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Power Customer Support

Synchronize a customer's Jira Software project with your 1st level support team's Jira Service Management project

This scenario is recommended for important customers who you work closely with (hence the name 'Power Customer') as it lets them synchronize their Jira issues straight to your Jira Service Management, rather than manually create new requests corresponding to their Jira issues.

  • All comments made by the 'Power Customer' will be created as public comments in the 1st level Jira Service Management system.

  • Public comments made in the 1st level support's Jira Service Management system will appear as standard comments in the Power Customer's Jira system.

  • Issues created by the customer will be mapped to the 1st level support's Jira Service Management project, but issues will usually not be created in the other direction.

Configuration Guide

Now, we will configure this scenario as a guide. The two sample projects will be configured on the same Jira system: in most real-world scenarios, Backbone will synchronize projects on separate Jira systems, but the configuration here is very similar.

Configure the synchronization user

  • Add the synchronization user to the jira-service-desk-users group

  • Assign the Service Desk Team role for all synchronized Jira Service Desk projects.

Set up projects



Firstly, set up the two projects that will be synchronized: Project A as a Jira project (for the Power Customer) and Project B as a Jira Service Management project (for the 1st level support team).

Establish the connection

Now, we have to establish a connection between Project A and Project B – please refer to the guide to creating a new synchronization for step-by-step instructions.

Configure the synchronization

Now, we'll tell Backbone what data to synchronize, and which Jira Service Management scenario we want to use.


  1. On the Issue Synchronization screen, the actions column, click ... > Configure to open up the configuration UI.

  2. On the Issue Type Mappings tab, click New Issue Type Mapping to map issue types.  Select First to Second, and click Next.

  3. On the Create Issue Type Mapping screen, you can map Jira issue types in Project A to issue types in Project B. Map the TaskNew Feature, and Improvement Jira issue types to the IT Help Jira Service Management issue type.

  4. The next step is to configure the synchronization of customer request types. Start by going to the Fields – Default Values tab.

  5. On the Project B column, click the + button to open up the Create Default value screen. In the Field box, select Customer Request Type, uncheck the All Issue Types box, and map the following Issue Types:

    1. IT Help to the Default value Get IT Help

    2. Purchase to Default value Purchase request

    3. Access to Default value Request a new account.

  6. On the Field Mappings tab, click on Suggestions to map fields. Select the Summary and Description fields.

  7. On the Comments tab, you must enable comments and select the Enriched mapping option (so that when comments are synced between the Power Customer and your 1st level team, you know exactly who wrote them). For the Comment Visibility, you can set that only Public issues should be synchronized, and all comment from the software project should be made a public comment (as in the image below).

To start the synchronization, click Publish Draft > Start.

Comments made by the Power Customer in Project A will appear as public comments in Project B. Public comments made by 1st level support in Project B will appear as standard Jira comments in Project A.

Next steps

Basic configuration is now complete – you can now go further and configure additional Field Mappings.

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