It's possible to profit from Power BI Jira reporting and spreading them among non-Jira users, however, to enjoy this you need a reliable connector app for Jira. But which one is the best to choose?
The article aims to give you complete objective information about several of them from the Atlassian marketplace to ensure you can make the best choice ever according to your needs.
Custom Power BI Connectors: Why So Popular?
The current tendency is that the popularity of custom BI connectors is constantly growing and there is no surprise in it. B usiness analytics is a powerful tool in today's reality and data is valuable nowadays only if you know how to read and analyze it. Without these skills, it is difficult to increase cost-effectiveness, run the strategy, and monitor the performance of companies and their teams.
To arrange the process of interpreting and analyzing the information in an efficient way Power BI is popular nowadays to use thanks to its report publication and distribution capabilities.
It helps to use raw data in an effective way and as a result, you can influence the whole organization because you have business reporting to support your recommendations. Obviously, the value of business analytics and data visualization tools is as high as ever and Power BI is the choice of many companies that realize this fact.
Power BI helps to create comprehensive and beautiful dashboards that are easy for users to analyze, customize to specific needs, and explore the data in different ways. To be able to fully use all its capabilities it is important to have a reliable and seamless integration solution with the needed data sources, such as Jira.
There are different options to integrate Jira with Power BI, and using the Power BI Connector app for this purpose is one of the options to consider due to its benefits for users.
Custom Power BI Сonnectors generally tend to have a very convenient and easy-to-use interface without needing any programming skills to set up Power BI Jira integration and start using it. Very often they offer wide data selection opportunities that will help you select the best attributes for your reports.
Customizing is a reality with Power BI and the attractive advantage is that it is an affordable solution for many organizations. That said, Power BI connector apps are ready-to-use solutions not to lose time and money as well for developing custom Power BI Jira integration to meet your needs.
These are the main reasons why Power BI connectors are becoming so popular in many large and famous companies, which makes it a dependable solution to integrate Power BI to profit from all the advantages above. There are several connector apps on the market to choose from which vendors are professional and feedback about them proves the reliability and high performance of the Power BI Connectors they offer.
Power BI Jira Integration: Connectors Overview
The term 'Connector' means the process when data is transformed from one base to another. In the modern business environment, all large organizations use several databases to manage data. Shifting your data between the databases can be a complex issue however which is made easier with Power BI data connectors.
Power BI Jira Connector add-ons help a user organization to connect Jira instances to the Power BI system in a safe way and thanks to this secure connection the companies can make Power BI Jira data reporting and increase their Jira analytics performance.
There are several apps on the Atlassian Marketplace that can connect Jira to Power BI and they tend to have the same aims which are simple Power BI Jira integration and easy Jira data export to Power BI for further custom visualizations with Jira data for quicker decision-making, creating dashboards and reports, analyzing bugs and performance from Jira, and visualizing how quickly issues are solved.
Let's have a look into some differences among them to keep in mind when you make your choice by distinguishing two leading solutions on the Atlassian Marketplace, these are Power BI Jira Connector from Appfire and Power BI Connector for Jira from Alpha Serve.
General Comparison
The list of some basic features and metrics obvious from the Marketplace listing that can influence your decision in making choice:
- How many times the application was trusted and installed by other users.
Power BI Connector for Jira is obviously leading in this with 5237 downloads against 2335 of Power BI Jira Connector (as of 11/11/2022).
For these two Connectors, it is almost the same with a 0,1 point difference in favor of Power BI Connector for Jira (3,9 against 3,8 for Power BI Jira Connector).
- Marketplace security programs participation
Both Connector apps are involved in the highest standards for reliability, security, and support through participation in Cloud Fortified and other security programs from Atlassian.
- The Jira Cloud Migration Assistant.
It helps you in migrating your Server and Data Center data to a new or existing Cloud site, and Power BI Jira Connector doesn`t offer this function but Power BI Connector for Jira does.
This means that the vendor constantly improves the app and keeps it up-to-date. Both Connector apps are regularly updated.
Power BI Connector for Jira has well-structured and clear documentation with step-by-step manuals, comprehensive navigation, and professional support 24/7, meanwhile, users find out these are not strong points of Power BI Jira Connector and it can be difficult to obtain professional support or comprehend documentation on their own.
Power BI Connectors Features Differentiation
Power BI Jira Templates
What is extremely convenient in Power BI Connector for Jira by Alpha Serve is Power BI dashboard templates in .pbit format that can enable you to build your own within one day, supplied with pre-configured data sources to save your precious time for data selection. You just need to go to the template tab, select the template you like, and then your data dashboard will be ready to analyze in several clicks. There aren't any built-in Power BI templates offered in the Power BI Jira Connector of Appfire.
