Analyzing Jama Connect® Data in External Business Intelligence Tools

Export Data to Excel and import to your tool of choice

Most BI tools provide a simple path to import data from Excel, and luckily, it's also straightforward to export data from Jama Connect® to Excel. 

The Pro: Exporting data to Excel from Jama Connect® does not require custom scripting or knowledge of the REST API.

The Con: Data imported to a BI tool via Excel is 'static." To refresh your external dashboard with current data, you must create a new export from Jama Connect®.

The Jama Connect User Guide provides instructions on how to:

• Export Data to Excel
• Importing Data from Excel Workbooks to Power BI
• Importing Data from Excel Workbooks to Tableau

Jama Software's Extended Engineering Services can be used to create customer reports to export formatted data to Excel if you require more advanced export options. 

*This paid-for service can be discussed with your Jama Software® Customer Success Manager.

*Jama Software® Success Programs, Success Catalogue, and Datasheets

Use the Jama Connect® REST API to backup data to a data warehouse connected to your tool of choice.

If you have a. data warehouse available, you can use Jama Connect's REST API to back up your project data to an external database, which can then be configured as a Power BI or Tableau data source.

The Pro: Data is updated automatically according to your backup schedule, so manually creating a new Excel export is unnecessary.

The Cons: Data will only be as recent as your last backup operation. This method requires maintaining an external database and custom scripting to create the backups. 

Note that Jama Connect Cloud includes an industry leading allowance of up to 10 API calls per second before throttling and there is no additional charge to customers for accessing and utilizing the REST API.  Depending on the volume of data, backing up your Jama Connect instance to a data warehouse might require a significant amount of time and processing resources, so we recommend limiting your data pulls to the specific data you want to report.

• Tableau and Power BI both offer supported connectors to many database servers. 

Jama Software® Professional Services Offerings:

• Training and Guidance on using the REST API to create a data copy script.
• If you lack the resources to develop a custom script internally, engage Jama Software® Extended Engineering Services. 

*This paid-for service can be discussed with your Jama Software® Customer Success Manager.

*Jama Software® Success Programs, Success Catalogue, and Datasheets

Set up a direct connection to Jama Connect® data using the REST API. 

For on-demand data refresh in your business tool, you can author a custom connector to provide on-demand access to Jama Connect® data using the REST API. 

The Pro: Supports on-demand and scheduled refresh of data.

The Cons: It requires customer scripting and, depending on the configuration, may require additional subscriptions from the business intelligence tool developer. 

• Microsoft provides documentation on Creating a Customer Connector for Power BI and other Power Apps to query data using a REST API.
• Tableau allows you to build Web Data Connectors to pull data directly from a REST API. 
• Custom connector development in both tools requires the desktop version of the App.

Learn more about Jama Connect’s REST API and its extensibility.

The Jama Software® Solutions Team can help you better understand the REST API's capabilities, enabling engineering support for custom scripting.

• Request REST API Training
• Request Custom Scripting or Development Services
• Jama Connect® Developer Site & REST API Documentation

*This paid-for service can be discussed with your Jama Software® Customer Success Manager.

*Jama Software® Success Programs, Success Catalogue, and Datasheets

Additional Resources: