS-2')

update_comment endpoint belongs to Comments table(s), and can therefore be used via those table(s).

Create SQL view in ODBC data source

ZappySys API Drivers support flexible Query language so you can override Default Properties you configured on Data Source such as URL, Body. This way you don't have to create multiple Data Sources if you like to read data from multiple EndPoints. However not every application support supplying custom SQL to driver so you can only select Table from list returned from driver.

If you're dealing with Microsoft Access and need to import data from an SQL query, it's important to note that Access doesn't allow direct import of SQL queries. Instead, you can create custom objects (Virtual Tables) to handle the import process.

Many applications like MS Access, Informatica Designer wont give you option to specify custom SQL when you import Objects. In such case Virtual Table is very useful. You can create many Virtual Tables on the same Data Source (e.g. If you have 50 URLs with slight variations you can create virtual tables with just URL as Parameter setting.

Go to Custom Objects Tab and Click on Add button and Select Add Table:
Enter the desired Table name and click on OK:
And it will open the New Query Window Click on Cancel to close that window and go to Custom Objects Tab.
Select the created table, Select Text Type AS SQL and write the your desired SQL Query and Save it and it will create the custom table in the ZappySys Driver:
Here is an example SQL query for ZappySys Driver. You can insert Placeholders also. Read more about placeholders here
```
SELECT
  "ShipCountry",
  "OrderID",
  "CustomerID",
  "EmployeeID",
  "OrderDate",
  "RequiredDate",
  "ShippedDate",
  "ShipVia",
  "Freight",
  "ShipName",
  "ShipAddress",
  "ShipCity",
  "ShipRegion",
  "ShipPostalCode"
FROM "Orders"
Where "ShipCountry"='USA'
```
That's it now go to Preview Tab and Execute your custom virtual table query. In this example it will extract the orders for the USA Shipping Country only:
```
SELECT * FROM "vt__usa_orders_only"
```

Update issue comment in Alteryx via SQL view

Open Alteryx Designer.
First, verify your DCM Settings to ensure you can access ODBC drivers. Go to Options > User Settings > Edit User Settings.

If DCM Mode is set to DCM Only, change it to DCM Optional if you would like to access the legacy Generic ODBC Connection.

After changing this setting, you may need to click Save and restart the connection window for the "Generic ODBC" icon to appear.
Drag an Input Data tool onto your Alteryx canvas.
In the Configuration pane, click Set Up a Connection.
Note for DCM Users: If your environment has DCM (Data Connection Manager) enabled, the classic "Generic ODBC" icon may be hidden. To find it, select Data sources on the left and type "ODBC" in the search bar.
Once the ODBC window opens, click Connect Asset and select your JiraDSN DSN from the list.

Ensure you have configured a 64-bit System DSN in the Windows ODBC Data Source Administrator before this step.
After selecting your DSN, configure your SQL Query in the Input Data tool configuration:
To save your data, drag an Output Data tool and connect it to the Input Data tool.
Configure the Output Data tool to write to a CSV file:
Press Run (Ctrl+R) to execute the workflow. Verify the results in the Results Window at the bottom.

Advanced topics

Creating SQL stored procedures

You can create procedures to encapsulate custom logic and then only pass handful parameters rather than long SQL to execute your API call.

Steps to create Custom Stored Procedure in ZappySys Driver. You can insert Placeholders anywhere inside Procedure Body. Read more about placeholders here

Go to Custom Objects Tab and Click on Add button and Select Add Procedure:
Enter the desired Procedure name and click on OK:
Select the created Stored Procedure and write the your desired stored procedure and Save it and it will create the custom stored procedure in the ZappySys Driver. Here is an example stored procedure for ZappySys Driver. You can insert Placeholders anywhere inside Procedure Body. Read more about placeholders here
```
CREATE PROCEDURE [usp_get_orders]
    @fromdate = '<<yyyy-MM-dd,FUN_TODAY>>'
 AS
    SELECT * FROM Orders where OrderDate >= '<@fromdate>';
```
That's it now go to Preview Tab and Execute your Stored Procedure using Exec Command. In this example it will extract the orders from the date 1996-01-01:
```
Exec usp_get_orders '1996-01-01';
```

Conclusion

And there you have it — a complete guide on how to update issue comment in Alteryx without writing complex code. All of this was powered by Jira ODBC Driver, which handled the REST API pagination and authentication for us automatically.

Download the trial now or ping us via chat if you have any questions or are looking for a specific feature (you can also reach out to us by submitting a ticket):

Download Chat

More actions supported by Jira Connector

Got another use case in mind? We've documented the exact setups for a variety of essential Jira operations directly in Alteryx, so you can skip the trial and error. Find your next step-by-step guide below: