The installation process is really painless and easy:

Prerequisites

Java 8
1 Gb RAM extra (minimum)
Disable "Use gzip compression" on Jira
Jira Core 7.0.0 and above.
(Optional): JIRA ServiceDesk 7.2.0 or above.
(Optional) JIRA Software 7.2.1 or above.
(Optional) Zephyr
(OPtional) BigBrassBand Git integration for Jira
(Optional) Subversion ALM
Support for more third-party apps is coming

Installation

Install SQL+JQL Driver plugin on your JIRA instance from the Atlassian Marketplace.

That's all!. With a simple click, Jira has become a true relational database server listening to the standard HTTP port in a safe way!

Configuration

Finally, create a pool of trusted users to write, run and save queries for the rest of the organization by granting them access to the built-in SQL console or remotely via JDBC:

Permissions

Impact on the Jira GUI

One of the biggest administrators concerns is how the Jira GUI is impacted by the app as this might confuse many users with new menus, etc. The impact of the app is minimal so the users should not be aware of anything new has been installed. Only very few and specific changes can be perceived by some users:

A new sql() function is available from the Search Issues text area (in advanced mode) on the Issue Navigator when they type "s" in some JQL.
Two new gadgets (SQL+JQL Flat and Pivot tables) are available when a user searches for gadgets to be added to a Jira Dashboard.

SQL+JQL is really a non-intrusive app and most of the users will be not impacted by the changes mentioned above.

Since the 9.6.0 version, the action to open the SQL+JQL console is automatically hidden for non-trusted users.

Check installation

Run a simple benchmark by running this query:

WITH RECURSIVE T(N) AS (
    SELECT 1
    UNION ALL
    SELECT N+1 FROM T WHERE N<50000
)
SELECT count(*) FROM T;

The query above creates 50K records in H2 and counts them. This is the average result from our development environment:

COUNT(*)
50000

(1 row, 20 ms)

It might help you to see how fast SQL+JQL will perform on your Jira.

Run some built-in examples from the built-in console to learn about SQL+JQL queries.

Troubleshooting

If you run into some problem, then please read the Troubleshooting section to verify that the core features work as expected.

The app is very reliable, the easiest and quickest way to resolve access problems is by re-enabling (or even better re-installing) it.

The app is essentially a virtual database (mainly a set of empty tables in the Jira memory with a very small footprint~3 Mb RAM) that created and destroyed every time that the app is enabled/installed and disabled/uninstalled. The cache is also cleaned-up during this process.

If this does not resolve the problem then please open an issue in our Jira instance.

Post-install

The app (NOT Jira!) must be re-enabled after any Atlassian's Jira Application (Software and/or Service Desk, etc.) or ant extension (BBB Git, Zephyr, etc) a substantial change in order to re-create all the schemas and the changes take effect.

Uninstall

Not convived to use SQL+JQL?. We are sad to see you say goodbye.

Remove the app from Jira. Optionally, you may want to delete the plugin's tables created via Active Objects on the Jira database for a full clean-up. These tables save very few small data for the app configuration (basically the Jira base URL only).

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