How We Use JIRA
Bugzilla Replaced by JIRA
Thanks to Eric Dalquist, uPortal's original issue tracking system, Bugzilla, has been officially replaced by JIRA. All of the issues from Bugzilla have been imported into JIRA so that we retain the history. Fortunately, the Bugzilla bug numbers have been preserved so that old release notes that contain Bugzilla numbers will still be meaningful. Note that uPortal 2 and uPortal 3 are represented as different projects in JIRA.
Recent Modifications to JIRA
2005-04-05 - Added Estimated End Date Field
Added "Estimated End Date" as a field for all issues. The Estimated End Date will be used by developers to track when they think a task will actually be finished. This will allow others to know whether a task will be delivered earlier or later than its due date. This will be valuable to those whose tasks are dependent on other tasks being finished." It's a DatePicker type and is searchable as a range. In practice it will be valuable only to the extent that we actually use it and set it. This field is available in all projects so anyone who wants to use it can.
Introduction
What is JIRA?
JIRA is a next-generation issue tracking system, implemented in Java as a Java Servlets application (.war).
"Issue tracking"? Don't you mean "bug-tracking"?
JIRA is more than bug tracking. JIRA isn't just about characterizing the failings of released software. JIRA is about project planning. It allows you to schedule bugfixes alongside feature additions and enhancements and administrative tasks. It provides a "Roadmap" creation feature.
Yeah, yeah. This is just Bugzilla with some slick CSS.
Fair enough. If the lickable GUI helps people be excited about resolving issues in our products, we're all for it.
Why are you using a commercial product in support of your open-source effort? Don't you have any principles, or at least some pride?
The uPortal community believes in open-source software and its principles, but we are not so literal or narrow-minded to exclude commercial tools from our toolbox. We believe in open-source because we value the sharing of solutions, collaboration, and communication producing quality open-source software requires. JIRA is a tool that allows us to be more effective in that collaboration.
Using JIRA
Issue statuses
Icon |
Name |
Comment |
|---|---|---|
|
Open |
The issue has been reported by someone, but no developer actually considers himself or herself to be currently working on it. If the issue is assigned to a developer, that developer has not begun to actively work on the bug, or is no longer actively working on the bug. Open bugs are typically fair game for other developers to take ownership of, work on, and resolve. |
|
In Progress |
The assignee is actively working on this issue. Reassigning bugs away from a developer who considers them "In Progress" without communicating with that developer is anti-social. |
|
Resolved |
The assignee of the issue (the programmer on the scene) believes the issue has been fixed. It is now up to the original reporter to verify the fix. If the reporter verifies the fix, he or she should mark it "Closed". If the reporter finds that there has been some misunderstanding about whether the issue is "fixed", he should communicate with the assignee (the programmer) and mark the issue "reopened". Either way, issues should not languish in the "Resolved" state. |
|
Reopened |
The reporter does not agree that the issue is resolved and so has moved the issue out of the resolved state and back into the reopened state. |
|
Closed |
The issue reporter has verified that the issue is resolved. |
JA-SIG Jira administration
Where is it being hosted?
This JIRA instance is generously hosted at Princeton University under the auspices of the JA-SIG / Clearinghouse efforts. While credit is most certainly due to the Clearinghouse community for making this happen, it seems that we will all be less confused if we reserve the term "Clearinghouse" to refer to the specific uPortal instance called "Clearinghouse" and say at this JIRA instance is hosted by "JA-SIG".
Who is administering it?
This JIRA instance is administered at the JIRA application level by the members of the JIRA group "jira-administrators". See below for the membership of this group.
How do I get an administer to execute an administrative task for me?
First, be sure it's an administrative task. Management of individual projects hosted in JIRA has been delegated to the individual project administrator groups. Your request may be something best handled at that level.
If you discover that what needs done does require the intervention of a "jira-administrator", please make your request on the JASIG-DEV list. An advantage of having a number of JIRA administrators is that there are more hands to do this sort of work when necessary.
Specific JIRA projects
A full list of projects is available in Jira via the Browse Projects page. Projects are grouped into related categories to help ease navigation.
Each project has an associated notifications email list. The specific lists are enumerated on the Existing Email Lists page.