Export JIRA Data Using Kettle REST Client

Kettle version 4.4 provides step which is able to connect remote REST services. As JIRA provides such interface it is fully possible to get data remotely using this step. Anyway some tricks should be applied in order to do that.

Mandatory Input Row

To start REST step communication with remote host an input row is needed. This was hard for me to find out as it is normal for such step to provide data input directly from its communication.

So if you need to input data from remote JIRA you'll have to provide at least one (in this case generated) input row.

Configure JIRA Connection

To connect remote JIRA server you'll need its root URL.

Add the root URL and don't forget to set the REST call statement. In this case calling search statement for project with key 'DOX'.

Set HTTP method to GET and Application type to JSON. Resulting JSON text will be passed to following steps under 'result' field name.

It is also necessary to provide authentication information if your JIRA instance interface is not publicly accessible.

Set your JIRA user name into 'Http Login' field and your password into 'Http Password' field.

Extract Data

As the REST service step provides JSON text input you can use 'Json Input' step provided in Kettle the same way as mentioned in Export JIRA Data Using Pentaho DI

Just provide JSON Path expressions for each field you need to extract. On this picture extracting task key, task summary and task status is shown.

PDI Jira

The idea behind PDI Jira is to be more specialized in using JIRA REST interface for integrating JIRA data using Pentaho DI although it is in too early phase and still needs JSON Input step for parsing result.