Quick Answer: Yes, Drata integrates with Jira, allowing you to link compliance workflows and audit requirements directly to your development and operations issue tracking system.
Overview
Drata is a compliance automation platform designed to help organizations streamline their audit preparation, evidence collection, and compliance reporting for frameworks like SOC 2, ISO 27001, and HIPAA. Jira is Atlassian’s widely-used issue and project tracking system that development, operations, and cross-functional teams rely on for sprint planning, task management, and workflow visibility.
The integration between Drata and Jira bridges the gap between compliance requirements and operational execution. Rather than managing compliance tasks in one system and development work in another, teams can create Jira issues directly from Drata compliance controls, track remediation progress within their existing workflows, and maintain a single source of truth for who owns what and by when.
This integration is particularly valuable for organizations that need to demonstrate control implementation and evidence collection to auditors while keeping their engineering and operations teams aligned on what needs to be done.
How the Integration Works
- Issue Creation: When a compliance control in Drata requires action or evidence, you can create a corresponding Jira issue. This ensures the task appears in your team’s backlog and sprint planning alongside regular development work.
- Bidirectional Status Sync: As Jira issues are updated—marked in progress, completed, or blocked—those status changes can reflect back in Drata, reducing manual status updates and keeping compliance records current.
- Linked Context: Each Jira issue linked to a Drata control maintains a reference back to the compliance requirement, so team members understand not just what they’re building or fixing, but why it matters from a compliance perspective.
- Workflow Flexibility: The integration respects your existing Jira workflows, custom fields, and project structures, so you don’t need to redesign your development processes to accommodate compliance work.
- Audit Trail: All linked activity—issue creation, updates, and closure—is recorded in both systems, creating a clear audit trail that auditors can review to verify control implementation.
Key Features & Capabilities
- Automated Issue Linking: Create Jira issues from Drata control requirements with a single action, pre-populated with compliance context and due dates aligned to your audit schedule.
- Sprint Integration: Assign compliance-driven issues to sprints alongside feature work, allowing engineering teams to plan and estimate remediation effort as part of regular capacity planning.
- Real-Time Status Visibility: Track compliance task progress in Jira’s familiar interface; status updates automatically reflect in Drata’s compliance dashboard, eliminating duplicate data entry.
- Evidence Attachment: Link Jira issues to evidence artifacts (logs, screenshots, configuration files) that auditors need to verify control implementation, centralizing documentation.
- Custom Field Mapping: Map Drata compliance metadata (control ID, framework, risk level) to Jira custom fields, enabling filtering, reporting, and automation rules based on compliance attributes.
- Notification Coordination: Receive alerts in Jira when Drata compliance deadlines approach, ensuring ops and engineering teams stay informed without context-switching between platforms.
Setup Difficulty
Medium (15–30 minutes)
The integration requires basic configuration: connecting your Drata and Jira accounts via OAuth or API token, selecting which Drata controls should sync to Jira, and mapping any custom fields or project templates. No code is required, but you’ll need admin access to both platforms and should plan which Jira project will house compliance issues. Most organizations complete setup in under 30 minutes.
Use Cases
SOC 2 Audit Preparation
A SaaS company preparing for SOC 2 Type II certification uses Drata to track control requirements and Jira to manage the engineering work needed to implement them. When Drata identifies a missing access control policy, an issue is automatically created in Jira, assigned to the security team, and tracked through implementation and testing. The auditor can then review the linked Jira history to verify the control was designed, implemented, and tested.
Continuous Compliance Monitoring
An organization uses Drata’s ongoing monitoring to detect compliance gaps (e.g., unpatched systems, missing encryption). When a gap is identified, a Jira issue is created in the operations project, assigned to the relevant team, and tracked to resolution. This keeps compliance remediation visible in the same system where ops teams plan their regular maintenance work.
Multi-Team Coordination
A large enterprise has separate teams for security, infrastructure, and application development. Drata identifies a compliance requirement that touches all three areas. The integration allows a single Drata control to spawn multiple linked Jira issues—one per team—each with the context and dependencies needed, so teams can coordinate without manual handoffs.
Alternatives
If the native Drata-Jira integration doesn’t fully meet your needs, consider these options:
- Zapier or Make (formerly Integromat): Use these no-code automation platforms to create custom workflows between Drata and Jira, such as triggering issue creation based on specific Drata events or syncing custom fields that the native integration doesn’t support.
- Custom API Integration: If you need deep customization—such as complex field mapping, multi-step approval workflows, or integration with other systems—build a custom integration using Drata’s and Jira’s REST APIs. This requires developer resources but offers maximum flexibility.
- Alternative Compliance Platforms: If your team is heavily invested in Jira and prefers an integrated solution, consider compliance platforms like Vanta or Secureframe, which offer native Jira integrations and may provide tighter out-of-the-box alignment with your development workflows.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I sync existing Jira issues back to Drata?
The integration primarily flows from Drata to Jira—creating new issues based on compliance controls. However, you can manually link existing Jira issues to Drata controls, and status updates from those issues will sync back to Drata, providing a way to incorporate past work into your compliance record.
What happens if a Jira issue is deleted?
If a Jira issue linked to a Drata control is deleted, the link is broken, but the Drata control record remains. The control will no longer show as “in progress” or “completed” based on the Jira issue status, so you’ll need to manually update its status in Drata or create a new Jira issue to continue tracking remediation.
Can I filter Jira issues by compliance framework?
Yes. The integration maps Drata framework and control information to Jira custom fields, so you can use Jira’s JQL (Jira Query Language) to filter issues by framework (e.g., SOC 2, ISO 27001), control category, or compliance status. This makes it easy to generate reports on compliance-driven work.
Does the integration support multiple Jira projects?
Yes. You can configure the integration to send different types of Drata controls to different Jira projects. For example, infrastructure controls might go to your Ops project, while application security controls go to your Development project, keeping work organized by team.
Important Disclaimer
Integration features, capabilities, and API behavior may change as Drata and Jira release updates. This guide reflects current functionality as of the time of writing, but you should always verify the current state of the integration on Drata’s official integration documentation and Jira’s marketplace listing before implementing or upgrading. Test the integration in a non-production environment first to ensure it meets your specific compliance and workflow requirements.