For Agile development teams, tracking and managing the project backlog is crucial. Post-it notes tacked on a whiteboard are convenient for planning, but they won’t survive the length of a sprint. That’s why a project management tool like Atlassian’s Jira is needed. It provides the bug tracking, release planning and project reporting features that teams need to successfully build and deliver releases.
No two teams work exactly the same; this is true even for standardized development methodologies and more true in Agile, where each team decides how to conduct its work. Jira can be customized to support every team’s process through the use of plug-ins. Teams can write their own plug-ins or choose from the Atlassian plug-in marketplace. Many are free; others are paid and include support
The marketplace’s plug-ins support every phase and task of a software development project: A drop-down list of categories includes admin tools, dashboard gadgets, IT & help desk, mobile, shared workflows, source code, testing & QA and more. Here are a few top choices to help customize Jira to the way your team works.
- Git Integration Plugin for Jira: GitHub is one of the most popular version control systems in use today. Bring your code changes into Jira with this plug-in, which lets you view them inside the associated Jira issue. The plug-in allows the entire code repository to be browsed from within Jira, and you can do your code reviews from within Jira as well. A tab summarizes Git statistics, helping the project manager assess activity, as well as the quality and risk associated with any individual file.
- Jenkins Plugin for Jira: Agile projects build often, with many teams using Jenkins for continuous integration. This plug-in integrates the build process with JIRA. Builds are included in the activity stream in Jira, helping to highlight any builds with problems. The plug-in also allows the Jenkins site configuration to be managed from within Jira.
- Zephyr for Jira – Test Management: Managing and tracking software tests is critical for application quality. The number of tests needed and the frequency of builds needing tests means automating the testing process is important. This plug-in lets teams control and review their Zephyr testing process from within Jira, bringing issues and tests together. Tests can be defined and executed inside Jira, with defects linked to issues. The metrics dashboard makes quality visible at a glance.
Jira is a great tool for supporting your team’s process when customized to fit the way your team works. Contegix is Atlassian’s preferred hosting service and has partnered with them since 2002. We have in-depth knowledge of all of Atlassian’s products, including Jira, and will help you install and configure it to seamlessly support your team’s development process. Contact us to learn how hosted Jira can help your team work more efficiently towards successful project completion.