Automating Workflow to Create New Salesforce Objects

Introduction

 This guide will walk you through the process of automating workflow to create new Salesforce Objects.

A JIRA workflow can be customized to create new Salesforce objects in Salesforce.com when triggered by a particular step. This is achieved by adding a new post function to a workflow step.

A practical usage of this feature would be if a JIRA issue used for support is escalated and a Salesforce Case must be created for it. Without workflow customization the user would have to push the issue to Salesforce manually. With workflow customization this can be completely automated as long as all the required information is supplied to Salesforce.com.

Step-by-Step Guide

The following steps use the example of creating a Salesforce Case object in Salesforce.com whenever the associated issue hits the Start Progress transition of the Open step in the default JIRA workflow.

1. Go to the Administration section of the application and enter your password if prompted.
2. Click on "Workflows" under the "Global Settings" section of the left hand menu.
3. Copy the existing jira (Read-only System Workflow) to new a workflow for the Salesforce by clicking "Copy" under the "Actions" column.
   
4. Name the new workflow e.g. "Salesforce Project Workflow" and add a description. Click "Copy".
   
5. You will see the new inactive workflow in the list of workflows.
   
6. We now need to edit the "Open" step of the new workflow. Click on "Steps" in the "Operations" column of the new workflow.
7. A list of steps available for the workflow will display. Click the "Start Progress" transition for "Open" step.
   
8. Click on the "Post Functions" tab.
   
9. Click on the Add link at the top of the post function area to add a new post function.
   
10. A post function called "Push to Remote System" will be available. Select this and click "Add".
    
11. Select the Target System and object type from the drop down. e.g "Development Salesforce Case". The Target System will be the name inherited from the connection you set up for Salesforce. In our example this was "Development Salesforce". The list of all possible objects in Salesforce is listed. Click "Add".
    
12. The workflow is now ready! Next you will need to create a workflow scheme and associate it to your Salesforce project.
    See: Activating Workflow on how to do this.

To ensure the post function has been set up properly, create a new issue in the Salesforce project in JIRA and then click "Start Progress". A new Salesforce Case should be created in Salesforce and its details automatically populated in the JIRA issue.