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Akeles Top 10 Marketplace Apps in 2020
Time flies and we are in 2021 already. We crunched our sales numbers for Atlassian Marketplace Apps licenses to identify the developing trends.
This year, we are sharing this list as we feel it may be useful to fellow Atlassian users looking to extract more value from Jira/Confluence/Bitbucket.
From our perspective, Marketplace apps play a significant role for established instances by
- enabling automation to improve productivity, speed or security
- adding features to provide additional capabilities like Business Analytics, Test Automation, etc
- organising information to provide insight and facilitate collaboration
How is the ranking done?
The ranking is based on the number of licenses (Server/DC/Cloud) we sold for each app in 2020.
We felt this will be a better measure of the popularity of the app.In event of a tie, we go by the licensed users count, followed by the total sales for the app.
Akeles Top 10 List
We are pleased to share our list for 2020 voted by the end users in Singapore. While our list may not reflect their actual popularity in Atlassian Marketplace, it is an affirmation in the usefulness of the apps.
Congratulations to the winners.
Top 10 Jira Apps for 2020
S/N App Name Publisher 01 ScriptRunner for Jira Adaptavist 02 JSU Automation Suite for Jira Workflows Beecom 03 Advanced Roadmaps (formerly Portfolio) Atlassian 04 eazyBI Reports and Charts for Jira eazyBI 05 Extension for Jira Service Management Deviniti 06 Jira Workflow Toolbox Decadis AG 07 Zephyr for Jira – Test Management SmartBear 08 Jira Misc Workflow Extensions (JMWE) Innovalog 09 Dynamic Forms for Jira Deviniti 10 BigPicture – Project Management & PPM SoftwarePlant Top 10 Confluence Apps for 2020
S/N App Name Publisher 01 Team Calendars for Confluence Atlassian 02 Gliffy Diagrams for Confluence Gliffy 03 draw.io Diagrams for Confluence //SEIBERT/MEDIA – Draw.io 04 Comala Document Management Comalatech 05 Table Filter and Charts for Confluence Stiltsoft 06 Refined for Confluence | Sites & Themes Refined 07 Excel for Confluence Bob Swift Atlassian Apps 08 SAML Single Sign On SAML SSO Confluence resolution Reichert Network Solutions GmbH 09 ScriptRunner for Confluence Adaptavist 10 Balsamiq Wireframes for Confluence Balsamiq Top 10 Bitbucket Apps for 2020
S/N App Name Publisher 1 ScriptRunner for Bitbucket Adaptavist 2 Webhook to Jenkins for Bitbucket Mohami 3 Awesome Graphs for Bitbucket Stiltsoft 4 SAML Single Sign On (SAML SSO) Bitbucket resolution Reichert Network Solutions GmbH 5 Workzone: PullRequest Workflow Izymes Pty Ltd 6 External Hooks by Reconquest Reconquest 7 Jira Hooks for Bitbucket DevOpsSystems Mueller 8 Sonar for Bitbucket Mibex Software GmbH 9 Snippets for Bitbucket Server Mohami 10 Microsoft Teams Connector for Bitbucket Globo Solutions Share this post
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Paying It Forward
2020 is a year of many firsts. The first time we cannot work in office and have to work from home. The first time lockdowns are enforced in many cities worldwide at the same time. The first time Atlassian announced the end of support for their server products.
It has been a long journey for Akeles. We launched our 1st paid app – Attachment Checker for Jira plugin on Atlassian Marketplace in 2013. Fast forward 7 years later, we now have 26 apps listed on Atlassian Marketplace with thousands of users.
This could not have been possible without the support from the Atlassian community and our customers all these years.
While we are fortunate that we do not have to downsize, we understand that this year has been difficult for many others. We read news that charities worldwide are also facing challenges with reduced donations this year.
So this Christmas, we are doing something extra to express our gratitude to those who had helped us. In addition to our annual donations, we are going to #PayItForward and spread the spirt of kindness.