Permissions and Data Sharing
Sometimes it's necessary that the company admin sets up different levels of permission to manage data for different team users; the Power BI connector for Jira grants this function.
Power Query Support
Would you like to profit from Power Query? That tool allows users to get and change data from a variety of Microsoft products and the Power BI connector for Jira is able to provide you this support while Power BI Jira Connector isn't.
Calculated Fields
If you have to create new data from the data that already exists, to make your data analysis more flexible and efficient, you may need Calculated fields that apply additional logic in data analysis. You can chart your Calculated fields such as issue time in status or time with assignee if you install Power BI Connector for Jira. Note that this is extremely useful if you're not using Time in Status apps, but wish to include these key metrics in Power BI Jira reports.
Advanced Filters and Custom Fields
Sometimes you have to focus only on data that matters now to make important business decisions, and advanced Jira Software filters enable you to build the structure of the report you need for your Jira Software projects. If this function is vital for the solutions to your issues, the Power BI connector for Jira is the tool you need, at the same time Power, BI Jira connector doesn't provide this. However, custom field exportation is available with both of these connectors.
Export Data From Jira: Available Scope
Jira's important ability is to export data into a few standards, easy-to-read, and reused formats. If you still doubt why it is important to export data from Jira to Power BI, here are several facts to persuade you:
- You can share data in reports with external (non-Jira) users
- You'd have a better understanding of the time spent, project costs, and revenue, giving you more control and allowing you to make more informed business decisions. Surely, you could audit your data directly through Jira, but exporting and exploring at your pace is usually a sensible decision;
- You can avoid losses and get great support in migration projects that are usually painful.
Moreover, it's better not to depend exclusively on the analysis of underlying Jira data when there are several better solutions on the Atlassian Marketplace. There are 3rd-party applications that have very good value for business teams in improving their processes and organizing efficient work.
Here is the list of apps that are supported by Alpha Serve's Power BI Connector for Jira, thus the data of the following apps can be precisely sent to Power BI:
It is necessary to mention that Power BI Jira Connector will support only Tempo Timesheets, Insight and Projectrak.
Power BI Connectors Pricing
The price of the add-on is an important factor to choose the appropriate Connector either if there are more than ten users because both Cloud apps are free for 10 users.
The price range of Alpha Serve's connector app is 1.25 $ (11-100 users) to 0.01 $ (15000 users) against Appfire pricing from 1.50 $ (11-100 users) to 0.07 $ (15000 users). The cost difference is not so big but in long term distance it plays the role in cost optimisation, especially for bigger Jira instances, as the per-user pricing 15000+ user tiers for Alpha Serve is much less.
About Vendors
As it was already mentioned before Power BI connector for Jira is developed by Alpha Serve, and Power BI Jira Connector released by Appfire. When you buy the product you should be careful and check the information about vendors.
Both vendors are fast-growing, trusted Atlassian Marketplace Partners and have a good reputation, but the main difference is in companies` sizes and ages.
Appfire has been building a platform of trusted apps (there are more than 200 apps already!) since 2005 as one of the original partners of the Atlassian Marketplace. This result was obtained thanks to numerous apps' acquisitions in the last couple of years. For example, their Power BI Jira Connector was originally developed by Indian vendor Navarambh Software Pvt Ltd, then purchased by Bob Swift, further part of Appfire.
Alpha Serve is a comparatively younger partner of Atlassian and smaller in its size, but there are already 25 apps in the company's portfolio. Alpha Serve has been on the market as a professional software development company since 2003, then joined the Atlassian ecosystem in 2018. Now they are a Platinum Marketplace Partner of Atlassian with the main focus on BI connectors.
What is important to note is that they seem to be professional BI connector apps developers as they offer BI Connectors not only for Jira but also for ServiceNow, Shopify, Zendesk, and monday.com.
Quick Links:Final Words
There is no doubt, it is absolutely vital to track all the projects along with updating data on team results. The more comprehensive data is, the better you understand your business, its effectiveness, and its aims to reach.
Jira is one of the most popular databases that contains info on all your basic business processes that can make you calm as you are informed and everything is under control. And With Power BI, all team members have access to up-to-date reports via a dedicated dashboard. Such reports are both accurate and beneficial, they do not include any figures that are irrelevant or confusing.
To summarize, having a compatible tool to connect Jira and Power BI is a significant advantage for your company. There are many Power BI connector apps in the Marketplace and sometimes it can be challenging to compare and decide, but now you are closer to your right choice than ever.
