ServiceNow Jira Service Management Integration: No-Code Setup Guide

ServiceNow is a popular platform for organization-wide, enterprise-grade ITSM. But it’s rarely the platform everyone uses. Teams working in the Atlassian ecosystem typically rely on Jira for project management and sprint planning, which makes Jira Service Management particularly attractive — since it integrates natively with other Atlassian products. When organization-wide ITSM processes need to cross through software development projects (either because they impact these projects or require developer input), teams need to deal with two siloed systems that don’t share data effectively. That’s where an integration that supports bidirectional sync comes in.

Here’s everything you need to know to connect ServiceNow, Jira Service Management, and your IT management processes with a low-code 2-way integration. You can sync ServiceNow incidents to issues without having to write scripts and still keep your ITSM, ITOM, or ITAM workflows fully integrated.

The use case we’ll be using to demonstrate this integration focuses on change requests, but it can easily be re-applied to incident management, DevOps, or any other ticket collaboration between an IT Department and an engineering team.

This integration will be built through Unito, a 2-way low-code integration platform with support for ServiceNow, Jira Service Management, Jira, and 50+ other industry-leading tools.

Overview

• Tools: ServiceNow and Jira Service Management
• Use cases: Ticket escalation, product management, software development
• Great for: Product managers, IT, customer success, software developers, project management

Unito’s two-way sync integration for ServiceNow and Jira Service Management allows users of any technical background, from product managers to software developers and team leads, to sync ServiceNow records with Jira Service Management issues. This integration syncs updates back and forth between both tools, creates new work items, and can even automate repetitive actions. This in-depth guide shows you how that’s done.

Why would an organization use both ServiceNow and JSM?

ServiceNow and Jira Service Management are both popular options for ITSM and IT support, but they have different strengths. ServiceNow is a complex, but robust platform that’s suited to enterprise-scale ITIL, where compliance and structured governance are vital. Jira Service Management, on the other hand, offers faster setup, more accessible pricing, and native integration with other Atlassian products (Jira Software, Confluence, Bitbucket). It’s also more suited to agile and DevOps workflows. Both platforms have similar functionality, but they operate in completely different environments.

When these two platforms are used within the same project, workflow, or organization, data silos can form. Incidents logged in one system don’t reach the other. Updates need to be copied and pasted manually. The right integration eliminates this extra administrative work.

Unito’s integration vs. ServiceNow’s Jira Service Management Spoke

ServiceNow offers “Spokes,” built-in integrations for other popular apps, like Jira Service Management. This Spoke allows ServiceNow users to automate certain actions between this platform and Jira Service Management. These automations cover a wide range of actions, from adding users to an organization to looking up issue statuses and creating comments.

These Spokes have limited support for two-way syncing, and require some technical knowledge to deploy and maintain. Additionally, they come at an additional cost above your ServiceNow license.

Setup in ServiceNow and Jira Service Management

Once you connect your tools to Unito, the platform can only operate within the same permissions as the user who authorizes Jira and ServiceNow. So if you’re able to create new records/incidents or issues, then Unito will be able to create and sync them too through a flow.

What’s a Unito flow? A flow represents the connection between ServiceNow and Jira Service Management that allows your data to sync bidirectionally. Building a flow takes the average Unito user 12 minutes on average (once they’re familiar with the interface), though obviously it will take a bit more time when you set up your very first flow.

Connecting ServiceNow to Unito for the first time

All you need to connect ServiceNow to Unito is your:

• ServiceNow Domain URL: https://INSTANCENAME.service-now.com
• ServiceNow Username
• ServiceNow Password

Connect to Unito with a new ServiceNow account

Some ServiceNow instances require newly created users to change their password immediately upon login. If you’re using a new ServiceNow account to connect Unito, this can disrupt the authentication process by the forced password change.

Make sure that account has CRUD access to the same records and tables you plan on syncing.

You’ll also need to disable the Password reset flag on any new account or reset the password before connecting to Unito.