For each server app, we are giving away 50 licenses for FREE…
S/N Name of App For 1 Attachment Checker for Confluence Confluence 2 Attachment Checker for Jira Jira 3 Canned Search Gadget Jira 4 Canned Search for Confluence Confluence 5 Dashboard Folders for Jira Jira 6 Days Elapsed Plugin Jira 7 Issue Archiver for Jira Jira 8 Lookup Manager Jira 9 Multiple Filters Chart Gadget Jira 10 Out Of Office Assistant Jira 11 SQL Reporter for Jira Jira 12 Smart Issue Searcher Jira 13 Support Tracker Jira 14 Table Custom Fields for Jira Jira 15 Three Dimensional Date Gadgets Jira The only condition is that only those who has donated to a charity in 2020 are eligible.
There is no restriction on whichever charity and the amount donated. As long the donation is made before 31 Dec 2020. No proof of donation is required since this is based on trust. It will be administratively tedious to enforce it 😛
So if you or your organization have made any donation this year, you can get a free perpetual plugin license of your choice. We believe one good turn deserves another 😇
If you have yet to make a donation. We hope we can encourage you to lend a helping hand to someone in need. And then you will similarly be eligible too 😄
This offer is only valid for 7 days. The link for the free license will be deactivated on 31st Dec 2020 23:59 UTC.
We hope this small campaign will make a difference to the world we live in.
COVID-19 is a good reminder that we are OK only when everyone around us are OK.
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Best Practices in Jira – Dashboard Reporting (Part 2)
Introduction
This is part 2 of the Best Practices in Jira – Dashboard Reporting which focuses more on the practical aspect. By using examples with Jira reporting gadgets, we hope to illustrate some of the points covered in the previous blog post.
The scenario is we have a Jira Software project for each Jira/Confluence app we developed to track the features/bugs/tasks. In addition, we also have a Jira Service Desk project for supporting end users.
For each Jira Sofware project, we defined 2 dashboards:
- Overall Dashboard – for high level view
- Working Dashboard – for operational view
Overall Dashboards
The Overall Dashboard is for the product owner to have an overall picture and facilitate roadmap planning. It has more charting gadgets to present high level view.
We also use the free Links Menu Gadget to consolidate all the related links on the dashboard. Team members can access the Confluence space and Bitbucket source code repository for the project from the dashboard. This facilitates new team members to get up to speed faster. You can also use it to link to the various Jira Service Desk reports.
Working Dashboards
The working dashboard is for the developers with to know the tasks they have to work to deliver the upcoming release. It contains more lists and table gadgets to show the detailed view. We also included a countdown gadget to show the time remaining to the next release.
In addition, we used Filters Menu gadget to replace the Favourite Filters Gadgets to group the JQL filters.
Support Dashboard
For the Support Dashboard, we are using a shared dashboard instead of creating 1 dashboard for each project.
By using Canned Search Gadget, users need not to write complicated JQL queries or composing their search from the Issue Navigator. They can just select the available options or enter the keywords to perform contextual searches.
A support agent can quickly find the tickets reported by a user on the phone by entering the name and optional keywords using the Canned Search Gadget.
Support Wallboard
We used traffic light colours to denote the criticality of the gadget as well to segment the dashboard. For example: Counter Board gadget (to track breached SLA) is red so that it brings attention to the viewers. The secondary information uses a subtle colour like grey.
The more important information are usually positioned at the top whereas supplementary information are arranged below.
Project View
We used Dashboard Folders app to group the dashboards in a hierarchical manner. This enable users
- to discover the dashboards available without having to find and add the dashboards one by one
- to navigate to their dashboards from anywhere in Jira
With the use of aliases, the menu entries are less cluttered without having to display their full name. It is configurable to display relevant projects only to authorised users.
Project Sidebar
We also added the dashboard links to the project shortcuts so that users can navigate to the dashboard.
It is also possible to search issues within the project using the canned search gadget.
If you like this article, you might be interested to check out our best practices series
- Best Practices in Jira Administration – Jira Apps Management
- Best Practices in Jira Administration – Be a Jira Hero ebook
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Best Practices in Jira – Dashboard Reporting
Introduction
Jira Dashboards is a very powerful feature if used correctly. In this article, we will share with you the common pitfalls as well as some best practices based on our experiences as an Atlassian Solution Partner.
Why people use Jira Dashboards
Dashboards can be from a macro perspective like % of project completion to micro level on the list of tasks with their statuses.
