Link items between Adobe Workfront and Jira

Last update: May 27, 2025

CREATED FOR:

  • User

You can link Jira issues to Adobe Workfront tasks or issues either automatically or manually.

Only one item in Workfront can be linked to one item in Jira. You can never link one Workfront item to multiple Jira issues, nor one Jira issue to multiple Workfront items.

Access requirements

You must have the following:

Expand to view access requirements for the functionality in this article.
Adobe Workfront planPro or higher
Adobe Workfront licenses overview

New: Standard

Or

Current: Plan

Jira access

System administrator access

IMPORTANT

We recommend that you create separate system administrator accounts in Jira and Workfront to dedicate to this integration, rather than using existing ones that might be attached to users.

Access level configurations

You must be a Workfront administrator. For information on Workfront administrators, see Grant a user full administrative access.

NOTE

If you still don’t have access, ask your Workfront administrator if they set additional restrictions in your access level. For information on how a Workfront administrator can modify your access level, see Create or modify custom access levels.

For more detail about the information in this table, see Access requirements in Workfront documentation.

Prerequisites

Before you can link items between Workfront and Jira, you must do the following:

As a Workfront administrator, you can define triggers that will automatically create an issue in Jira every time certain conditions are met on a task or an issue in Workfront. The Workfront and Jira items become linked.

After you have completed the configuration of Workfront for Jira, when an item is either created or updated in Workfront to match your triggers, a new item is automatically created in Jira.

Workfront users that create and update Workfront items do not need a Jira license to trigger the creation of items in Jira.

For more information, see Configure Adobe Workfront for Jira.

NOTE
You can create Jira items automatically by attaching a template to a project. If the template contains tasks with assignments that meet the Jira triggers, the new tasks generate new Jira issues.

Automatically linking a Workfront issue to a Jira issue is identical to automatically linking a Workfront task to a Jira issue.

To automatically link a Workfront task to a Jira issue:

  1. Ensure that your Jira system administrator has configured triggers for automatically creating Jira issues when Workfront items are assigned, then log in to Workfront with an access level that allows you to create a task.

    For more information about access to tasks, see Grant access to tasks.

  2. Click the Main Menu icon Main Menu in the upper-right corner of Adobe Workfront, or (if available), click the Main Menu icon Main Menu in the upper-left corner, then click Projects.

  3. On the Projects page, select a project.

  4. In the project left panel, select Tasks.

  5. Click + New Task.

    NOTE
    To link an existing Workfront item to a Jira issue, select Edit from the item’s More More icon menu.

  6. Specify or update any of the fields available for the task.

  7. In the Assignments field, search for and select the user, role, or team that is specified as a trigger in the Jira integration.

  8. Click Create Task. The task is created in Workfront, and a new comment appears in the task’s Updates tab to indicate that a new issue has also been created in Jira.

  9. (Optional) In the Integrations area of the Details section of the task or issue header, click the Go to Jira link to open the issue in Jira.

    Your system or group administrator must add the Integrations field to your layout template to display it in the task or issue header. For information, see Customize object headers using a layout template.

    Any Jira user can immediately start working on items automatically created from Workfront and their updates will transfer to Workfront without needing a license for Workfront to do so.

    Only the fields that you as a Workfront administrator configured during the setup of the Workfront add-on are updated.

    For more information about synchronizing fields between Workfront and Jira, see the Configure Workfront for Jira section in Configure Adobe Workfront for Jira.

    NOTE
    The Jira issue isn’t assigned to anyone in Jira when it’s automatically created from Workfront.

After items have been created in Jira and Workfront independent of each other, you can manually link a Jira issue to an existing Workfront task or issue.

You cannot manually link a Workfront item from Workfront to an existing Jira item.

NOTE
If the Jira issue is not on a project which is not identified as a trigger in the Workfront Integration you cannot manually link it to a Workfront item when using the integration with Jira On-Premise.
For more information about setting up triggers for the Workfront to Jira workflow, see Automatically link Workfront items to Jira issues.

When Workfront and Jira items are linked, certain fields from one item can be automatically updated on the other.
For more information about updating linked items, see Update linked items between Jira and Adobe Workfront.

To manually link Jira issues to Workfront items:

  1. (Conditional) Log in to Workfront and find an issue or a task that you want to link to a Jira issue.

  2. (Conditional) In the Basic information section in the Task Details or Issue Details tab, copy the Reference Number of the item in Workfront.

    Or

    From the address bar of the item, copy the URL of the item in Workfront.

    IMPORTANT
    If your organization has been onboarded to the Adobe Unified Experience, you must use the Reference Number for linking Workfront items to Jira. (The URL option is available, but it will return an error if you use it.) For information about the Unified Experience, see Adobe Unified Experience for Workfront.
    For organizations not on the Adobe Unified Experience, it’s not recommended to use the URL option because URLs can change.
    NOTE
    You must have a Workfront license to log in to Workfront. Otherwise, a Workfront user must supply this information to you.

  3. In Jira, navigate to an issue that you want to manually link to the Workfront item.

  4. In the Workfront right panel, paste the Reference Number or the URL of the Workfront item that you want to link it to.

  5. Click Link. The two items become linked and the Workfront right panel is populated with information from the Workfront item.

    By default, the following Workfront fields are visible in Jira in the Workfront right panel:

    • The Name of the item. You can access the Workfront item by clicking the name in the panel.
    • The Project Name.
    • The Status of the item.
    • The Priority of the item.
    • The date that it was created in Workfront.
    • The Planned Hours of the item.
    • The Reference Number. You can access the Workfront item by clicking the Reference Number in the panel.

    For more information about enabling additional fields to display in the right panel, see the Configure field synchronization between Jira and Workfront Items section in Configure Adobe Workfront for Jira. A comment from the Workfront administrator associated with the integration is posted in the Workfront tab of the Jira issue to confirm that a new Jira item has been created. The comment contains a link to the Jira issue.