Planning Poker for Jira

The worst part of sprint planning is not the estimating. It is the ten seconds before each story where the facilitator finds the ticket, reads the title out, scrolls to the acceptance criteria, and eleven people wait. Multiply by thirty stories.

What the integration does

When your organisation has connected Jira, the "start a session" box accepts a Jira issue key — PROJ-123, ENG-4471, whatever your project uses — in place of a typed description. GiveItPoints looks the issue up and puts it in front of everybody in the session:

• The summary, as the story being estimated.
• The description, converted from Atlassian's rich text format into readable HTML — headings, lists, bold, inline code all survive the trip.
• Acceptance criteria, pulled from your custom field if you use one.

Everyone sees the same thing at the same time, which removes a surprisingly common source of estimate spread: half the team voting on the title and the other half on the requirements.

Setting it up

Configuration is per organisation, done once by the organisation owner. Every team in that organisation inherits it — nobody else needs to set anything up, or know that a token exists.

1. Create an Atlassian API token

   From your Atlassian account, go to Security → API tokens and create one. The token carries the permissions of the account that created it, so use an account that can read the projects you estimate.

2. Open your organisation settings

   In GiveItPoints, go to your organisation page and open Settings. Jira configuration lives there.

3. Enter your site, email and token

   Your Jira site name — the part before .atlassian.net — the Atlassian email address the token belongs to, and the token itself. It is encrypted on the way into the database.

4. Start a session with an issue key

   Type PROJ-123 where you would normally type a story description. The details load, the team votes, you move to the next one.

The in-app Jira integration guide has the step-by-step version with screenshots, and your organisation settings page links to a detailed token walkthrough.

How the credentials are handled

An API token is a real credential, and it is worth knowing exactly what happens to it:

• Encrypted at rest with AES-256-GCM. The raw token is never written to the database.
• Owner-only access. Only the organisation owner can view or change the integration settings. Team facilitators use the connection without ever seeing the token.
• Scoped to lookups. The token is used to read issue details when a facilitator asks for one. Nothing is written back.
• Revocable at any time. Delete the token from Atlassian and the connection stops working immediately, with no action needed on our side.

If an issue key cannot be found — wrong project, insufficient permissions, a typo — the session falls back to the plain text you typed. A failed lookup never blocks estimation.

Why estimate outside Jira at all

Jira is a good system of record and a poor estimation surface. It has no notion of a simultaneous reveal, which is the one mechanic planning poker depends on — without it, the first number anybody says anchors the whole room. A shared field that everyone can see is exactly the failure mode the technique exists to prevent.

What sits alongside the Jira lookup:

• Hidden votes, revealed together. Live over WebSocket, so the board updates as people vote without anyone refreshing.
• Your deck, not ours. Fibonacci by default; numeric or t-shirt scales configurable per team, with abstain included.
• Guests join by link. Someone pulled in for two stories does not need a Jira seat or a GiveItPoints account to vote.
• A record that outlives the meeting. Every session's votes and spread, exportable to CSV.

Frequently asked questions