Some common use cases for Dashboards are:
- monitor the progress of the tasks
- track the KPIs and the health of the project
- highlighting important stuffs (e.g. SLA breach, bottlenecks, shortages) for action taking
- show progress to motivate the team
More organisations are preferring dashboards over reports because of the following reasons:
- live information – able to see the current status which is more accurate
- time saving – there is no need for someone to spend time to compile the weekly/monthly progress reports manually
- interactive – as compared to a chart image in a PPT/PDF
- allows drilling in – you can zoom into the details of the issue for more information
- self reinforcing – it encourages people to update their Jira issues regularly
Common pitfalls and recommendations
Security / Information Disclosure
From our Jira consulting experiences, there are a number of instances where the dashboards and filters are accessible by users without logging in.
Although Jira’s permission scheme will prevent public users from viewing the issues, it is still possible to disclose sensitive information which may not be meant for public eye.
You should check whether there is information disclosure by logging out of Jira and visiting the URLs
- Dashboards – https://<jira-base url>/secure/ManageFilters.jspa
- Filters – https://<jira-base url>/secure/ConfigurePortalPages.jspa
Unless the dashboards/filters are for public access, users should not select Public for the Add Shares option.
Tip: There is a “Sharing with anyone on the web” in Jira configuration which you can disable to remove the Public option if your Jira instance is not for public access.
Performance and utility
Another common pitfall is people tends to create 1 dashboard for each project and cramp everything inside. We have seen a dashboard with over 20 gadgets added. As a result, it clutters the dashboard and is slow because it has to load a lot of information. This can also slows down the Jira instance for other users.
From a design point of view, this is bad because it introduces a lot of noise in the dashboard. As a result, people cannot zoom into the important things that they need to take action from the dashboard.
A well designed dashboard should fulfil the following:
- Targeted for the role/purpose – A management report should not include the micro information like the list of tasks. Likewise a developer will be more concerned about the list of tasks he needs to work on. You can create different dashboards for different roles.
- Incite emotion or action – it should bring attention to the readers to take any necessary action. With correct use of colours and placement, users can determine the severity easily.
- Easy to understand – It should use the correct type of gadgets to present the information in the most direct manner. You can check out the list of Jira gadgets available on Atlassian Marketplace.
- Responsive – it should be fast to display the information without the reader having to scroll through many screens to read the entire page.
Discoverability
A dashboard is useful only when there are people using it. Another common pitfall we observed is that every user tends to build their own dashboards. While this is flexible, there are some disadvantages like:
- duplicated effort to create and maintain the dashboards
- decreased utility since only 1 person is using it
- some users are unaware on the types of gadgets available that they can use for reporting
- some users lack the proper training on how to write complex JQL queries and design good useful dashboards
- no standards on the performance metrics to monitor within the organisation
To tackle this, we advocate to design a set of dashboards as a template for every Jira project. When a new project is created,
- the set of dashboards and filters are also created based on the template
- The filters and dashboards are shared with the project so that people who have access to the project can access them
- Then the dashboards/filters are added to the Jira’s project shortcuts where all project members can access easily
- They can also be added to the Dashboard Folders and Menu Gadgets so that users can easily navigate to the reports
Maintainability
Another common problem that Jira admins face is obsolete dashboards/filters. By default, only the original creators can edit their dashboards/filters.
From Jira 7.12 onwards, it is possible to grant permissions for other team members to edit filters/dashboards. Hence a useful tip after creating a filter/dashboard will be granting permissions to the associated project roles
- to grant view permission to all project members
- to grant edit permission to the project administrators
Naming Convention
We also recommend to define a naming convention for filters and dashboards. E.g <Jira project key> – <purpose>.
This is especially helpful for users when they are searching for a filter when configuring the gadgets. For very large instances, you can find multiple filters with the same name while selecting a filter for a gadget.
It is possible to define aliases for dashboards and filters with Dashboard Folders and Menu Gadgets.
System Dashboard
When a user adds a new dashboard themselves, the system dashboard will disappear.
Actually the System Dashboard is very important because it is tedious to go through the list of project dashboards.
