Jeremy Henry-Tan at B&H Photo Video has one main goal as a business strategist: he needs to stay on top of web initiatives so the online team can deliver a top-notch customer experience. With the holiday season–and an influx of customers fast approaching, Jeremy knew he was about to have a lot on his plate.
B&H Photo Video is one of the world’s largest retailers of photo, video, and other electronic equipment, and their customers need to be in the know about products this holiday season. This year, the Merchandising team needs to produce over 200 articles for their customers. Every article gets a ClickUp task created by the Merchandising team to build the strategy, and a matching Jira ticket for the Web Content team to help with the execution. The team members need to update both the task and the matching ticket so they can stay on top of the progress. This means every comment, description, label, and question needs to be written… twice.
In order to mitigate this workload, the team took to finding a way to integrate Jira and ClickUp.
Key Challenge: Aligning two processes while reducing the manual work
Tickets and tasks are created and siloed in two different tools at B&H Photo Video, and Jeremy’s focus is to align the strategy and execution processes. Strategy, in his case, is brainstorming upcoming initiatives, and execution is where the production happens. Here’s what he is working with.
The Merchandising team uses ClickUp to strategize
ClickUp tasks are created in a list to help his team break down different initiatives, and the work involved to reach their targets. ClickUp is where the brainstorming and task planning come in.
Here’s how to set up your own ClickUp + Jira workflow with Unito.
The Web Content team uses Jira to execute
Every ClickUp task needs a Jira ticket to match. Aside from the Web Content team, the Merchandising team also needs to work with project managers, and the UX team in Jira as well. The ticket tells a technical team how and what to action. This team needs to send a receive updates to stay on top of the execution progress.
Unifying the strategy and execution is crucial to meet deadlines. The team would manually create matching tasks in either tool and then manually update them on both sides. This way of working slowed each team and doubled the work.
I needed to be able to see the ideas I have on the strategic side, and how it’s progressing on the execution side. I also need to have them update in one tool and have it reflect on the other because most people forget to do one or the other. It leaves a lot of room for human error.
Jeremy Henry-Tan, B&H Photo
The Answer? A 2-way Integration to Simplify Collaboration
Jeremy’s team chose to set up a Unito flow between the Merchandising team’s ClickUp list, and the Web Content team’s Jira project. Keeping both the ClickUp and Jira teams in their preferred tools has made the work faster, easier, and more accurate for everyone.
A configuration made simple for the whole team to understand
Jeremy followed a simple “Portfolio is” rule for this flow. His team simply creates an issue in a dedicated portfolio, and that action auto-creates a new matching task in ClickUp, which effectively eliminates the manual copy-paste. Here’s an example of what that rule looks like:
Customized field mappings, so they never miss a detail
When it came time to update the teams, Jeremy chose a handful of field mapping options to ensure the details were synced on both sides. He selected bi-directional updates with each field, so either team could send an update along.
Here’s an example of our own synced task between ClickUp and Jira
“what really stands out to me is the ease of use. The mapping and filters make it simple to learn. A lot of times software seems intuitive at first, but then when it comes down to actually setting it up, there’s a lot of background work that has to be done to make sure things are working. But not with Unito.”
Impact
Unito’s no-code 2-way integration was a perfect solution for Jeremy’s team. The setup is easy, but Jeremy’s team also went through an onboarding session with their personal Customer Success Manager. She was available to double-check the configuration, offer tips, and ask about their overall business goals to make sure Unito remains a perfect fit, long-term.
Because the Unito implementation was so smooth and effective, Jeremy’s team is able to eliminate the copying and pasting this holiday season and focus on the work that matters most.
Our teams are now leaning more and more into strategic planning. Unito will allow our Clickup teams to work in tandem with our Jira teams, and this hand-holding will allow for a lot more organic ideas to flow easily between the tools as we grow.
How Unito Scales with B&H Photo Video
Jeremy’s ClickUp & Jira flow is just one use case B&H Photo Video uses every day. The team also uses Unito to integrate Jira and Smartsheet.
B&H Photo Video’s Jira administrator leverages Unito to export and sync Jira issues to Smartsheet for a long-term project. The flow uses an “Issue type is” rule so technical users in Jira can flag specific issues to send along to the product managers in Smartsheet, for better visibility of progress. Changes between tools are set to sync bidirectionally, so neither team misses an update.
At Unito, you only need one license to cover your entire organization, and we offer unlimited users on every subscription so your team can build any flow you may need now, or in the future.
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About B&H Photo Video
B&H Photo Video is one of the world’s largest technology retailers for photo, video, computers, phones, drones and more. They’ve just celebrated their 50-year anniversary, and pride themselves on “the art of the down-sell”, and building customer relationships over making sales.
