JIRA To Task Managers

This is a project to have JIRA update AppleScript-enabled Task apps like Omnifocus and Things.

Requires Yosemite because it uses JXA for ease of scripting.

Currently supported Task Apps:

• Omnifocus 1 & 2
• Things 2 & 3
• Apple Reminders

Why?

If you are a fan of David Allen's GTD, you probably know how important it is to have only "One Inbox". Many people use something that syncs everywhere, such as Omnifocus or Things.

However for collaboration with others, many techies use [Atlassian JIRA] (https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira "Atlassian JIRA Product page"). This ends up in a weird "two inboxes" problems, that forces us to schedule our coding life separate from our non-coding life (both work and play).

This I believe leads to tremendous life imbalances. Do I code now, or do I write docs (which are not in JIRA)? On my "What's Next", are my coding tasks included?

JIRA To Task managers is a set of scripts that you can schedule on your Mac, which create one task for each of your assigned JIRA tasks. You can use cron to "set it and forget it", and get back to One Inbox Bliss.

If you're a coder, and you use a different (scriptable) task manager on your Mac, I invite you to code a destination (see below). JXA can be fun!

Setting Up

This shows the setup for Things 2. They all work the same, just run the jira-to-(yourapp) instead.

Some projects may ask slightly different questions.

You may need to use rvm to install a newer ruby. I use 2.1.5, and it's what's specified in the Gemfile.

The first time you run it, it looks like this:

(maybe RVM install or something..)
$ bundle install
(installs all your gems and goodies..)

$ ./jira-to-things -C
Cleared login from /Users/yourname/.jiratotaskmanagers/jira_to_things.yml
JIRA Url (usually https://yourdomain.atlassian.net):
    (you type your JIRA URI)
JIRA Query (leave blank to use assignee = currentUser() order by priority desc ):
    (If you don't know JQL, blank should be fine)
Project Name on your Mac's To Do App:
    (type the Project name in your Mac's TODO app)
User name:
    (your JIRA user name.
		Note: If you use OAuth, you still have a user name mapping,
		it's in your profile view)
Password:
Store config? (y/n) y
Running JQL:
assignee = currentUser() order by priority desc
Storing password
Storing on /Users/yourname/.jiratotaskmanagers/jira_to_things.yml
Got 50 issues that we'll sync with your app

After this, every time you run it it looks like this:

Running add_to_things.jxa
Finished updating 50 tasks in Things.
$ ./jira-to-things
Running JQL:
assignee = currentUser() order by priority desc
Got 999 issues that we'll sync with your app

Running add_to_things.jxa
Finished updating 999 tasks in Things.

Some Useful Queries

The default query should show everything assigned to you, open or not (we need to know when it's closed to mark it done). But sometimes this could be a lot of stuff and overwhelm you. So here's other possibilities:

assignee = currentUser() and (sprint in openSprints()) order by priority desc

This query will show whatever you have assigned to any current sprints. If your workflow has your issues moving naturally to the next sprint after the first one, this should work well.

Troubleshooting

Can't get object on (JXA file)

jiratotaskmanagers/lib/task_destinations/add_to_omnifocus.jxa:1676:1700: execution error: Error on line 42: Error: Can't get object. (-1728)

This is nearly always a problem with your project or context not existing. Use the --print-config option to see the configuration and make sure your project names and contexts are correct. Go to the appropriate line (42 in this case) to see which variable is wrong for a hint.

Once you've determined what was wrong, --clear-config option to reconfigure, and answer the questions correctly.

JIRA::HTTPError Unauthorized

/Users/David/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.1.5/gems/jira-ruby-0.1.14/lib/jira/request_client.rb:14:in `request': Unauthorized (JIRA::HTTPError)

This is a JIRA authentication error. We use JIRA basic auth. Clear your config and log in correctly.

Note that if you have never signed in to JIRA using a password (for example, if you use Google Apps login), you need to go to your profile, look at the username and click on "Set Password" to set an initial password. Make sure you can log in to JIRA directly.

Adding it to Cron

You are set up! Now you can put it on a cron line, like this one which sets it to run at office hours (use crontab -e in Terminal for this):

*/10 7-18 * * * /yourdir/jira-to-things > /yourdir/log/jira_to_omnifocus.log 2>&1

Congratulations! You are done.

Multiple Profiles

Say you have two or three filters you'd like to get imported with different settings (maybe subprojects, different contexts for different JIRAs, etc). For this you can use multiple profiles. Simply pass the --config-file option to set up a new yml file. For example:

$ ./jira-to-things --config-file=myopensourceproject.yml Config: myopensourceproject.yml JIRA Url (usually https://yourdomain.atlassian.net):

Security Warning

The password for your JIRA account will be saved on a file on your computer called ~/.jiratoomnifocus/jira_credentials.yml. It is encrypted using blowfish using a constant key.

As long as both your credentials file are secured as (chmod 700) and owned by the user that will be running it on cron), you should be okay and secure (unless someone breaks into your account, in which case you have bigger problems than your JIRA access!).

If this bothers you, you can set the environment variable JIRA_TO_TASKS_CRYPT_KEY to have the configuration store use a different key. You will need to run -C to clear the config that uses the old key.

How to add New Destinations

So you have Super-Duper app and you want to add support for it? With JXA, this is now fairly simple to do. JXA is just like JavaScript, and you have our template here.

1. Copy lib/task_destinations/add_to_things.jxa and edit it.

   Start by changing TaskApp = Application("Things") to match the app you want to work with. Use Applescript Editor (or Textmate with AppleScript JXA Bundle) and a sample JSON file, or just finish the rest of the changes and do trial-and-error with your own app.

2. Copy jira-to-things to jira-to-(yourapp)

3. change the JXA_FILE constant to point to your jxa file, and the CONFIG_STORE_OPTIONS to point to the config file you want to keep.

4. If you need extra configuration ("contexts, tags, oh my!"), add ConfigStore::Param entries to the task_app_params array (as you test, use -C to clear the config whenever you change it)

Try it out and you're done! Send me a pull request and I'll accept it.

License

Copyright 2009, David Martinez

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
You may obtain a copy of the License at

   http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
limitations under the License.