User Profiles, a keystone of collaboration

Wouldn’t it be great to have any colleague’s contact information directly in Jira? And wouldn’t it be even better if that information was available without asking your colleague to enter it manually?

Yes, we all have experienced the opposite: outdated contact details, email addresses that shoot back failed delivery messages, and simply little context about folks outside your team. Feels like collaborating in the dark.

Rich and accurate user profiles in Jira and Confluence do seem a quite straightforward idea.

What is missing in Jira and Confluence User Profiles?

But up until now, it wasn’t particularly straightforward to implement this idea – especially in Server and Data Center hostings. To make the example with Jira:

• Jira user profiles display very little information about users
• Jira user properties? Yes, they exist, but can be accessed only by administrators.
• And unless you have an old-school LDAP sync with your Active Directory, updates must be done manually.

How to build 100% accurate User Profiles in Jira and Confluence

Find out how Tom Tom is making use of this integration to keep their collaboration workflows while migrating from a local Active Directory to Azure AD (now called Entra).

Did I write up until now? That must mean something, right?

Well, it does. And in case the title of this article didn’t spoil for you, we’re talking about a new integration between Communardo User Profiles and our two major user management apps: User Sync, and SAML SSO.

(Just to clarify: User Sync exists as a separate app but is also included for free in all our SAML SSO plugins.)

This integration stems organically from resolution’s vision to support Atlassian customers in their journey towards a secure and efficient cloud infrastructure. Connecting user data across applications is an essential piece of our plan, and Communardo is a strategic partner in it. It was simply common sense to build an integration with Communardo User Profiles for Jira and Confluence, which have a combined user base of over 1,500 installations.

In plain words, this integration is the equivalent of automating user profiles in Jira and Confluence. Once setup, user data will always be up to date –no matter how little effort is done by users to maintain it locally.

Here’s the data flow:

1. User information is centralized on a cloud Identity Provider like Microsoft’s Azure AD (Entra), Google Cloud Identity, or Okta.
2. User Sync (either as a standalone or as a part of SAML SSO) reads user accounts and attributes in the cloud IdP via REST and copies them in its own directory.
3. Jira and Confluence draw user information from the User Sync directory, which is updated regularly
4. Communardo User Profiles display user attributes in the front end, so each and every user can benefit from them.

If you’re worrying about the setup, don’t! It’s really simple. Keep reading to find out how to map user attributes with Communardo User Profiles.

3 use cases for automated User Profiles

Collaboration takes many shapes and forms. The three use cases below are just an illustration of the type of efficiencies and productivity gains that happen when the maintenance of User Profiles is automated with the User Sync-User Profiles integration.

1- Contact details

Sometimes you just have to get on a call with the person reporting a ticket. And the easiest way is to have the reporter’s contact details on the User Profile.

Now, once users start experiencing that contact info is unreliable and can be outdated, they will stop using it. It’s paramount to put in place an automated process to maintain it.

2- Smart Jira workflows

The possibilities are endless when you have the chance to populate Jira custom field with user attributes.

A classic example quoted by Communardo is to automatically assign issues to the manager of the reporter for clearance.

Jira doesn’t know who the reporter’s manager is – but this info can be stored with Communardo User Profiles. The real value of the integration with User Sync is the absolute certainty that the manager attribute is always accurate. With very little exceptions, automations like this can go from being a great help to being a huge problem.

3- Profile Pictures

One of the most satisfying moments of authenticating to a new service with LinkedIn, Google or Facebook, is that your profile picture loads immediately. It’s like entering into a pub where you have a lot of good friends.

In collaboration tools like Jira, Confluence, or even Slack, that feeling of social recognition is particularly important. Initial-based avatars, on the contrary, give a sense of cold anonymity.

Don’t annoy your users and let them upload their profile picture once only into the IdP!

Conclusion

As you have seen, the traditional comfort zone of an Active Directory sitting behind a firewall doesn’t have to disappear entirely. Your IT team just needs to put the pieces together, tear the silos, and let data flow between critical applications.

If you’re already a Communardo User Profiles customer, you can start an evaluation of SAML SSO or User Sync for free for 30 days. Feel free to request a screenshare session, and one of our experts will help you get up and running.

If you already have a working integration between Jira or Confluence and your cloud IdP, why don’t you give Communardo’s User Profiles a try? It might help quite a bit how you think about how user attributes can be useful to your teams. Have a look here at User Profiles for Jira or User Profiles for Confluence.