The System Dashboard can complements by
- providing a consolidated view and highlight the important things that matters to the user
- as well as a landing point where the user can navigate to other places
Conclusion
In conclusion, here is a checklist that you can use:
- review the list of public dashboards/filters and decide whether to disable public sharing
- set editing permissions for the shared dashboards
- define a set of dashboard templates for your Jira project
- define a naming convention for dashboards and filters
- install apps from the Marketplace that you identified that are useful
Check out Best Practices in Jira – Dashboard Reporting (Part 2) for the continuation of the writeup.
If you like this article, you might be interested to check out our best practices series
- Best Practices in Jira Administration – Jira Apps Management
- Best Practices in Jira Administration – Be a Jira Hero ebook
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Best Practices in Jira Administration – Be a Jira Hero ebook
This is an ebook on a collection of Jira best practices that Atlassian has gathered from Jira experts around the world.
The title “Be a Jira Hero – A guide for Admins, by Admins” is well deserving. Therefore we recommend all Jira administrators and wannabes to read the 25 pages ebook.
Jira Best Practices ebook
The ebook is well-organised into different sections with short but clear snippets of wisdoms:
- How to keep Jira clean and simple for your users
- How to use issues effectively
- Best practices on managing Custom Fields and Screens
- Things to consider when building workflows
- Tips on managing backlog in Jira
- How to get people to work on the issues
- Best practices on designing the Jira dashboards for even more effective reporting
- Shortcuts & Hacks to work faster with Jira
- How to make use of automation to make life easier
One Common Mistake
For example, the book has highlighted in Tip #20 to incorporate Resolution into the workflows. We observed that a number of Jira admins who did not have formal training tends do not understand the concept of resolution. Consequently, they overlook this important step while creating new workflows. While the Jira appears to be working, the implications are some built-in reports may be inaccurate and an important piece of information is missing.
Our Additional Jira Tip
Dashboards are very useful if they are used correctly. Team members can have visibility on the progress and be reminded on the outstanding tasks. Furthermore, Management can have clear visibility without spending a lot of time preparing routine reports. As a result, users will understand the value of updating their tasks in Jira.
Multiple Filters Statistics Bar Chart Gadget 
Horseshoe Gadget Jira Conclusion
To sum up, if you are a Jira administrator, you should download the ebook and review whether you have been applying the Jira best practices.
There is no need to provide any email address to download the book. To add on, you may also want to check out the following resources:
- Best practices on Jira Apps Management
- How to protect your JIRA from viruses, missing files and performance issues
- When do you upgrade Jira Server to Jira Data Center
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Best Practices in Jira Administration – Jira Apps Management
Screenshot of Atlassian Marketplace in 2013 This is a “lengthy” guide on the best practices on choosing and managing a Jira app. Coming from our years of experience as an Atlassian Solution Partner, it covers
- How to evaluate a Jira app
- How to better manage the apps installed in your Jira instance
- Things that Jira administrators need to watch out
Jira Apps from Atlassian Marketplace
By installing additional Jira apps, you can add new features to your Jira. For example, some of our popular Jira apps
- Attachment Checker for Jira – prevent users from uploading unauthorised or virus infected file attachments
- Multiple Filters Chart Gadgets – plot disjoint sets of data within a single chart or table
- Out of Office Assistant – reassign issues automatically when you are away
- Gauge Gadgets – useful gadgets for data visualisation on Jira dashboards
There are many more useful Jira apps available at the Atlassian Marketplace.
Evaluating a Jira App
Being an Atlassian Solution Partner, there are a number of criteria that we consider before recommending a Jira app to a customer. They are:
Fit to Purpose
The app should be able to address the requirements fully. It should be easy to use. The additional feature should not cause confusion to the existing users. We will also assess their design is robust and does not conflict other plugins or use cases.
Atlassian Marketplace Listing
It is very important to check out the app listing on Atlassian Marketplace. It contains a lot of useful informations like
- Rating and Reviews
- Number of Active Installations
- Vendor Accreditation
- Compatibility with the latest version of Jira
- Support
Rating and Reviews
While the rating and reviews do not mean much for a newly listed app, they do give insight of poor services or badly designed apps. Typically, users will flag out any issues that require attention. So, if there are no negative reviews, it is safe. And if there are a number of good reviews, then it is very safe.
Number of Active Installations
If an app is popular with a significant number of active installations, that is a good sign that the app is useful and functioning without major issues.
