Working with Integrations

ProdPad integrates with project management tools such as JIRA, Pivotal Tracker, Trello and Github, so that you can pass on completed ideas to your development team as they are ready to be worked on.

Setting up Integrations

Integrations can be set up from the Integrations menu. This section is only available to admins and editors who have permission to set up and share integrations with their team.

Pushing Data and Item Creation

Once an idea has been moved to the Backlog and is ready to be worked on, the Push to development button will become available and allow you to use any active integration.

For integrations that support multiple ticket types, we usually recommend setting them up with an Epic/Story mapping back to ProdPad, with the Idea being the Epic and the user story being the Story.

There are some exceptions to this rule in integrations like Pivotal Tracker, Trello and Github:

• Pivotal Tracker will send ideas as user stories if no user stories are sent or created during the push.
• Trello sends items as individual cards, regardless of whether they are ideas or stories.
• Github only supports issues or issue-comment mapping, with the idea always created as the main issue, and user stories sent as separate issues or as comments within the parent issue.

Pushing Ideas and User Stories

When pushing ideas and stories, you can choose to push everything together at once, or separately as you build out user stories. 

• If you push the idea with user stories together to the same project, a linked relationship will be created.
• If you push the idea first, and push the stories after, the stories will be created under the original idea with the linked relationship. You may also push stories to other project boards.
• If you choose to push stories independently (without the idea), you can do so to any project you have set up, independent of any linked idea.

Automatic Syncing

Once items are pushed, ProdPad will receive status updates from the connected integration. This means that you can keep an eye on the development progress directly from your ProdPad account, without having to log into other tools. The item created within the development integration will also include a link back to ProdPad so your team can easily locate the idea or stories.

The reason only statuses are mapped in integrations is to avoid overwriting any important information on either side. Your ProdPad idea is the source, and we wouldn't want to overwrite any important information that lies there. Likewise, if your development team is writing important technical information on their side, we wouldn't want to delete any of it.

Instead, we simply sync the Status of the idea, so as it moves through the dev process, it's clear in ProdPad that it's moving

Data is not currently synced both ways. This means that once an item is created, pushing it again will result in a duplicate issue. This is mainly to protect data in ProdPad and keep it as the main source of truth, ensuring that any updates or changes made in your development environment do not accidentally override what is in your ProdPad account.

If pushing an item to multiple integrations, the last integration you push to will be the one that receives the automated sync.

Share integrations with your team

Working as a team? No problem! You can set your integrations to teamwide, allowing you to share your setup with other users in your account.

Integration security

The integrations we offer read (but don't edit) which projects the user has access to, what types of tickets exist, and what the fields are for the tickets. Data from ProdPad is pushed from the ProdPad idea to the created instance, but from that point on, only the status of the ticket is reflected back in ProdPad. We don't pull actual data back from the integration in question.