Let’s take a look at the best CRMs for Jira that the market has to offer – that means checking out the Top 4 CRMs for Jira

With the democratization of Atlassian, more teams aside from the Dev or IT teams are starting to use Jira. However, with these new departments come a new set of challenges that Jira is ill equipped to deal with. One such area is CRM. The idea of being able to leverage a CRM in Jira becomes quite enticing through the promise of removing data silos of support agents and IT teams and providing client-facing teams an easy access to that information for keeping track of interactions with customers.

You can create your own DIY solution for a CRM in Jira, but the use of custom fields and custom workflows might make things rather time consuming and clunky in reality (that being said, we created a quick guide that highlights some of the things that you can do to build a DIY solution here). With the Atlassian marketplace there are going to be two main routes to go through: 

1- Have an existing CRM and download a sync with Jira through a connector app

2- Have a CRM solution directly integrated in Jira

To connect your CRM to Jira or to have a dedicated CRM in Jira?

Having your own CRM as a source of truth and exporting the data in Jira is never a bad idea. If you already have a very thorough setup for your external CRM, a fail proof strategy might just be to simply sync it with Jira. This can be particularly useful, especially if you are a client-facing team in Jira.

There are 3 typical use cases that we see for having a CRM connector app in Jira, and we believe that they are relevant to highlight:

1- Display customer information on Jira/Jira Service Management (JSM) /Confluence

In the case of Jira, your team might be interested to have customer information to easily reach out to the point of contact of the project and make them aware of updates, sync with them, or reach out in case of emergency. But that’s not all! Because you have all the contact information, you could also add additional information to the project and issues to better understand the client, the stakes in working with/helping them. For example, the new project will be with Trevor Brown, from the Company Blueberry Corp., with which you have a 2,000,000$ contract for a Big Data service. Having this information directly from your “outside” CRM means that the sales team has already filled in the details.

In the case of JSM, your support team could easily prioritize customers based on the products and services that they’ve purchased with you in the past, or based on their monetary interest with you. For example: you would prioritize Kelsie’s ticket with you as her company has purchased 60,000$ worth of services in the past, versus Kevin who is looking to purchase 50$ worth. Without these additional layers of information, it would be harder to prioritize these individuals. Additionally, you could more easily triage customers based on their interest. For example – you could more easily triage customers that are looking for additional information about product A to team A and product B to team B.

Finally, displaying the information to Confluence would allow you to reference that customer information in internal documentation, such as customer notes, project updates, team meetings, and more. The additional layers of information could be used to provide context and better insights as a result.

2- Capture data from Jira and connect it back to your CRM

While having the data displayed in Jira can be very beneficial, the opposite is true. Sometimes, teams might find that data in the Atlassian Suite is very siloed. A connector could help bridge that gap by allowing the data to flow back into the CRM, thus providing key customer information to Client facing teams. For example, you could use this information to have all the interactions points with the clients, from the support tickets to the project updates. That way an account manager could easily understand what’s been done and act accordingly.

3- Save user seats in your CRM. CRM seats

One big use case from having a CRM connect is to save money. Not having to buy all teams access to the CRM to access customer information and instead, to centralize that information in Atlassian will be a quick and easy way to reduce CRM seats. Typically, a seat for a connector app will be significantly cheaper than buying a seat in a CRM (oftentimes being a handful of dollars vs. 50$ per users).

With that being said, do note that slapping a Jira CRM connector does involve a little bit more research as you can be faced with “feast or famine” scenarios… 

CRM Sync apps are not created equal

Before mentioning the apps that you should consider avoiding, we’ll instead focus on the positive: the apps that you should definitely look into. We picked three that we recommend for various reasons:

Hubspot

The HubSpot Jira Integration, Report, Issue Link & Collaboration by resolution Reichert Network Solutions GmbH, is one example of a very solid CRM to Jira Connector. The tool provides all functionality you would hope for and is extremely complete. One of the main selling points is that by syncing data through this app, you might be able to access data from Hubspot without needing extra Hubspot licenses. 

In short, here is why the tool is wonderful:

• Built by vendor with great record track: Resolution is a Gold Atlassian Vendor that is quite prominent in the Atlassian scene
• Tool is very well built and does what its supposed to do well
• Tool provides ability to save on Hubspot licenses but still display its data and capture data from Jira

You might be wondering why we would recommend this app over a Hubspot automation app or even over the official Hubspot for Jira app. Well simply put – the app by Resolution does a much better and cleaner job with the connection – offering more edge cases and actually working rather well. In Comparison, the app by Hubspot is not well rated, and is said to be janky at best.

The app by Resolution is not free (at least, not above 10 users), but it won’t break the bank either, with prices that go up to 50 cents per user per month on an annual plan. Again, much cheaper than the 50+$ for a CRM seat.

Salesforce

One of the possible workflows from wanting to have a Jira to Salesforce connector is to use Salesforce as a level one support ticketing system and have the escalation go to where the support agents are :JSM/Jira (license seats are much cheaper!). However, you will still want to have Salesforce as the source of truth for customer interactions, hence the connector.

A good CRM connector for Salesforce is Peeklogic Connector for Salesforce and Jira by Peeklogic LLC

This is not the most popular Salesforce connector out there, however the app is probably the most customizable out there and should be able to support the most complex use cases. And, if they don’t have it, their team is extremely open to jumping on a call with you to help understand your use case and what can be done to implement it. 