Vendor Accreditation
Atlassian has a Top Vendor program who has met the following requirements
- App traction – Their paid apps must attain at least 500 active installations
- Timely support – Has a Service Level Agreement (SLAs) and committed to provide at support for their users
- Support Website – Customers can raise support request easily via a website or email when necessary
- Vendor reliability – Atlassian conduct checks periodically to ensure they offer great customer experiences
For those exceptionally good ones, they are further recognised as Gold/Platinum Top Vendor.
Versions compatibility
If the app is only compatible with an older version of Jira, that is a big warning. You do not want to be left dangling helplessly for your next Jira upgrade.
Support
Some apps are explicitly marked as unsupported. Unless you can accept the risks, it is better to avoid them.
Data Center Approved
Data Center approved apps are those that have passed Atlassian’s stringent criteria for use in Jira Data Center environments. As it takes considerable effort to become a Data Center Approved App. vendors will usually do that for their established apps. Therefore this is a plus point.
Thorough Documentation
Although some users will usually dive in without reading the user guide, it helps when the documentation contains
- A quick overview of the functionalities
- Comprehensive writeup and how to use
- FAQs to facilitate on-boarding and best practices
- Up-to-date release notes
- An easy to navigate structure
Unless the app is really simple or open source, it is a risk to install an app with a one pager documentation.
Pricing
Last but not least, the pricing of the app is also an important consideration. The app should have a reasonable pricing so that you will be assured of support for long term. It is also possible that you will upgrade to higher user tier or Data Center as Jira becomes an enterprise application. Hence the pricing for higher tiers should not exceed your budget.
For free apps, they should be from a credible publisher with significant number of installations. Otherwise, the publisher may withdraw support in near future.
Before Installing an App
Downloading the compatible version
There is a common mistake for Jira administrators who are unable to download the app via the Atlassian Universal Plugin Manager. The default download link on the Marketplace listing is for the latest version of Jira.
If you are not using the latest version of Jira, the correct steps to install/upgrade the app will be
- Click on the Versions tab
- Select See all … versions
- Hover on the topmost version which matches your Jira version
- Click on the Download link
- Upload the file via Atlassian Universal Plugin Manager in Jira
Testing
It is a best practice to install the Jira app on a Test environment first. It is not advisable to install an app directly onto the Production environment. This is because some apps may make changes to the database. Some changes are not be reversible when you uninstall the app later.
Maintaining a Change Log for the Apps
We usually advise our customers to create a Confluence page to track on the app installations, upgrades and uninstallation. This best practice helps to keep all the related information organised neatly on a single page.
The change log table can include the following information
- Date of Change
- Changed By
- Name of App
- Action Performed (e.g. install/upgrade/uninstall)
- From Version
- To Version
- Jira Issue Key
- Additional Notes
This will be useful especially when there are multiple Jira administrators who can perform changes. Although the audit log has a record of the changes, the default data retention period is only 90 days. It is also not that easier to read.
By using a Change Log, the administrator can link the change with a Jira issue and add notes. The Jira request helps to identify the user who raised the request to install the app together with the background context.
When there is an incident, the App Change Log will be useful to identify issues caused by app changes.
Things to watch out
It is not the end of the story after installing the app. There are a few useful tips for Jira administrators to watch out.
Hardware Sizing
With more apps installed, it is likely that the memory footprint might increase over time. It will a best practice to check on the JVM memory utilisation from the System Information page after people start using the features. Likewise, CPU usage monitoring is also a best practice.
Expiring Licenses
There are a handful of apps which will stop working without an active license. So be sure to renew your licenses before they expire to gain access to support and newer releases.
Being informed
You can click on the Watch app link on the Marketplace listing. By doing so, Atlassian Marketplace will send you an email whenever there is a new version released.
Upgrading the Apps
As a best practice, it is important to upgrade regularly to get newer features, performance improvements and bug fixes. For security vulnerabilities, you should upgrade as soon as possible once you received a security advisory.
Scheduling Upgrades
Although there is no need to schedule a maintenance downtime for installing/upgrading Jira apps, it is a best practice to do that during off-peak periods. During an app installation, there is a short interval where the Atlassian Universal Plugin Manager removes the old version and installs the newer version. You do not want any critical operations in between that period.
