Government agencies must juggle strict regulations—FedRAMP, NIST, internal policies—while delivering software and services on time. Yet many teams still rely on spreadsheets, email threads, and manual logs to track approvals and deployments. This fragmented approach introduces risk, delays audits, and undermines transparency.

By combining Jira for issue tracking with Bitbucket for source control and CI/CD, agencies can build an end-to-end system that embeds compliance into every step of the software lifecycle.

Why Compliance Demands End-to-End Visibility

• Audit-Ready Documentation: Demonstrate who approved what— and when—without hunting through shared drives.
• Consistent Review Processes: Enforce the same security, legal, and change-management checks, every time.
• Reduced Risk: Automated gates prevent unauthorized or non-compliant changes from reaching production.

Tracking the Full Change Lifecycle

1. Create & Classify the Request

   • A new task in Jira is tagged with compliance labels (e.g. “FedRAMP Critical,” “PII Handling”).

2. Link Code in Bitbucket

   • Developers branch off feature/PROJ-123 in Bitbucket, automatically linking commits and PRs back to the Jira issue.

3. Enforce Merge Checks

   • Bitbucket blocks merges until:

     • All required reviewers have approved.

     • Automated security scans pass.

     • A linked Jira issue is in the correct state (e.g. “Security Approved”).

4. Automate Deployments

   • Bitbucket Pipelines handles CI/CD, logging every build, test, and deployment step.

5. Close the Loop in Jira

   • When deployment completes, Jira transitions the issue to “Done,” capturing timestamps and all audit details.

Embedding Review Gates in Jira Workflows

• Custom Statuses & Validators

• Require “Legal Review,” “Security Sign-off,” or “Accessibility Check” steps.
  • Mandatory Attachments

• Block transitions until key documents—risk assessments, compliance checklists—are uploaded.
  • Approver Fields

• Enforce that only designated roles (e.g., CISO, Privacy Officer) can advance issues past critical gates.

Real-Time Compliance Dashboards

Jira’s dashboards give instant visibility into:

• Open vs. Approved issues per compliance category

• Pull Requests missing linked Jira tickets

• Approval SLAs and breaches for audit-critical tasks

• Average Review Times by stakeholder group

Teams and auditors alike can spot bottlenecks before they become showstoppers.

Secure, FedRAMP-Authorized Infrastructure

Both Jira Cloud and Bitbucket Cloud operate in FedRAMP Moderate-authorized environments, offering:

• Encryption at rest and in transit

• SAML SSO & 2FA via Atlassian Access

• Centralized Audit Logs for user activity, policy changes, and deployments

This means agencies can adopt modern DevOps practices without compromising on federal security requirements.

Bringing Order to Complexity

By uniting Jira and Bitbucket, government teams gain:

• Traceability of every decision, code change, and deployment

• Automation that enforces policy compliance at every step

• Transparency for stakeholders and auditors, reducing audit prep from weeks to hours

Compliance becomes an integral part of daily workflows—no more firefighting or endless manual reporting.

📧 Contact us at sales@clovity.com or visit 🌐 atlassian.clovity.com to get started today.