By connecting the Jira app with an Atlassian service account, Journeys works in Jira through an account that belongs to your company, not to one person. The connection keeps working when someone leaves your team, and service accounts don't count toward your Jira user limit 🚀
🧠 Note: Inviting or deleting users from Jira doesn't work with a service account. If you need those actions, or don’t use service accounts, see Jira: Create a dedicated admin user
Before you start
You need to be an organization admin in Atlassian to create a service account and its credentials.
Step 1: Create the service account
Go to Atlassian Administration. If you have more than one organization, select the one your Jira site belongs to.
Go to Directory → Service accounts and select Create a service account.
Name it, e.g. "50skills-Journeys", and click Next.
Under Select app roles, find Jira and select User.
Leave the other apps as None and click Create.
Why only User? It gives the service account access to Jira, which is all Journeys needs. User access admin gives no Jira access, so leave it unticked.
Step 2: Add the service account to your Jira projects
Journeys can only work in projects the service account has been added to.
Open the project in Jira, click the three dots and select Add people.
Search for the service account's name.
Set the role to Administrator and click Add 1 person.
Repeat for every project you want to use with Journeys.
Step 3: Create OAuth 2.0 credentials
Back in Atlassian Administration, go to Directory → Service accounts and open your service account.
Select Create credentials, choose OAuth 2.0 and click Next.
Name the credential, e.g. "50skills_Journeys", and click Next.
Tick these scopes and leave the rest unticked:
Scope | What Journeys uses it for |
| Reading issues, projects and fields |
| Creating, updating, assigning and deleting issues, and adding attachments |
| Looking up users by email |
| Removing users from projects |
| Adding users to projects |
Click Next, check the details and click Create.
Copy the client ID and client secret immediately. Atlassian only shows the secret once. If you lose it, you'll need to create new credentials.
🧠 Note: Treat the client secret like a password. Anyone who has it can access Jira as the service account.
Step 4: Find your Jira cloud ID
In your browser, open
https://YOUR-DOMAIN.atlassian.net/_edge/tenant_info. ReplaceYOUR-DOMAINwith your Jira site name.Copy the cloudId value, for example
a1b2c3d4-e5f6-7890-abcd-ef1234567890.
Step 5: Connect in Journeys
In Journeys, go to the app marketplace, find Jira, and select Connect.
Choose the Bearer token auth option.
Paste:
Cloud ID: the value you copied in step 4
Client ID: from step 3
Client secret: from step 3
Then click Connect.
If it succeeds, you're ready to use Jira actions in your journeys 🚀