Also some apps may execute jobs during the upgrade to do some data crunching to support a new feature. Therefore, please read the release/upgrade notes for the app before you click on the upgrade button in Jira.
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How to integrate Sonatype Nexus Lifecycle with Atlassian Tools
Introduction
It is a fact that no software is built from scratch. Almost all of us are using 3rd party libraries to speed up the development lifecycle. Hence it is important to ensure that the open source components used are safe. Otherwise it could be the weakest link. This post introduces the possible integration between Sonatype’s Nexus Lifecycle and Atlassian toolset for DevSecOps.
Sonatype Nexus platform addresses this challenge with earlier detection of security risks/non-compliance.
The products in the suite are
- Nexus Lifecycle scans the open source components used and lists any reported vulnerabilities found. It also provides advice on which version is safe to use and the popularity of the open source components
- Nexus Firewall prevents unauthorised/unsafe open source components from being downloaded from Internet to your artifact repositories like Nexus Repository or Jfrog Artifactory
- Nexus Repository Manager caches the public components locally as well as storing the binary artifacts generated from CI/CD tools
Sonatype is a market leader in this area because comprehensive coverage and higher accuracy (less false positives and less true negatives).
Integrations
Automated scanning during builds with Bamboo
With the Nexus IQ for Bamboo app, developers can easily add a step to perform the IQ Analysis Task to the Bamboo build plan
With that, it is possible to see the scan results for each build. Developers can do comparison easily from the historical results from the Full Report link.
The Nexus IQ server will only display the latest report for each stage of each application
Policy Violation tracking using Jira
Nexus IQ for Jira app can create Jira issues for selected policy violations.
This allows the developer team to track the task easily and all the discussions and decisions are kept in context within the report.
This reduces duplicate effort and speeds up resolution time by seeing how other teams solved the issue.
The organisation is clearly structured. Each IQ evaluation is a parent issue with each affected component as a subtask.
A possible customisation will be to set the Affected Version(s) field.
Policy Violation Overview in Pull Requests from Bitbucket
The Sonatype Nexus Notifier for Bitbucket displays the Nexus Lifecycle policy evaluation information in pull requests.
With this feature, the gatekeeper can ensure that the changes introduced meet the quality and governance guidelines before merging it to master.
Conclusion
With the various integrations introduced, it is easier to ensure the delivery of quality software by empowering the developers throughout the various stage of development.
Security should be everyone’s responsibility
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Automating Tempo with ScriptRunner: Fast, Convenient, Efficient
This is a guest blog from our partner – Tempo.
Automation in Tempo is easy with the help of a tool like ScriptRunner! The team recently joined forces with Adaptavist and released 5 productivity scripts to automate parts of the process within the Tempo Suite. Today we’ll go over some use cases and scenarios for some Tempo ScriptRunner scripts. That being said, you can learn to automate some parts of Tempo and Tempo Timesheets in the automation webinar happening on December 5th with our partner Adaptavist.
Never heard of ScriptRunner or Tempo? Time to elevate your game!
ScriptRunner, one of the top apps on the Atlassian Marketplace, enables you to extend, automate, and customize your Atlassian stack via your own scripts or through some premade ones.
Tempo, another top app on the Atlassian Marketplace, provides efficiency and visibility-enhancing apps such as Tempo Timesheets, Tempo Planner and Tempo Budgets to help IT, software development, consultancy, and business teams work smarter.Why should you care?
Automating parts of Tempo enables added customization and simplification of the tool without creating recurring steps for your team. In other words, the user or team lead looking to perform specific actions from Tempo will not have to manually perform those actions anymore. By leveraging the pre-written scripts offered in the Tempo ScriptRunner Library, those actions will be automatically done!
Today’s example: Get Tempo Plans Using the REST API for a Set Time Period
This script uses Tempo Planner, a tool to streamline the management of teams and resources to quickly find available team members and maximize your resource utilization. As the name of the script suggests, ScriptRunner now has a way to remove some pesky manual labor and automate the process of pulling Tempo plans of interest for a given Jira Issue.
Where does this script shine?
Let’s take the case of Taylor, a team lead for Rougetech. Every month, Taylor and her team get together for their monthly planning. In it, they plan time for each team member on the tasks that they must do.
