What is a service account?
A service account is a regular account created in any SaaS tool with a few key differences. For one, the account is not tied to a human user. Service accounts also have elevated permissions compared to other users. They are created this way due to how some SaaS marketplace installations work. When installing an app, oftentimes that app inherits the permissions of the user that installed the app. This causes problems if the app is attempting to read/write data to the SaaS app in locations where the user that installed doesn’t have those permissions.
Why use service accounts?
Service accounts are important for many reasons. For one, granting one user all permissions isn’t ideal, especially when trying to follow lease-privilege protocols. Another reason is that it doesn’t cause any interruption of service when the SaaS administrator moves on from the company. What usually happens in that situation is the 3rd party applications lose their connection to the SaaS platform when the user that installed no longer has an account on the platform.
How to setup a service account for Jira
One thing we need done before setting up a service account for Jira is ensuring your organization has an email address for the service account. This email address looks something like “serviceaccount@organization.com”.
1. In the Jira web page, click on the settings icon on the top right corner and click on “User management”.
2. Next, input the service account email that you created and click “Add team members”
3. Go to the service account’s email inbox and accept the invitation. You should now be able to see the service account as a user in your Jira instance.
4. Next, we need to ensure we make the service account an administrator on Jira. Going back to the “User management” page, click on “Show details” on the newly created service account.
5. In the “Details” page, click on the dropdown beside the “Jira Administrator” row, and ensure “Product Admin” is selected.
These are the steps required to ensure your new service account is set to be an admin on your Jira instance.
One thing to note, if you are using Rewind to backup Confluence, now is a good time to make that service account an admin on your Confluence instance in step 6.
6. In the “Details” page, click on the dropdown beside the “Confluence” row, and ensure “Product Admin” is selected.
Atlassian has some additional resources on this subject that may be of interest: