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Reporting on Data in External Databases with Elements Connect

Owned by
David Goldstein
May 21, 2024
2 min read

Dataplane works with the Elements Connect add-on to report on data from external data sources.

Elements Connect can be used to create Jira custom fields that pull data from external databases, web sources, files, or other non-Jira locations. 

Using Elements Connect with Dataplane

In addition to displaying Elements Connect data within Jira itself, Dataplane can also be used with Elements Connect to display reports and charts on Elements Connect data.

Elements Connect custom fields can be used for segmentation and grouping in most Dataplane reports.

All Elements Connect custom fields are currently treated as text, so the data in Elements Connect fields are not currently available to be summed in numeric reports or usable as a date basis.

Adding a New Elements Connect Field

The Elements Connect Administrator Guide describes how to add a new Elements Connect field to your Jira system.

After adding a new Elements Connect field to your system, you must perform two additional steps to ensure that the Elements Connect field can be reported on correctly from Dataplane:

  1. Reindex Jira. This step is not just required by Dataplane, but it is also required to be able to see your data in the rest of Jira. (If your version of Jira supports it, you may be do this as a background reindex operation. Indexing only the impacted project is also fine. In general, if you can see the field as a column in the Jira Issue Navigator for all of the relevant issues, Dataplane will be able to work on the field.)
  2. If the Elements Connect field was newly added and it does not appear in the Segment By control in Dataplane, go to Dataplane Reports » Administration and click Sync Index to refresh the list of accessible custom fields. In most situations, a Dataplane "Sync Index" operation only takes a few seconds and it does not cause any downtime for Dataplane users.

For More Information

For more information on what Elements Connect can do for your teams, visit the Elements Connect product page on Atlassian Marketplace or view the introduction video below:

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