In other words, this is why we like this app for Salesforce:

• Built by a vendor that has built very flexible and customizable tools
• Tool is able to solve complex use cases
• Tool allows you to do more extensive support in Jira/JSM and sync it back to Salesforce
• Team is extremely helpful, quick, and engaged

If you’re using Salesforce, price might not be your biggest constraint, but do note that this app will also not break your bank. Don’t be too scared about this app not being the biggest on the Atlassian Marketplace, their team is very active in the CRM world – you can see them taking part of numerous events and conventions all the time.

Bringing CRM Data into Jira

Of course, we would not be able to talk about CRM syncing without referencing the powerhouse that is Elements Connect. Elements Connect – external data fields for Jira by Elements. This app is not specially catered for CRMs, but because it specializes in connecting external data sets to Jira, then it is able to display CRM data in Jira. Unlike the previously mentioned apps, this app is not bi-directional, but it will definitely provide a better experience than some other apps on the market…

Here are some reasons why you should consider Elements:

• Can provide insane value if you want to also connect other databases to Jira
• The app comes from a well respected Atlassian Vendor
• Is able to provide CRM data for teams like ticket agents

Do note that this could also be a fantastic contender for CRMs that do not have a connector listed on the Atlassian Marketplace: the moment you step out of Hubspot and Saleforce, then your choices are really few. So instead of settling for a subpar connector, you should instead try and see if it could work with this first.

The underserved market – I.e: apps to avoid like the plague

However not all connectors are fantastic and some players are just not present at all. For example, there is currently no Pipedrive connector and the official Zoho connector is not the most well received (although some other vendors might do a better job). Very often, you might see some official apps from the vendors that have been listed on the Atlassian Marketplace (for free!). however, they fail to be fully useable as they don’t fully capture the full range of cases where users would use these connectors. In addition, what we’ve observed is that despite very vocal feedback from users, these apps will almost never improve their products, so you would be stuck with mediocrity. Because of that, you’re better off going with an Atlassian Marketplace vendor to make sure you’re getting updates and the best possible experiences.

There might also be cases where there are no apps listed. So in those cases, you might want to consider a way to gather data from and in Jira. This is where the second category of Jira CRMs might come in : Integrated CRMs in Jira

Equipping Jira with a Built-in CRM

Again, there are two approaches to having a CRM in Jira: the DIY route and the plugin route. None are inherently bad, but one of those options, the app route, will take much less time upfront to create and in the long run, going the app route might cost less money in effort put into creating and maintaining the app. 

In terms of the benefits that you would receive from a built-in CRM, they are very similar to the ones we’ve listed in the connector type section. In short:

1- Centralize customer information in Atlassian

Having your teams in Atlassian means that you would be able to centralize all your customer information in the tool that your teams are using. You would be able to display customer information in Jira and JSM and benefit from that extra layer of information (as mentioned in the previous section – by being able to understand the stakes of projects, the points of contacts, and to better prioritize/triage tickets).

This also has the benefit of reducing context switching since the information would already be in the tool that the team uses on a day-to-day basis.

2- Remove data silos

With a dedicated CRM in the Atlassian ecoystem, teams would have access to customer data from their Atlassian tools fairly fast, data that would otherwise “stuck” in a CRM or guarded by another team. This could help portray more accurate depictions of customers by being able to track more customer interactions.

3- Reduce number of tools and save money on seats

It shouldn’t go without saying that having a dedicated CRM in Jira would typically be significantly cheaper than going for an extra seat for a CRM. Since you would have a CRM in Jira, you could even consider not purchasing an “outside” CRM and save a lot on your tools budget that way.

4- Minimize training time

Having teams with access to customer information directly in Jira and JSM can be extremely powerful if your teams are already using the Atlassian Suite as the tools would for the most part already be familiar to them – convenient to reduce the amount of training and onboarding to teach the CRM.

Sales CRM – Automation-Powered CRM in Jira

For today’s recommendation of a CRM built directly in and for Jira, we have Sales CRM by Jsoft. This CRM aims to become a good all-rounder by having some easy to set-up automation rules and more importantly, a growing list of integrations to external services (Gmail, Google, Hubspot, Mailchimp, Slack, and more). In other words, the app aims to make Jira and JSM its center hub of information for clients and deals, and provides the possibility of exporting that information elsewhere (Mailchimp, other CRMs, etc.). 

In short, this might be a good CRM for you if: 

• You are looking for a CRM built directly in Jira to capture deals, customer and account information and customer interactions.
• You are looking for a CRM that provides customization for data, deals, and accounts
• Need a CRM that is able to communicate outside Jira
• Need a CRM that has automation and a growing number of supported integrations

It does help that the app is quite affordable, oftentimes being cheaper than a standalone CRM and that you can trial the app for free for 30 days on the Atlassian Marketplace. 

So what are the Best CRMs for Jira?

If you are looking to capture and display customer and company information in Jira, we showed in this blog that there are quite a few ways to do just that. At the end of the day, the best option will depend on whether you already have a CRM outside of Jira or are looking to build something in Jira. Regardless, the end goal should always be to remove the potential data silos that may arise when multiple teams and departments are in the mix – and with the options shown today – which are our picks for the best CRMs in Jira, you should be able to achieve just that. 

Best of luck!