Solution: Disable password reset flag

1. Log in to your ServiceNow instance as an administrator.
2. Navigate to the User Administration > Users section.
3. Locate the user account that you’ll be using for the Unito integration.
4. On the user record, set Password needs reset to false.
5. Save the changes.

Choose a ServiceNow table to sync with Jira Service Management

ServiceNow is vastly configurable in countless ways, but Unito is able to link incidents from your tables no matter how your instance is configured. But you’ll still need to consider what incidents precisely you plan to sync. In our demo use case, we’re syncing records from a table called Incidents into Jira Service Management.

From your ServiceNow dashboard, select All > System Definition > Tables

Then, narrow down your search to the table you’re looking for. Beside Table select Name (or any other method of finding the right table in your organization). In our case, we searched for Incident:

Setup in Jira Service Management

If you’re connecting Jira Service Management to Unito via OAuth2, then there are no extra steps to sync your ServiceNow cards other than the on-screen instructions when adding your account for the first time:

Anyone using Jira Service Management on-premise (local server) may wish to review our guides to on-premise installations or connecting Jira via ngrok.

If you’re connecting Jira Service Management without OAuth2, you’ll need to follow a few extra steps:

• The Jira Service Management account connected to Unito must have administrator access with global permissions.
• Then, you’ll need to:
  • Change your Jira contact email visibility to anyone from your Jira profile page.
  • Set up an application link in Jira so that your issues can sync to ServiceNow incidents.

Step 1. Connect a ServiceNow table and Jira Service Management project to Unito

• Sign up for Unito if you haven’t already!
• Navigate to the Unito App and select +Create Flow.
• Select Start Here to connect ServiceNow and Jira Service Management.
• Then +Choose account to specify the JSM Project and ServiceNow Table you plan on syncing.
• Click Confirm.

You can either type in the name of your table or scroll through the list to find the one you want to connect. Only records from that specific table and your project in JSM will sync in this particular flow. Afterwards, you can duplicate this flow and change to another project or table to go through this process faster.

As described above, we chose the table Change Request by typing it into the search box.

Read more about connecting tools to Unito.

Step 2. Choose a flow direction for creating new incidents or issues

Your low-code Unito flow lets you automatically create new ServiceNow incidents or JSM issues based on manual activity. So for example, when someone on your team creates a new issue in Jira, Unito automatically creates a linked record in ServiceNow.

Select a flow direction with one of the three directional arrows to indicate: from ServiceNow to JSM, JSM to ServiceNow, or both.

When is the best time to create a 2-way flow? Choose a 2-way flow direction if you have incidents in a specific ServiceNow table that you want added to a specific Jira Service Management project and issues in JSM that you want added to that same table in ServiceNow.

Read more about flow direction.

Step 3. Filter out unrelated issues or incidents from syncing by setting rules

Now we can set up rules to determine which manual actions in your tools will automatically create new ServiceNow incidents or Jira Service Management issues.

This is extremely useful for filtering out unrelated data from syncing, particularly if your ServiceNow tables contain large volumes of data. You’ll want to apply rules that filter out all but the most essential incidents or issues.

Since both Jira Service Management and ServiceNow are vastly configurable in countless ways, everyone will have a unique method of filtering their data with rules.

Which fields should I use for my rules? We recommend select lists in Jira Service Management or choice fields in ServiceNow to use in your rules. The logic will then tell your flow to only sync issues or incidents if specific values from those fields are present.

Issues and incidents that match your rules will stay in sync with Unito. As soon as the rules no longer apply, that item will stop syncing. For example, if the Hardware category above is changed from a synced issue or record, Unito will no longer keep it updated unless the category changes back to Hardware.

Find out more about setting rules in Unito.

Step 4. Link fields between ServiceNow incidents and Jira Service Management issues

This is where you tell Unito which fields in ServiceNow to link with similar fields in Jira Service Management so that manual changes in one affect the other automatically.

When you first open this screen, you’ll be presented with two options. Select Auto-map to begin with a prebuilt template that can later be modified.

Click + Add mapping to add a new pair of fields to be synced. Then, click Select a field for each tool, and find the appropriate field to map.