In other words, her current steps to see the total plans for the next 4 weeks are as follows:
- In Jira, navigate to Tempo Planner and plan the task for the team
In your Tempo Planner page, you will have the possibility of filtering the view to your team. The capacity of the team and the individual members will be displayed for the determined period.
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After the planning has been completed, Taylor will be able to revisit an issue to see who all the collaborators are, and quickly calculate the total time planned to see if it matches her initial prediction and budget.
The issue “Have Fun!” showcases all the planned time under “Collaborators”
That being said, this is slightly annoying for Taylor because of the following:
- She has to manually sum the time to find out how much time has been planned on the issue
- It does not say when that time is being planned for as the issue shows the total planned time only
On the surface, this might not seem like much and it could end up simply saving 5-20 minutes per issue. But, let’s not forget the following:
- Taylor has to look at more than one issue every month, making her waste even more time
- Taylor has to do the same steps over and over again when they can be automated
- Taylor has no idea if all the planned time is evenly broken up or if it’s all planned during a certain week
This repetition of a mundane task could also be a widespread practice throughout the whole organization. Other team leads could be following the same practice (especially if it is standardized), meaning that the company is losing hundreds, if not thousands of dollars on such a little thing.
In other words, the script does the following:
- Reduces the amount of manual labor necessary to attain the end result
- Gets the total time for the relevant period immediately when visiting an issue
- Decreases the potential human error to near zero
- Automatically displays the planned time of a determined time period for an issue as a Jira custom field. This allows for reporting on planned time in the Jira issue view and to include the planned time information in other Jira reports
- Compare total estimated time with remaining planned time. Enables you to quickly query on those issues that are over- or underallocated
But the use case does not limit itself to monthly planning!
There are many other scenarios where this script can save precious time for the end user and the organization.
For example, a manager in a consulting firm could be looking at the staff’s planned hours for a client’s issue to ensure that for a given time period, the time planned does not exceed the contractual agreement with the client. If it does, then the firm can let the client know that they will charge extra.
Or if for example people were logging time on an off-site issue (such as meeting clients or being on the road), then it would help a manager quickly understand how much time his team is spending off-premise, and help determine the remaining capacity of his team for a predetermined time frame.
How do I get my hands on the script?
The beauty in this partnership is its simplicity. In short:
- Get ScriptRunner via the Atlassian Marketplace or the “Add-ons” page in Jira’ settings
- Head to the Tempo – Adaptavist Library found here and subscribe to the library
- Go to the script of interest and copy the script in your ScriptRunner
All you have to do is to copy-paste the script in your ScriptRunner terminal and tweak the variables to your use case.
Are there other scripts like this?
Today, we quickly went over one of the newly published scripts made by the Tempo-Adaptavist partnership for Tempo Planner and some scenarios in which time could be saved through automation.
More scripts have been recently published in the Tempo-Adaptavist library. One way to learn more about those scripts would be to join the automation webinar “Save time with tempo and ScriptRunner automations” on December 5th. You can register for the event here to get a recording.
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- In Jira, navigate to Tempo Planner and plan the task for the team
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Color Matters
Here is a post to commemorate the release of a new feature: Color Scheme Enhancement for Multiple Filters Chart Gadgets version 2.1.0
- “What purpose will this color serve?”
- “Will this (color) serve it’s purpose effectively?”
When color is used effectively, it brings life to the charts and directs users to focus on details required for effective communication.
Such as to (1) highlight a particular data, (e.g. Tasks that has yet to be completed)
(2) encode quantitative values, (e.g. Density of importance corresponds to darker shades)
and, (3) to group items.
Colors themselves tell a story, and it’s the responsibility of the designer to make sure the palette used does not create confusion within a data visualization.
Thus, the palettes used are to have enough variation in hue and brightness. Try out the different color palettes available in Multiple Filters Chart Gadget and explore the possibilities with colors.
Fun Fact:
Image Retrieved From https://thumbnails-visually.netdna-ssl.com/color-emotion-guide_512d42458efc1_w1500.png
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Get Ready For 2017 With The Right Tool
“You are only as good as your tools”
If you are using tools like IntelliJ IDEA, Resharper, PyCharm, RubyMine or WebStorm, this might be useful info for you.
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