Why use JIRA?

Agenda Why there is interest in something like JIRA What can JIRA do to help? Some important features of JIRA Inside JIRA

Business Area’s View Why is there a different TOOL or a different PROCESS, depending on the type of request? BugZero Service Desk ticket Lotus Notes DB Email to an individual or mailing list Need to request access to tool, learn how to use it to create a ticket. Don’t know how to find out status of a request (effective querying) Why is it so hard to request work from IT - and then find out what’s happening on my request?

IT’s View Why is it so hard to figure out what I should work on next? My manager can’t easily tell when I have too much work to do to meet deadlines. No “one place” to find out work in queue, thus no way to easily work according to holistic view of priorities and deadlines Reporting on progress is done manually (and often verbally), taking time away from work to be done. Can’t always reassign ticket back to requestor (not part of typical new user setup) when waiting on customer response, so queue is misleading I can’t finish my work until I hear back from the customer. I sure spend a lot of time just providing a status on my work.

Why is it so hard to find out what work is happening around here? Everyone’s View Why is it so hard to find out what work is happening around here? Why is it so easy for something to fall through the cracks? Difficult to report on “aging” or otherwise bubble up to the top those items you’re interested in or want to clean up. Ad-hoc process, thus often neglected

What can JIRA do to help?

What is JIRA? JIRA is an issue tracker made by Atlassian. It integrates easily with Confluence and their other tools. Whether you call them bugs, tasks, improvements or work requests, JIRA provides an efficient way to track and manage your work - which can have a big impact on productivity and results. Just announced, now integrated with Google Apps in the Google Apps Marketplace.

Some Important Features of JIRA Authentication Dashboards Workflows Project Administration Issue Searching Issue Linking Attachments and Screenshots Time Tracking Ticklers and Notifications Reports … and more!

Authentication Users are authenticated against LDAP/Active Directory repositories. ‘Remember Me’ provides an automatic logon when the user next visits the JIRA site. Unlike Confluence where users have to be made members of a particular AD group, in JIRA we just preloaded 4000+ users (U.S., Ireland, Bermuda). Employees hired in those locations before mid-December can access JIRA right now. Can be integrated with Crowd, but we haven’t done so at this time. Benefit: Quicker access to application; no new password to remember.

Dashboards Users can have one or more dashboards as their start page, showing Dynamic Information presented in text or graphics. (Click within to drill-down.) A shared dashboard can be used by a team to track progress, view metrics or triage inbound requests. JIRA is the first Atlassian product to act as an OpenSocial gadget container and hosting server, allowing it to use others’ gadgets (Gmail, iGoogle, etc.) and vice-versa. Benefit: Immediate access to meaningful metrics that can be used to track the health of a project or application, and to manage resources’ workloads.

Dashboards (continued) Sample dashboard for a Manager

Dashboards (continued) Sample dashboard for a Developer Icons for PRIORITY Icons for STATUS

Workflows Workflows define the validations and lifecycle of an issue. They can be shared by several projects, or be unique. Workflows can be simple or quite complex. Benefit: Streamlined processes, with increased accuracy, consistency and timeliness.

Project Administrations The Project Administrator (team lead or project manager, typically) controls who has access to their data and what that access should be. Benefit: Control over who can view or edit issues is handled locally, without Systems Administration involvement.

Issue Searching Filters allows you to find the issues in which you’re interested. You can search for issues based on every built-in or custom field. Filters can also be: Saved for reuse Shared with others Subscribed to (so it runs and emails you results on a scheduled basis) Used within a Dashboard gadget Filter results can be exported to Word, Excel, PDF and XML or rendered as a chart. Benefit: Better transparency. Everyone can see what is being worked on and what progress is being made.

Issue Linking One issue can linked to another to clarify any sort of relationship or dependency, such as: Blocks / Is Blocked By Duplicates / Is Duplicated By Replaces / Is Replaced By Resolved issue appears as struckthrough text Icon concisely shows Priority and Status Benefit: More effective resource management, by bundling similar/related issues together.