Tip: If you aren’t sure where to put data from one tool when it syncs over to the other, you can always add it to the Description Footer, e.g., Issue ID to Description footer in the example above.

Clicking on the gear or cog icon beside a pair of fields will allow you to configure the individual values or statuses of that field to link them when one or the other is changed manually.

The most common field mapping for integrations between ServiceNow and Jira Service Management pairs ServiceNow’s Incident State field with JSM’s Status field. You can match Incident States and Statuses closely (e.g., “New” with “In Progress”) or match different options (e.g., “In Progress” to “Resolved) to represent how your workflow actually moves through these tools.

Step 5. Launch your ServiceNow Jira Service Management integration

If you’ve followed the steps above, your flow will now: 

• Add a new issue in Jira Service Management when a record is created in ServiceNow based on the rules you set in Step 3.
• Create a new record in ServiceNow when you manually add a JSM issue based on your rules.
• Keep ServiceNow incidents and JSM issues in sync as long as they match the conditions of your rules.

Here’s a quick snapshot of our synced ServiceNow record and Jira Service Management issue, highlighting a few of the fields that are being kept in sync:

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out and let us know.

What’s next after you sync ServiceNow and Jira Service Management with Unito?

• Learn how to duplicate this flow for additional use cases
• Build an automated ticket escalation queue from Jira Service Management to Jira Cloud
• Connect ServiceNow to monday.com, Azure DevOps to ServiceNow, ServiceNow to Google Sheets, or ServiceNow to any other tool supported by Unito.
• Try to sync Jira issues to Google Sheets.
• Smartsheet and Salesforce
• ServiceNow and Smartsheet
• Salesforce and ServiceNow
• ServiceNow and Wrike
• ServiceNow and Jira

Resources for ServiceNow users

• Read an overview of Unito’s ServiceNow integration
• How does Unito stack up against ServiceNow Integration Hub?
• Salesforce or ServiceNow? Why not use both?
• How to run a ServiceNow export to Microsoft Excel.

FAQ: Jira Service Management ServiceNow integration

Why would an organization use both ServiceNow and Jira Service Management?

Many organizations use both ServiceNow and Jira Service Management to handle organization-wide ITSM and developer-specific support workflows. ServiceNow often serves as the main ITSM solution for enterprise organizations, while Jira Service Management is used within software development teams. The former is robust, with rigid systems that support best practices for ITIL compliance and auditability. The latter is more aligned with the agile processes involved in DevOps, as well as offering native integrations with other Atlassian platforms.

What are common use cases for a ServiceNow-JSM integration?

A ServiceNow-JSM integration supports a wide array of use cases within ITSM and software development, such as:

• Ticket escalation: Tickets might begin in ServiceNow and need to be escalated for development work in JSM. An integration ensures context and status updates transfer seamlessly between tools.
• Change request tracking: When change requests impact development workflows, developers and team leads need to investigate their impact and share their input. With an integration, the result of that investigation can be shared automatically without any manual work.
• Performance reporting: If ITSM workflows pass through both ServiceNow and Jira Service Management, reporting tools in either platform don’t tell the full story. Integrations can centralize data in whichever platform you end up using for performance reporting.

What’s the difference between Unito and the ServiceNow-JSM Spoke?

ServiceNow’s JSM Spoke allows users to automate actions with limited two-way syncing capability between the two tools, requiring some level of technical knowledge to build and maintain. Unito’s two-way integration is no-code, with a simple visual interface that allows business users to build their own integrations in minutes. Unito also allows you to integrate both ServiceNow and Jira Service Management with 60+ other tools, while ServiceNow’s JSM Spoke only pairs these tools together.

Can Unito sync custom fields between ServiceNow and Jira Service Management?

Yes, Unito supports a wide range of ServiceNow custom field types, like choice fields, reference fields, and journal fields. Unito also supports custom fields in Jira Service Management.

Does Unito only support ServiceNow incidents?

Unito supports ServiceNow incidents, change requests, problems, and service requests from ServiceNow.

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