Attachments and Screeshots Issues can contain file attachments and screenshots. Screenshots can be pasted into the issue directly from the clipboard. Some fields support Wiki Markup to present text effectively. Benefit: One central place to store all artifacts and comments about an issue.

Time Tracking Time tracking features allow for the input and monitoring of Actual and Estimated time spent on an activity. JIRA’s time tracking can be augmented with third-party tools to expand reporting or data-collection capability. Worklog Assistant is one. Benefit: Allows more effective management of resources, and more accurate billing.

Ticklers and Notifications Email notifications can be configured so everyone on your team is aware of the right things, like changes to any issue created by you or assigned to you. Specified “watchers” can be added to individual issues to ensure the right people stay in the loop. Ticklers can be defined, to ensure actions occur automatically when needed, such as: Close any issues that been inactive 90 days or more. Send a reminder email if the customer hasn’t responded to a request for information within 10 days. Benefit: Less manual effort required to keep others informed and follow-up.

Reports JIRA comes with several built-in reports, like the following. More are available via plugins: Average Age Resolution Time Created vs. Resolved Issues Time Since Issues Single-level Group By Time Tracking Multiple-level Group By User Workload Project Pivot Version Workload Recently Created Issues Workload Pie Chart Benefit: Metrics that can be used to track the health of a project or application, and to manage resources’ workloads.

Additional Features Issues can be created or commented upon via email. Bulk Updates can be done against the issues returned by a filter, e.g., reassigning them, changing their Status. An issue can be cloned. An issue can be broken into one or more sub-tasks for more detailed tracking or when there are multiple Assignees. Set up mailbox or on local fileystem to receive the emails. Using a scheduled service, JIRA scans periodically and creates issues/comments from the emails it finds. If it sees a reference to an existing issue  comment on existing issue Otherwise  new issue Issue Creation: Subject becomes Summary Body becomes Issue Description Attachments to email become attachments on email. Comment Creation: Body becomes Comment

Inside JIRA Architecture What is a Workflow? What is an Issue? Data-entry screens

Architecture Web-based (Java and AJAX). Supports several enterprise-class databases. Runs on the Apache Tomcat application server. Supports SOAP, XML RPC, and JAVA API interfaces. Features a plugin architecture, with over 150 plugins available from the vendor and third-parties. SOAP and XML-RPC interfaces used for remote access to JIRA. (SOAP is more complete API) SOAP is backed by Apache Axis, an open-source Java web services framework. Plugins: Agile methodology for sprint planning, burndown charts, etc. Extend workflows Extend time tracking and billing capability Custom fields Gadgets Reports

What is an Issue? Issues are a trackable unit in JIRA. Issues are grouped into Project Categories then Projects, with additional groupings if desired. Categories: Projects Workgroups

What is an Issue? (continued) For a project dealing with Software Development, it might look like this:

What is an Issue? (continued) A “Help Desk” project might look like this:

What is a Workflow? A workflow is associated with a project to define what happens to issues as they move (i.e. transition) through their lifecycle. The Status at any point. The conditions under which a transition to that Status is allowed. Who can perform a given transition. What validations should be performed. What extra processing should be done after a transition. Assign the issue back to the Reporter Make sure the user added a Comment during this transition Only QA can perform this transition

Data-entry Screens Designing data-entry screens is simple. Screens can display any or all of JIRA’s built-in fields, plus an unlimited number of custom fields. Built-in fields: Issue Type Status Priority Assignee Reporter Affects version Fix version Each project can customize built-in/custom fields: visibility values in select lists description/help text

Conclusion

JIRA offers organizations the ability to streamline and automate the tracking of virtually anything that needs to be tracked. It can be customized to support your particular requirements, thereby providing the potential for greatly improving your organization’s: Productivity Effectiveness Communication Metrics